Presidents Joe Biden of the United States, Narenda Modi of India, Scott Morrison of Australia and Yoshihide Suga of Japan meet at the White House | Summit of Indo-Pacific Powers minus China

The American President, Joe biden, noted this Friday the “excellent progress” to achieve a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, amid growing concern over China’s military and political boom in the region.

This is how Biden spoke at the start of the first face-to-face summit in the White House with the other leaders of the so-called Quad group: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison; the Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.

“Free and open”

“When we met almost six months ago, we made a commitment to advance our common and positive agenda for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Today, I am proud to say that we are making excellent progress, ”said the US president.

This is the most publicized meeting since the creation of the “Quad” in 2007, and at a time when the region is arousing the interest of the major world powers.

From the White House, Morrison, Modi and Suga welcomed this meeting which, according to them, aims to promote “a free and open Indo-Pacific region”, a formulation used to criticize, without naming it, China and its ambitions in this area.

Morrison explained that the group is based on the need to demonstrate that “democracies can face big global challenges”, and assured that “There is no part of the world more dynamic than the Indo-Pacific.”

For his part, Suga stressed that the group is “an extremely significant initiative” which shows the “strong solidarity” between the four countries. In turn, Modi insisted on the “Shared democratic values” of the four partners.

Democracies

Host Biden, meanwhile, said: “There are four of us leading democraciesWith a long history of cooperation, we know how to get things done, ”he said.

The Quad meeting comes a week after the presentation of the United States the new Indo-Pacific Defense Alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom, and shows how he placed the strategic emphasis on the Indo-Pacific, in his quest to reconfigure the balance of power in a region that dominates China.

The announcement of this new alliance, which involved Australia cancels multi-million dollar contract with France The fact that this country is providing submarines, with a new order for nuclear submarines from the United States and the United Kingdom, has caused a crisis between Washington and its European partners.

Tsunami

The so-called “Quad” was described after the devastating tsunami of 2004. and formalized in 2007, but remained inactive for a long time. After a virtual summit in March, Biden meets him again, in person and at a high level.

When you reactivate the “Quad”, Biden is sort of looking the “tour to Asia” of American foreign policy, a goal the former president had already set Barack obama (2009-2017).

AUKUS

But after the announcement of the AUKUS, as the agreement with the United Kingdom and Australia is known – and its nuclear submarine contract which angered France -, Washington wants to present the “Quad” in a consensual light.

It is an “informal” and “intimate” cenacle aimed at “developing better channels of communication,” senior White House officials told reporters. According to senior officials, the “Quad” will mainly focus on economic, environmental and pandemic projects.

ASEAN

There is no “military” objective, they insisted, assuring that the “Quad” would be “complementary” to other regional initiatives, in response to a question on its articulation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Some members of this organization, who make up Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, they are afraid that the American offensive in the region leads to an escalation with China.