Japan, U.S., Australia, India take aim at China's economic policies

During a meeting of the so-called Quad grouping in Atlanta, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and his counterparts from the three countries also committed to providing over $85 million in technical and financial assistance to improve access to trusted artificial intelligence across the Indo-Pacific region.

Motegi, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar assessed progress made on ongoing Quad initiatives on the sidelines of a Group of 20 foreign ministers' meeting.

In a joint document issued after their discussions, Motegi, Rubio, Wong and Jaishankar said they had voiced "grave concerns regarding economic coercion, including through arbitrary export restrictions, as well as non-market policies and practices that result in overcapacity to disrupt global supply chains in critical industries."

The top diplomats met for a third time this year ahead of a potential Quad summit next month in the Philippines.

The leaders of Japan, the United States, Australia and India are set to visit Manila in mid-November for meetings involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its partners.

The last Quad summit was held in September 2024, when U.S. President Donald Trump's predecessor Joe Biden was in office. The four-way group sought to organize a leaders' meeting in India last year, but the plan did not materialize due to strains in New Delhi's relations with Washington.

The Quad is often seen as a counterweight to China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.

While the Quad's areas of cooperation have been expanding in recent years, from maritime security and critical minerals to health protection and emerging technologies, China has criticized the grouping's initiatives as aimed at containing the country's rise in the region.

On Saturday, among other issues, the top diplomats coordinated views on the situation in the Indo-Pacific, including developments in the South and East China seas, as well as the situation in the Middle East, according to Japan's Foreign Ministry.

During the meeting, Motegi voiced "strong opposition to any attempt to unilaterally alter the status quo through the use of force or intimidation," the ministry said, adding that the four reaffirmed the importance of advancing their partnership to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Rubio insisted that the Quad is not intended to be against any country.

"To the extent we express concern about things in the Quad, it's concern about behaviors. It's concern about activities. Now, those activities or behaviors are coming repetitively from one country," Rubio told a press conference. "That's going to be obvious to everybody. But it is not an anti-China or anti-anybody coalition."

According to the joint document, to advance "commercial diplomacy," the top diplomats agreed to launch a joint business forum, convening industry leaders, government officials and policy experts from the four countries, to strengthen ties between their public and private sectors.

As part of the initiative, Quad export credit agencies are scheduled to gather in Tokyo on Nov. 18 to identify opportunities for deepening economic cooperation.

In contrast to the Quad's unity, the G20's two-day meeting laid bare the division among its members, partly because Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's attendance triggered an outcry from European officials.

As a result, the representatives of the world's major economies, including China and Russia, failed to issue a joint communique after discussing issues such as energy security, global supply chains and geopolitical tensions.

"I wouldn't pretend to you today that we are close to finding universally accepted solutions to these problems," said Rubio, who chaired the meeting, as part of efforts to prepare for this year's G20 summit to be hosted by Trump in Miami in December.

Rubio released a chairman's statement instead, but it lacked substance.