Pompeo to make Japan trip for Indo-Pacific ‘Quad’ meeting in show of unity to China
- Pompeo, Japan’s Toshimitsu Motegi, Australia’s Marise Payne and India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will meet in Tokyo
- The Indo-Pacific bloc, seen as a counter to China’s influence in the region, will discuss the coronavirus pandemic and security issues
The October 6 forum in Tokyo will bring together UN Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to discuss issues including the coronavirus pandemic and the regional situation, Motegi told a news conference on Tuesday.
US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus confirmed the details of Pomeo’s trip on Tuesday. It will be Pompeo’s first trip to Japan since Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga took office on September 16 after his predecessor Shinzo Abe stepped down due to a chronic illness.
The meeting is set to be one of the highest-profile diplomatic gatherings for the Trump administration before the US presidential election, where policy toward Beijing has become a major campaign issue.
It also comes as China and India try to defuse tensions on their disputed Himalayan border, after a military stand-off led to gunshots being fired over the frontier for the first time since 1975.
“The Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision is increasingly important in the post Covid-19 world so we would like to confirm the importance of further deepening the collaboration among us and many other countries to realise the vision,” Motegi said.
The meeting will also be the biggest diplomatic event so far for the government of new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday by telephone and agreed to work closely on issues.
Suga, who became premier in mid-September, has little diplomatic experience. One of his most challenging tasks will be seeking a delicate balance between Japan’s biggest trading partner, China, and its only military ally, the US. In recent months, the world’s two largest economies have clashed over everything from trade to data security.
The Quad held its first formal ministerial-level gathering about a year ago in New York, which was seen as a sign of growing unease over Xi’s more assertive foreign policy.
Indo-Pacific strategy gains support as China’s assertiveness fuels fears
The elevation last year of the discussion from official-level talks suggests the previously informal framework was being strengthened to improve intelligence-gathering and present a united front on regional security issues.
Beijing has made clear its opposition to the US’s “Indo-Pacific strategy”, which was conceived to elevate India as a potential regional counterweight to China.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who Japanese national broadcaster NHK reported may also visit Tokyo in October, has dismissed the Quad as a “headline-grabbing idea”.
“No one should seek an exclusive clique,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a daily briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, adding that efforts should be made to enhance mutual trust instead of targeting a third party.
The upcoming Quad meeting comes as the trade ministers of Japan, India and Australia agreed this month to work toward achieving supply chain resilience in the Indo-Pacific region, following reports that the three nations are looking to work together to counter China’s dominance on trade.
