Quad leaders highlight priorities, infrastructure plans

FORUM Staff

Leaders of the Quadrilateral partnership, or Quad, reaffirmed the group’s stature as “a global force for good” when they met May 20, 2023, to reinforce a collective vision and plan priority projects. The summit solidified the commitment to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific among Quad partners Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

The group’s fifth summit — and third in-person gathering — was an opportunity to address regional geopolitical, humanitarian and environmental concerns. The meeting took place in Hiroshima, Japan, on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations. The Quad, a diplomatic partnership of democratic nations, meets periodically to tackle regional issues.

Quad leaders vowed to work closely with other Indo-Pacific nations and coalitions, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Indian Ocean Rim Association. They called for cooperation, communication and a Free and Open Indo-Pacific in which all nations play important roles.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the region as one “where sovereignty is respected and all countries, large and small, benefit from a regional balance that keeps the peace.” He and the other leaders — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden — advocated a collective approach to regional challenges. “We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated — one where all countries are free from coercion and can exercise their agency to determine their futures,” their joint statement said.

Other Quad priorities include infrastructure, health, climate change, emerging technologies, cyber, space and maritime domain awareness. Pacific Island Countries were a focus of the summit, along with a need for technology that ensures reliable communication among nations, Sheila Smith, a senior fellow for Asia-Pacific studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Voice of America.

The leaders discussed improving regional connectivity with infrastructure, from roads to electricity to internet service. They envisioned a public-private undersea cable network that would ensure dependable and secure internet availability, The Japan Times newspaper reported.

The Quad Infrastructure Fellowship Program will provide at least 1,800 scholarships, work exchanges and other executive programs to government officials to promote the design, installation and management of infrastructure projects.

Among the priorities:

• Expand the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness to partner nations in the Indian Ocean region. Introduced at the 2022 Quad summit in Tokyo, the program provides maritime domain data to law enforcement agencies to deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, monitor climate change and natural disasters, and uphold coastal laws.
• Improve health security by building regional capacity to detect and respond to outbreaks of diseases and viruses, including through health care workforce development, monitoring illnesses and coordinating health information systems.
• Partner with Palau to build and operate a mobile network with open radio access network (RAN) capabilities. Open RAN connects mobile phones and accesses web applications using radio waves, which allows multiple vendors to offer services.

Cooperation in the rapidly changing region is essential to accomplishing the initiatives, Quad partners asserted. Ahead of the summit, Kishida said the “free and open international order based on the rule of law is under threat,” The Japan Times reported.

“We believe we should navigate this time of uncertainty and opportunity together, working closely with our Indo-Pacific partners,” the Quad leaders’ statement said. “We believe all countries have a role in contributing to regional peace, stability, and prosperity, as well as upholding international law, including the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the rules-based international order.”

IMAGE CREDIT: REUTERS