Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attends the AFR Business Summit in Sydney on March 7, 2023.
Brent Lewin | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday that there would be no quad summit in Sydney next week without US President Joe Biden, who postponed a trip to Australia to negotiate the debt ceiling in Washington.
Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the US, India and Japan will instead meet at the G7 in Japan this weekend. Biden cancels trip The second line of an upcoming trip to Asia was to Sydney, which was to include a visit to Papua New Guinea.
“The quad leadership meeting will not be held in Sydney next week, but we will be in Japan to hold discussions among the quad leaders,” Albanese said at a press conference.
Albanese said the bilateral program in Sydney with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could continue next week.
Albanese did not comment on whether Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will visit Sydney again next week.
Quad is an informal group that promotes an open Indo-Pacific. Beijing sees this as an attempt to counter its growing influence in the region.
Richard Maud, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the cancellation of Mr. Biden’s visit to Papua New Guinea, which was supposed to be the first visit by a US president to an independent Pacific island nation, would make China’s relationship with China in the region more difficult. He said the U.S. struggle for influence could recede.
“The whole tenet of the region is to go. To go is half the battle. The optics aren’t very good because China is always going to go,” Maud, former Australian intelligence chief, said at a panel discussion. rice field. quads on wednesday.
India and Australia are not members of the G7 group of wealthy seven nations: Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, but have been invited to Japan’s summit.