US Vice President Kamala Harris would host a meeting with the Prime Ministers of three Quad countries-India, Australia and Japan at the White House to discuss with them the crucial factors for democracies to go forward.
President Joe Biden will host the three Prime Ministers- Scott Morrison, Australia, Narendra Modi, India and Yoshihide Suga, Japan in the East Room of the White House on Friday afternoon.
“After the meeting with President Biden, the Quad members will meet with Vice President Harris for a detailed discussion on basically the capacities associated with resilience in each of our countries and compare notes on what we think is important as democracies go forward,” a senior administration official said.
“Those sessions, frankly, are designed to be free-flowing. I think the President has indicated that he doesn’t want to necessarily put an artificial stop to them. I think he wants to let them have sort of a natural progression,” said the official.
Biden hosted the first-ever summit of the Quad leaders in March in a virtual format that pledged to strive for an Indo-Pacific region that is open, free, inclusive, anchored by democratic values and abandoned by compulsion sending a message to China which has been behaving aggressively in the region.
US, Japan, Australia and India gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the Quad in November 2017, to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any impact.
Known as the “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue”, the representatives for the US, India, Australia and Japan have met periodically since its inception in 2007.
The progressing situation in the vital Indo-Pacific region in the wake of China’s aggressive intimidate has become a major point of discussion among leading global powers.
