Australia cancels Quad leaders summit after Biden postpones trip
Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the US, India and Japan would instead meet at the G7 Summit in Japan this weekend
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday said that next week's Quad leaders meeting in Sydney will not go ahead after US President Joe Biden cancelled his visit to Australia, according to a media report.
Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the US, India and Japan would instead meet at the G7 Summit in Japan this weekend.
US President Biden announced on Tuesday that he will postpone the Australia leg of his Asia trip, along with that of Papua New Guinea, given the uncertainty and intense negotiations with the opposition Republican party to ensure that America does not default on its debt for the first time in history.
The Quad leaders' meeting will not be going ahead in Sydney next week, Albanese said in Tweed Heads, a town in New South Wales.
Albanese says it's still possible that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sydney next week, ABC News reported.
President Biden has been forced to turn his attention to domestic politics, as he works to hash out a deal with Republicans to prevent the US from defaulting on its debts at the end of this month.
In November 2017, India, Japan, the US and Australia gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the "Quad" to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence amid China's aggressive behaviour in the region.
China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years.
Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan.
