President Joe Biden has made it a priority to elevate the relationship of the Quad, four countries touched by the Indo-Pacific region, the White House said, as he prepares to host the leaders of Japan, India and Australia on Saturday at his Delaware home.
The region stretches from the U.S. West Coast to the shores of India to the northeast waters of Japan to the waters around Australia, and includes the many tiny, diffuse islands of the Pacific. That swath of the globe, the U.S. Commerce Department says, holds more than half the world's people and two-thirds of its economy.
And, administration officials said, this summit is personally important to Biden, as demonstrated by his decision to host the visitors in his private home in Wilmington, about 160 kilometers from the White House.
"The Biden-Harris administration has made elevating and institutionalizing the Quad a top priority," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. "And this leaders' summit will focus on bolstering the strategic convergence among our countries, advancing our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and delivering concrete benefits for our partners in the Indo-Pacific in key areas."
Officials say the leaders will act on the region's concerns and will announce moves on illegal fishing in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
"We've moved forward substantially on efforts that basically allow for the Pacific and Southeast Asia to track — largely untracked to this point — illegal fishing fleets that are the scourge of these extraordinarily important fishing areas," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters Wednesday. "Vast majority of those fishing fleets are Chinese. We think these capacities will be indeed very helpful in helping local governments repel illegal fishing in their home waters."
Biden often likes to say that the U.S. is at an inflection point — a fact he has stressed recently as American voters face a tense November election with two very different presidential candidates.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump disagree on how to maintain the crucial U.S.-China relationship.
Trump is campaigning hard on harsh tariffs on China, saying, in a recent rally, "I'm putting a 200% tariff on them," while making false claims that Chinese automakers are putting up large factories in Mexico.
And Harris is expected to continue Biden's more cautious policy of keeping lines of communication open even while competing forcefully in many areas.
Beijing recently showed its sensitivity to hearing its name in U.S. election rhetoric, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning saying last week: "The election is an internal affair of the U.S. I won't comment on election remarks. But we oppose the U.S. using the election to criticize China."
Analysts say pulling the leaders of four powerful democracies into one room gives them space to talk freely.
"So really, I think the real agenda is not spoken about. It's China," said Rafiq Dossani, a senior economist at the RAND research corporation and a professor of policy analysis. "It's how to manage the rivalry with China."
"Each has their concerns about China," he told VOA. "That becomes, then, the text of the subtext or the background story."
But this group's interests extend far beyond China, analysts say.
"This is certainly not a Contain China club," said Kathryn Paik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The primary objectives of the Quad have focused on health, on delivering infrastructure needs, on enhancing countries' ability to monitor their maritime domains and their maritime resources, and on people-to-people ties between these countries."
VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
