Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday cancelled next week’s Quad leaders meeting in Sydney after US President Joe Biden postponed his visit to Australia to focus on crucial debt-ceiling talks to prevent a catastrophic federal default.
Speaking to the media, Albanese said it is still possible that his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi will visit Sydney next week.
“The Quad leaders’ meeting will not be going ahead in Sydney next week,” Albanese said in Tweed Heads, a town in New South Wales.
Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the US, India and Japan would now meet at the G7 Summit in Japan this weekend.
“We, though, will be having that discussion between Quad leaders in Japan. I thank Prime Minister (Fumio) Kishida for his invitation for me to attend the G7 and it is appropriate that we talk. The Quad is an important body and we want to make sure that it occurs at the leadership level and we’ll be having that discussion over the weekend,” Albanese said.
US President Biden announced on Tuesday that he will postpone the Australia leg of his Asia trip, along with that of Papua New Guinea, given the uncertainty and intense negotiations with the opposition Republican party to ensure that America does not default on its debt for the first time in history.
President Biden has been forced to turn his attention to domestic politics, as he works to hash out a deal with Republicans to prevent the US from defaulting on its debts at the end of this month.The Prime Minister also said Biden was “disappointed” as he was unable to come to Australia and that the Quad leaders would instead try to gather on the margins of the G7 leaders meeting in Hiroshima.
“All four leaders – President Biden, Prime Minister Kishida, Prime Minister Modi and myself – will be at the G7, held in Hiroshima on Saturday and Sunday. We are attempting to get together over that period of time [and] I’ll have a bilateral discussion with President Biden,” he said.“At this stage, we haven’t got a time locked in for that arrangement.”
In November 2017, India, Japan, the US and Australia gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the “Quad” to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence amid China’s aggressive behaviour in the region.China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years.Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan.