Washington:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left for Asia-Pacific on Tuesday to strengthen regional partnerships in the face of an expansive China, even as the crisis simmers on the border with Ukraine.
Blinken will spend three days in Melbourne to meet with foreign ministers from the Quad, the US-Japan-India-Australia informal grouping that Washington hopes will become a bulwark against Beijing’s pursuit of regional dominance.
The visit will include meetings with senior Australian officials, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, as they seek to build on September’s AUKUS trilateral defense pact with Britain. The shocking challenge to China included a deal between Washington and Canberra to buy eight nuclear-powered submarines.
His trip comes just hours after a Washington press conference with senior EU officials attempted to show a united front against the threat posed by an estimated 140,000 Russian troops now gathered on Ukraine’s border.
Following his departure from Australia on Saturday, Blinken will make a brief stop in Fiji to meet a number of Pacific island leaders, many of whom are being provoked by China.
We depart Washington for an important journey to the Indo-Pacific region. I look forward to productive meetings with leaders and communities to promote our shared values and achieve our goals in the #IndoPacific† pic.twitter.com/mKZUGw6GOh
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) February 8, 2022
“The most important message the secretary will take with him on this journey is that our partnerships are paying off,” said Deputy Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink.
“The Quad is an important part of US foreign economic and security policy in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.
“Through this collaboration, we strengthen the security environment in the region to counteract aggression and coercion.”
Launched in 2007, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, has provided a framework for what began as joint naval exercises between the US, India and Japan in the Indian Ocean, the so-called Malabar exercises.
Australia’s commitment to the initiative dwindled until 2017, when the alliance was revived with a focus on countering China, when Beijing expanded its military presence regionally.
Australia rejoined the Malabar exercises in 2020, the same year that Chinese and Indian forces engaged in bloody clashes in a disputed border region, giving traditionally nonaligned New Delhi a push toward the group.
India is “the crucial, crucial member of the Quad,” Kurt Campbell, White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, said in November.
Washington has pushed in recent years to expand the Quad’s goals and use it as a framework for coronavirus vaccine distribution and climate talks.
“It’s not just about competing with China. It’s also about promoting areas where we think we have something to offer,” Campbell said.
The Melbourne meetings will help set the agenda for a Quad Leaders summit in Japan, expected sometime in the middle of the year.
Blinken’s meetings in Australia will take place in the context of Russia’s continued threat to Ukraine.
Even as the top US diplomat prepared to leave for Melbourne, US officials said Russia had at least 110,000 troops and large amounts of firepower ready to invade the border of its pro-Western neighbor.
“This is not scaremongering. These are just the facts,” Blinken said at the press conference on Monday.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)