On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a Quad meeting in Sydney next week would not happen without U.S. President Joe Biden, who postponed his attendance due to debt ceiling negotiations in Washington.
After Biden postponed a trip to Sydney on the second leg of his forthcoming Asia trip, which was to include Papua New Guinea, Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the US, India, and Japan would meet at the G7 in Japan this weekend.
Sydney will not host the Quad Leaders conference next week. However, Albanese told a press conference that Quad leaders in Japan would debate it.
Albanese said a Sydney bilateral program with Narendra Modi may still happen next week.
Albanese would not say if Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would visit Sydney next week. On Wednesday, Nikkei reported his non-travel.
The Quad promotes Indo-Pacific openness informally. However, Beijing regards it as a challenge to its regional dominance.
Asia Society Policy Institute senior researcher Richard Maude said the cancellation of Biden’s travel to Papua New Guinea, the first by an American president to an independent Pacific island nation, might set back Washington’s war with Beijing in the area.
“The region’s motto is showing up. But, of course, arriving is half the battle. “China turns up all the time, and so the optics aren’t great,” former Australian intelligence head Maude told a Quad panel discussion on Wednesday.
India and Australia were invited to the summit in Japan despite not being G7 members.
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