The first-ever meeting between the QUAD leaders is being scheduled to take place very soon. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “I am looking forward to that first gathering of Quad leaders. It will be the first-ever gathering of Quad leaders. I already had bilateral discussions with Narendra Modi and Yoshihide Suga, the PM of Japan and PM of India.”
This can be seen as a major development for the whole region and will decide the future of the QUAD grouping. “We are looking forward to those discussions and follow-up face-to-face meetings as well,” he then goes on saying that such meets will become a “feature of the Indo-Pacific engagement”. It will, however, not have a big bureaucracy, with a big secretariat.
“The Quad is very central to the US and our thinking about the region and looking at the Indo-Pacific also through the prism of our Asean partners and their vision of the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
New US Administration under Biden and US secretary of state Antony Blinken had made clear that their re-engagement in multilateral organisations is “key to building stability and peace in the Indo-Pacific”, In the similar line Morrison said. “We share that view, we encourage that view, and we strongly welcome that view,” he added.
However, China has always criticized the QUAD alliance and described it as a “mini NATO”. The four countries will decide their future trajectory and ways to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
