The foreign ministers of Australia, the United States, Japan and India have announced steps to strengthen naval communications, denouncing what they say are “distortions” of long-standing rules in the Indo-Pacific region.
The four men met in Tokyo and said they wanted to address the issue by linking up naval communications centers to enforce border and fishing regulations in key areas.
In a further joint statement, they said the four countries had serious concerns about the situation in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
“We continue to have serious concerns about the militarization of contested terrain and coercive and threatening operations in the South China Sea,” they said.
“We also express serious concerns about the unsafe use of Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels, the increased use of a variety of risky manoeuvres, and efforts to interfere with the maritime resource development activities of other countries.”
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been on a busy diplomatic tour of Asia in the past few days, culminating on Monday with a “Quadruple” meeting with her counterparts from India, Japan and the United States.
The four ministers later met with the press, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken singled out North Korea's “destabilizing and unlawful missile launches” and Russia's “ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine” as particular concerns in the region.
Senator Wong said in the area, “old rules are being bent, distorted and broken.”
“Countries face coercive trade measures, unsustainable lending, political interference and disinformation,” she said.
“From building cybersecurity capabilities to combating illegal fishing, Quad partners are expanding cooperation and leveraging our comparative advantages for good.”
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, whose speech was broadcast live, said the future was becoming more unpredictable because of Russia's aggression in Ukraine and the actions of China and North Korea.
The four-nation meeting focused on maritime and submarine cable communications for the military, public and private sectors.
India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said an open wireless access network centre is being developed in Palau, Micronesia, and that the naval intelligence centre is being linked to it.
“I appreciate how broad an agenda we have built over the past few years,” he said of the four-nation agreement.
Mr. Jaishankar cited telecommunications and submarine cable technology, humanitarian and disaster relief, critical emerging technologies, cyber and health, climate change response, infrastructure and training, maritime order and counter-terrorism activities as key outcomes of the agreement.
“This is not a talk shop, it’s a platform that produces real results.”
In November, several divers from HMAS Toowoomba were injured by sonar pulses emitted by a Chinese warship in international waters near Japan, which was embroiled in a territorial dispute with China at the time.
In May, the Australian government accused Chinese fighter jets of dropping flares dangerously close to Australian helicopters in the Yellow Sea off the coast of South Korea.
The countries announced funding and an integrated centre for training, development and maintenance of submarine cables in the region. Australia will invest $18 million, and the joint venture will be under the Department of Foreign Affairs.
