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Quad representatives have released yet another statement laying blame at the actions of the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and Myanmar.
Secretary of State of the United States Marco Rubio, Foreign Minister of Australia Penny Wong, External Affairs Minister of India Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and Foreign Minister of Japan Takeshi Iwaya released a joint statement from the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Washington on 1 July.
“We discussed the opportunities and challenges in the Indo-Pacific and how to further harness the strengths and resources of the Quad to advance peace, security and prosperity, working with our regional partners,” according to the joint statement.
“To ensure the Quad’s enduring impact, we are pleased to announce today a new, ambitious and strong agenda focused on four key areas: maritime and transnational security, economic prosperity and security, critical and emerging technology and humanitarian assistance and emergency response. Through this renewed focus, we will sharpen the Quad’s ability to leverage our resources to address the region’s most pressing challenges.
“We remain seriously concerned about the situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea. We reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion. We express our serious concerns regarding dangerous and provocative actions, including interference with offshore resource development, the repeated obstruction of the freedoms of navigation and overflight, and the dangerous manoeuvres by military aircraft and coast guard and maritime militia vessels, especially the unsafe use of water cannons and ramming or blocking actions in the South China Sea. These actions threaten peace and stability in the region. We are seriously concerned by the militarisation of disputed features.
“We condemn North Korea’s destabilising launches using ballistic missile technology and its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs) … We also express grave concern over North Korea’s malicious cyber activity, including cryptocurrency theft and use of workers abroad to fund North Korea’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. We will continue to support efforts to address contraventions of North Korea-related UNSCRs.
“We remain deeply concerned by the worsening crisis in Myanmar and its impact on the region. We call on the regime to adhere to its commitment to a ceasefire, and call on all parties to implement, extend and broaden ceasefire measures.”
The leaders also expressed concern about the future reliability of key supply chains for critical minerals. They announced the launch of a Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, an expansion to strengthen economic security and collective resilience by collaborating to secure and diversify critical minerals supply chains.
Quad is also planning to host the first Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network field training exercise this year to strengthen shared airlift capacity and leverage collective logistics strengths. They plan to launch the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership in Mumbai this year.
The next Quad Leaders’ Summit will be hosted by India later this year and the next Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting hosted by Australia in 2026.
