Quad members eye next Leaders’ Summit in September | Latest news India

Next year’s Quad Leaders’ Summit gathering will be different from the one hosted by US President Joe Biden in September: The US and Japan have new leaders and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has seen his approval rating decline as the federal election approaches. in 2025.

Factors pushing Quad members to consider holding the summit in the third quarter of 2025 include Australia’s general election, expected to take place in April or May, and the time needed by Donald Trump’s administration. in the United States to settle after the president’s inauguration in January, added representatives of three members of the group.

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“The new US administration will most likely focus on domestic issues in its early days before tackling foreign policy issues once it has calmed down. Besides, the second quarter – when the Indian summer is in full swing – is not really conducive to holding the summit,” said a diplomat from a Quad member who requested anonymity.

In Australia, government attention has already begun to shift to the upcoming general election, particularly with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Australian Labor Party’s declining approval ratings in recent months. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of the Liberal Party is playing catch-up in the hearings.

Given Australia’s tradition of holding general elections alongside elections to select half of the Senate, polls are expected to take place by April or May, one of the people cited above said. “This will be followed by the government formation and installation process, which means the Quad Summit will not exactly be the center of attention,” the person said.

In Japan, next year’s Diet or Parliament session is scheduled to begin on January 24 and continue until June 22. Elections to the upper house of the Diet are expected to take place in July. Another factor driving the search for dates in September is that Japan’s prime minister does not usually travel abroad when Parliament is in session, the sources said.

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India was previously scheduled to host the Quad Summit in 2024, but it was swapped with the United States due to Biden’s inability to travel abroad due to his focus on the presidential election. The Quad leaders – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Biden, Albanese and former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida – met for the summit in the US president’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, ahead of the United Nations General Assembly .

However, people said the various working groups of the Quad were continuing their preparations for the summit, including the outcomes that could be unveiled by the four leaders. This year’s summit saw the four countries unveil a cancer plan, focusing on tackling cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific region and exploring investments in health and food security, clean energy and quality infrastructure.

Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar recently said Trump was unlikely to reduce his support for the Quad, as his previous administration played a key role in modernizing the group. However, Ian Hall, professor of international relations at Griffith University, wrote in a recent article that this history and the level of trust between officials involved in the Quad do not guarantee that the group will survive or thrive under the second Trump administration . “Trump will likely ask how much the minilateral project costs the United States and what it delivers, not in terms of public goods provided to others, but in tangible gains for American interests,” Hall wrote.

The Quad also decided to build on its 2022 Maritime Domain Awareness Partnership by using electro-optical data and advanced analytics to improve maritime domain awareness for Indo-Pacific partners.