Tokyo, July 29 (EFE).- The foreign ministers of the United States, Japan, India and Australia, member countries of the Quad strategic security alliance, pledged on Monday to strengthen cooperation on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific amid growing tensions in the region due to China’s military rise.
Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, her counterparts from Australia and India, Penny Wong and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken adopted a t statement during the annual meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in Tokyo on Monday.
“We emphasize the importance of maintaining and upholding freedom of navigation and overflight, other lawful uses of sea, and unimpeded commerce consistent with international law,” the ministers said.
They also stressed the alliance’s “steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” a phrase coined by Tokyo and Washington to refer to their shared strategy to contain China’s geopolitical rise in the region.
Although the t statement made no direct reference to Beijing, which calls the Quad an “Asian NATO,” the ministers expressed serious concerns about the situation in the East and South China Seas and reiterated their “strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.”
Beijing has territorial disputes with several Asia-Pacific countries, including Japan, and in addition to the construction of artificial islands equipped with military infrastructure, it has intensified its maritime maneuvers in the East and South China Seas, which has led to protests from neighboring nations and even incidents in some cases, including one with the Philippines recently.
“We continue to express our serious concern about the militarization of disputed features, and coercive and intimidating manuevers in the South China Sea. We also express our serious concern about the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels, the increasing use of various kinds of dangerous manuevers, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities,” the Quad member countries said.
“Through the Quad, we are ing the region through practical cooperation on challenges such as maritime security, critical and emerging technologies, cyber security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, health security, climate change, counterterrorism, infrastructure and connectivity,” they added.
“We are charting a course for a more secure and open Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean region by bolstering maritime security and domain awareness,” Blinken said during the t press appearance after the meeting.
“It means strengthening capacity of partners across the region to know what’s happening in their own waters,” added the US secretary of state, who pointed out the use of satellite technology and signal location data that led to a crackdown on illegal fishing operations.
The four foreign ministers also condemned North Korea’s “destabilizing” ballistic missile launches “in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions” and reiterated their commitment to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” EFE
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