Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Japan Foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio address a joint press conference after the Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi . (Photo by Julia Demaree Nikhinson / POOL / AFP)
New Delhi, India: The United States, India, Australia and Japan announced new maritime and critical minerals cooperation on Tuesday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio took part in the meeting in New Delhi, 10 days after President Donald Trump paid a friendly state visit to China and spoke glowingly of the two powers working together as a "G2".
Meeting his counterparts, Rubio said the Quad comprised countries "who share strong values -- strong, vibrant democracies -- who also are committed to many of the same concepts with regards to economic development and have many aligned interests".
Rubio said the four powers would work together on two maritime initiatives -- one that combines their surveillance capabilities, and another that will provide enhanced real-time information to commercial traffic at sea.
In a first, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the Quad was cooperating on assisting port development in Fiji -- a key island nation in the South Pacific, where China has made a concerted push for greater influence.
Rubio said the Quad would also step up four-way efforts to secure the supply of critical minerals, a rare area in which the Trump administration has turned to the more traditional diplomacy of building networks with allies, alarmed at the dominance of China in resources key to the high-end technology sector.
Rubio said the Trump administration wanted the Quad to focus more on deliverables than meetings, and said cooperation was progressing "pretty aggressively".
