The ‘Quad summit,’ which is the first summit of the Quad leaders held virtually this evening, is being attended by US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
“Our agenda today covering areas like vaccines, climate change, and emerging technologies makes the Quad, a force for global good,” Prime Minister Modi said in his opening remarks. He went on to say “Quad has come of age and will remain an important pillar of stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Sharing India’s vision of regional and global topics of mutual concern, as well as exchanging ideas on realistic ways to work together to keep a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region, Prime Minister Modi said, “I see this positive vision as an extension of India’s ancient philosophy of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ which regards the world as one family. We will work together closely as ever before for advancing shared values & promoting secular, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific”
Updates via Twitter-
#1stQuadSummit 'QUAD is an important pillar of regional stability': Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the 1st Quad Summit pic.twitter.com/u1tll4h8z5
— NewsX (@NewsX) March 12, 2021
#1stQuadSummit | Our agenda today covering areas like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies makes the Quad, a force for global good: PM Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) addresses 1st QUAD Summit pic.twitter.com/TmwLwDtSwZ
— NewsX (@NewsX) March 12, 2021
The vaccine initiative will allow new manufacturing capacity to be added in India for exports to the Indo-Pacific region. It will not impinge on our existing manufacturing capacities: Sources on Quad meet
— ANI (@ANI) March 12, 2021
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QUAD – The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was set up in August 2007 by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the then Prime Minister of India, Dr. Mamohan Singh was also a part of it. The aim of the summit was to counter China’s growing influence in Asia and it was revived in 2017 during the ASEAN Summit. Today’s summit will be the first after the 2017 revival.
China has referred to the QUAD Meeting as – ”Indo Pacific NATO”. The QUAD countries shall also discuss how to deal with Beijing’s recent moves in the Pacific and its intrusion in the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. it is yet to be seen whether a joint statement will be released at the end of the meeting, which will also be the first ”joint statement” as so far, in the past meetings, separate readouts were issued by the countries having different positions over key matters.
Ahead of the Summit, US Secretary Anthony Blinken, who is reported to visit Japan and South Korea next week said that he expected to see something on vaccines, as an outcome of the Summit.
The Ministry of External Affairs released a statement ahead of the summit which underlined that the leaders would discuss cooperation towards maintaining a ”free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region” as well as the challenges such as ”resilient supply chains, emerging and critical technologies, maritime security, and climate change.”
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