QUAD to hold third ministerial meeting about inclusive Indo-Pacific
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New Delhi, Feb 18: The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue ( QUAD ) will hold its third ministerial meeting on Feb 18, 2021. The meeting will be held to exchange their views on global and regional issues. It will focus on the practical areas of cooperation in order to maintain an open, free and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. The discussions between Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar , US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Foreign Ministers Marise Payne of Australia and Toshimitsu Motegi of Japan 'is critical to advance the shared goals of free and open Indo-Pacific and rising to the defining challenges of our time.'
The third ministerial meeting of the QUAD members namely, India-Australia-Japan-US will involve the participation of their foreign ministers. They all will be presenting different agendas during the meeting. This meeting is the continuation of the views that were exchanged in the second QUAD meeting of Oct 6, 2020 that was held in Tokyo. The first meeting of QUAD was organized in the year 2019 in New York.
The Foreign Ministers of Australia, India, the USA, and Japan will exchange their views on the global and regional issues during the meeting. They will also discuss the ongoing efforts of combating the COVID 19 pandemic. The ministers will also be discussing and addressing the global climate change and other issues of mutual interest. It is expected that, the initiative would put an end to growing economic influence of China. The cooperation with Japan and other allies will help in countering the Chinese development assistance and its domination in the region including the Indo-Pacific.
During the second meeting of the QUAD in Oct 2020, Former US-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had disapproved China for using the economic power so as to increase its domination in the neighboring countries across South China. He also bought the attention of the grouping to China’s corruption, exploitation and coercion in the neighboring countries.