Quadrilateral Security Dialogue | China ‘testing us’, Biden says

(Wilmington) China is “testing us,” President Joe Biden told the leaders of Australia, India and Japan on Saturday, according to comments captured by reporters during a meeting in the United States that was supposed to be held behind closed doors.

The remarks are much more offensive than the joint statement by the group dubbed the Quad, which was released Saturday after the summit and avoided mentioning Beijing directly.

In the statement, the leaders of the four countries said they were “deeply concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas.”

Joe Biden, who will leave the White House in January, received Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Indian Narendra Modi and Australian Anthony Albanese on Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware.

“China continues to behave aggressively, testing us across the region,” Biden said during the meeting, which was supposed to be closed but was captured by reporters as the microphones remained on for a time.

According to Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping is focusing on “domestic economic challenges” but is also seeking “to carve out diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interests.”

However, the Democratic president said that Washington’s recent “intense efforts” to reduce tensions, such as a phone call with Mr Xi in April, had been beneficial.

“Intimidating maneuvers”

In their statement after the summit, the four leaders did not directly mention China, although they expressed concern about its borders.

They condemned “coercive and intimidating maneuvers” in the South China Sea, without blaming any country in particular.

Beijing claims sovereignty over almost all of the islets in the sea, ignoring an international court ruling that its claims have no legal basis.

Disputed islands in the East China Sea have also been a source of long-standing tensions between Beijing and Tokyo.

The leaders stuck to general terms, as on other occasions, saying the region must remain “free and open” and citing geopolitical “challenges.”

The US presidential election on November 5 was also on everyone’s minds. Former head of state, isolationist Donald Trump, is engaged in a tight duel with Democrat Kamala Harris.

The “Quad” will continue

But Mr Biden assured reporters that the Quad would continue, regardless of the outcome of the election, “well beyond November”. “The Quad is here to stay,” he told his hosts.

Comments echoed word for word by India’s Narendra Modi, whose country is due to host the group’s summit next year.

This four-party diplomatic format, which began in response to the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, took on a more institutional form in 2007, but subsequently experienced ups and downs. It was more or less surviving when Joe Biden took office.

The latter wanted to make it, according to the American executive, an “essential format for years” in a highly strategic region.

This has led him to weave or re-weave a tight network of alliances in Asia – even if it means upsetting France, for example, by taking away a huge submarine contract with Australia.

In addition to receiving the three leaders one by one at his family home some 100 miles from Washington, meetings to which the press did not have access, Joe Biden chose his former high school to organize a joint working meeting and dinner on Saturday.

Beyond geopolitical issues, the “Quad” announced an investment in the fight against cervical cancer.

This summit opens a week of intense diplomatic activity for the American president, at a time when all of the United States’ allies are waiting for the outcome of the presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who was propelled into the Democratic race for the White House when Joe Biden gave up seeking a second term in July, was not present.

Joe Biden, for his diplomatic farewell, will make his last major speech next week at the United Nations in New York. He will also receive Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.