Quad foreign ministers meet in Washington in signal of Trump's China focus

By Daphne Psaledakis, Simon Lewis (JO:) and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with counterparts from Australia, India and Japan connected Tuesday, a gathering helium said volition accent the value of moving with allies "on the things that are important to America and Americans."

Rubio, who was sworn successful arsenic caput of authorities the time aft President Donald Trump began his 2nd word successful bureau connected Monday, hosted counterparts from the "Quad" - a grouping of 4 countries sharing concerns astir China's increasing powerfulness - astatine the State Department.

The ministers - Australia's Penny Wong, India's Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Japan's Takeshi Iwaya - posed with Rubio successful beforehand of the flags of their countries earlier the meeting, but did not respond to questions from reporters.

Analysts person said the gathering is designed to awesome that countering Beijing is simply a apical precedence for the caller president, adjacent arsenic Trump unexpectedly held disconnected tariffs connected China connected his archetypal time backmost astatine the White House and did not azygous it retired arsenic a threat, raising the imaginable of a rapprochement betwixt the rivals.

"Today we’ll person a gathering with the Quad, with overseas ministers from Australia and India and Japan, to reaffirm the value of moving with allies crossed the satellite connected the things that are important to America and Americans, and that’s what I’m focused connected moving forward," Rubio told NBC's Today programme earlier his swearing in.

Trump officials were moving connected scheduling different gathering of the overseas ministers astatine the White House arsenic well, a idiosyncratic progressive successful readying meetings said.

The meetings could acceptable the signifier for a acme of leaders of the Quad countries comparatively aboriginal successful the Trump presidency, a idiosyncratic progressive successful the readying meetings said. Sources acquainted with the readying said a gathering betwixt Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was imaginable successful Washington adjacent month.

Australia's Wong, who met her Indian and Japanese counterparts successful Washington implicit the weekend, said the invitation for Quad overseas ministers to be Trump's inauguration showed a dedication to adjacent practice successful the Indo-Pacific region.

"It's a objection of the corporate committedness of each countries to the Quad, an iron-clad committedness successful this clip wherever adjacent practice successful the Indo-Pacific is truthful important," Wong said connected Sunday.

Rubio is owed to conscionable separately with the 3 overseas ministers connected Tuesday.

The Quad grouping met galore times during the medication of erstwhile President Joe Biden, with a absorption connected Beijing's subject and economical activities successful the Indo-Pacific, peculiarly successful the South China Sea wherever U.S. allies person pushed backmost against Beijing's territorial claims.

The grouping has besides pledged to beforehand practice successful cybersecurity to support proviso chains and captious infrastructure, including undersea cables.

For Australia, it volition beryllium important to unafraid assurances from Washington astir the monolithic AUKUS defence project, designed to let Australia to get nuclear-powered onslaught submarines and different precocious weapons specified arsenic hypersonic missiles.

China has denounced the Quad arsenic a Cold War conception and says the AUKUS confederation would intensify a determination arms race.