US says no plan to expand Quad despite interest from South Korea
- US official Camille Dawson said she was ‘not aware of any country’ that had asked for or suggested full membership
- Since taking office in May last year, President Yoon Suk-yeol’s government has prioritised trilateral security cooperation with the US and Japan
A US State Department senior official on Monday said that the United States, Japan, Australia and India had no immediate plans to expand their Quad grouping, despite South Korea showing interest in the four-way framework.
“There is no plan in the near term to expand the official membership of the Quad,” Camille Dawson, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told reporters in Tokyo.
The view was a “common understanding” among the four member countries, the visiting official added.
Her remarks came after a senior South Korean official in March expressed willingness to take part in the working group of the US-led bloc, widely seen as a counter to China’s growing military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Dawson said she was “not aware of any country” that had asked for or suggested full membership, while underscoring that the Quad aimed to promote collaboration with other nations in each field to address issues related to Beijing.
She also said the Quad would not be “a major topic of discussion” at the trilateral summit between the US, Japan and South Korea at Camp David near Washington this Friday.
