The latest news indicates that the United States, Japan, Australia, and India are set to hold the “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue” (Quad) leadership summit on September 21st in Wilmington, Delaware, the hometown of U.S. President Joe Biden.
President Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are scheduled to attend the Quad summit.
This meeting will mark the final gathering of the current leaders, as both Kishida and Biden are set to step down at the end of this month and in January next year, respectively. Prior to the summit, the leaders will also travel to New York to participate in this year’s United Nations General Assembly.
According to sources cited by Nikkei Asia, the Quad summit will take place in Wilmington, but the exact location has yet to be finalized. Biden owns a residence in the area, from where he used to commute to Washington, D.C., when he was a senator.
The Hindu, citing an anonymous diplomat, mentioned that the summit’s location is still under discussion and may be held in New York or at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.
The report mentioned that the summit date was a challenging negotiation issue for officials at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in India, especially considering the scheduling of all the leaders.
India holds the rotating chair of the Quad summit this year, originally planning to host the summit in January to coincide with India’s Republic Day. However, the White House rejected this proposal citing a clash with Biden’s State of the Union address to Congress.
Subsequent months saw a stall in the scheduling of the summit due to elections in both India and the United States.
After Biden announced he would not seek reelection, India proposed moving the summit to the U.S. In mid-August, a senior White House official told Nikkei Asia that the Biden administration favored hosting the Quad summit outside of New York.
Initially, the U.S. had suggested holding the summit at the Sandillon Estate in California in early October. However, Kishida’s decision to step down before Japan’s ruling party’s Liberal Democratic Party leadership election on September 27 disrupted these plans.
This upcoming Quad summit will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the mechanism’s establishment and will also host a farewell for outgoing leaders Kishida and Biden.
The Quad mechanism originated in 2004 as a special group to coordinate relief efforts for the Indian Ocean tsunami. In 2007, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed formalizing the meeting as the “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.” However, concerns about provoking a backlash from China prevented the dialogue from taking off at that time.
Under the leadership of former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017, the Quad mechanism was revived. In March 2021, during the Biden administration, the first-ever in-person Quad summit was held, following an online summit earlier.
The Biden administration described the Quad as a “top regional group” in its 2022 Indo-Pacific strategy, highlighting its leadership in COVID-19 response, advancing critical and emerging technologies, and promoting supply chain cooperation.
Today, with heightened tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, the Quad has emerged as a significant alliance of democratic nations, clearly aimed at addressing the threats posed by China in the region.