Secretary Antony J. Blinken And Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and Japanese Foreign Minister Kamikawa Yoko Before a Quad Ministerial Meeting

FOREIGN MINISTER KAMIKAWA:  (Via interpreter) Good morning.  It is scorching hot in Tokyo following yesterday, but thank you for coming all the way to Japan.  May I express my heartfelt welcome to Minister Wong, Minister Jaishankar, and Secretary Blinken to Japan.  It is so gratifying to host the Japan, Australia, and U.S. foreign ministers meeting here in Tokyo after almost four years.  As the existing international order is facing challenges, the cooperation of the four countries of Japan, Australia, India, and the U.S. – who share their values such as freedom and democracy, to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific based on the rule of law – is becoming increasingly important.

The prosperity of the region can only be ensured if the foundation of such regional prosperity, so to say, is stable, including the stability of maritime, cyber, and space.  However, in these days, the deterioration of the situation in one region could lead to the destabilization of global maritime traffic, or a disruption of a critical infrastructure in one country due to a cyber attack may cause adverse impacts on other countries.  And it is an era in which risks in certain regions could easily spill over into other regions.  Under this backdrop, by the provision of systems and trainings for maritime security or by the assistance for capacity building to ensure cyber security, the aim is to defend the foundation of the regional prosperity and advance the region, and to realize an international community of coexistence and coprosperity.

That is what we, the Quad, is about.  Together with the foreign ministers and Secretary of like-minded countries today, my friend, the three countries, I wish to engage in strategic discussions and consider cooperation that will genuinely benefit the region.

May I invite Minister Wong, Minister Jaishankar, and Secretary Blinken in that order, please?

FOREIGN MINISTER WONG:  Minister Kamikawa, thank you for hosting us today, and greetings to our friends from India and the United States.  It’s a great pleasure to be back here in Japan, Minister, for the second time in a fortnight.  It’s just over two years since I accompanied Prime Minister Albanese to Tokyo for the 2022 Quad Leaders’ Summit.  It was on the same day I was sworn in as Australia’s foreign minister I came to Tokyo for the Quad, which demonstrates the importance we place on this forum.  And since then, Australia’s belief in the strategic necessity of the Quad has only strengthened.

Colleagues, we all know our region and our world are being reshaped.  We all understand we face the most confronting circumstances in our region in decades.  And the work through this group, through the Quad, reflects our collective determination to work more closely than ever with each other and with key partners to shape this period of change together, to shape the sort of region we want to live in.  And we have listened and we’ve heard what our region wants: a region that is peaceful, that is predictable, that is governed by accepted rules and norms where all of us can go cooperate, can trade, and thrive; a region where sovereignty is respected and competition is managed responsibly, where size and power do not determine a country’s fate, and where no country dominates and no country is dominated, where we can all pursue our own aspirations and have choices available to realize those.

Over the last two years, we have seen the Quad’s commitment to this vision of the Indo-Pacific, and I’ve seen us deliver for our region.  I was in Papua New Guinea last month, where our coordinated efforts are helping the people of Enga in the – as they recover from a catastrophic landslide.  We work together in the maritime domain, sharing crucial maritime data with regional partners to help combat illegal fishing and respond to climate-related and humanitarian events.  We welcome those efforts being extended to the Indian Ocean region soon.

Colleagues, when these four countries work together – Australia, India, Japan, and the United States – we are a more effective partner for the region.  And as I said at the East Asia Summit just a few days ago, we all cherish the region’s peace, stability, and prosperity.  And we all know it is not a given.  We all know cannot take it for granted and that we have a responsibility to work together to preserve it and strengthen it.  And I very much look forward to our discussions today.

MINISTER JAISHANKAR:  Dear colleagues, it’s very good to meet again here in Tokyo.  Our last Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting was 10 months ago in New York.  In that period, we have met each other bilaterally or on the sidelines of other events.  Our systems, however, led by our sherpas, have been continuously interacting.  So there is much today to talk about, to agree on, and to plan ahead.

These are not easy times.  A major challenge is to ensure global economic growth while also de-risking it.  Supply chains are a particular focus for resilience, just as we push for trusted and transparent digital partnerships.  The march of technology has also acquired extraordinary proportions, holding possibilities of the very manner in which we live, think, and act.  In essence, we are in the midst of a re-globalization.  At the same time, it is only our collective endeavors that can proof the international system against disruptions manmade or natural.  But we have significant additional responsibilities as well.  As political democracies, pluralistic societies, and market economies, there is the key question of upholding a rules-based order.  It is only our collaboration that can ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free, remains open, stable, secure, and prosperous.

The commitment to doing global good that we have all undertaken has a resonance far beyond this region.  It is therefore essential that our political understanding strengthens, our economic partnerships grow, our technology collaborations expand, and our people-to-people comfort intensifies.  Our meeting should send a clear message that the Quad is here to stay, here to do, and here to grow.  Thank you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Colleagues, friends, it’s wonderful as always to be with you and particularly to be with you in this grouping, in this format.  For the United States, it’s simple.  The Indo-Pacific remains the most dynamic and also rapidly evolving region in the world, but one of tremendous immediate but also future opportunity.  And we know that we can maximize that opportunity, we can maximize the good that we’re able to deliver – for our people in our countries but also throughout the region – by working together, by pooling our resources, our ideas, and actually demonstrating results, and that’s really what the Quad is all about.

Now, we have conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, South Sudan – they get a lot of attention understandably.  They get attention from us, they get attention in the media, but even as we’re doing what we need to do, what we must, to try to bring these conflicts to an end and to try to protect people, we have not lost sight – indeed, we’re resolutely focused – on this region that we share.  This is my 18th trip to the Indo-Pacific in three and a half years as Secretary of State, 6th to Japan.  That’s simply one marker of the importance that my government and my country attaches to the work that we’re doing.  And it’s vital that we keep that focus, and we will.

But even more than keeping the focus, we have to demonstrate that, together, we can deliver practical real results, and that’s really what the Quad stands for.  It’s an affirmative vision of this free, open, prosperous Indo-Pacific, a vision that is informed by listening first and foremost – listening to regional priorities, listening to what all of our partners are looking for and need in their lives to make those lives better and to really seize opportunities.  Many of us were participating in the EAS, the ARF, and this helps inform where we should focus our efforts to deliver on objectives that actually complement and advance the priorities that the region has.  I’m really grateful to ASEAN for its leadership in the region, and we will continue to support its efforts.

Across these regional forums, the aspirations of Indo-Pacific communities are pretty clear, and I think all of my colleagues described them beautifully and eloquently.  But we want a region that is free, open, prosperous, connected, resilient, in which people can go about their lives freely, in which countries can choose with whom to associate, and in which security is preserved not, in a sense, as an end in itself but in order to enable everyone to go about their lives and to try to better their lives in peace.  So we will have discussions this morning pursuing the work that our leaders have done, and this has been a hallmark of the last three and a half years.  These conversations that are happening at our level – and more important, at the leaders level – they’re hugely important.

But what’s even more important is the work that’s getting done every single day in between these conversations.  As I like to say, one day’s important – the 364 days that follow are where we really determine whether we’re making good on these commitments.  So I look forward to hearing about, again, the work that our teams have been doing, but also going forward, the focus that we’re going to bring over the coming months to the work of the Quad to demonstrate that it is value added for people in our countries and throughout this region.  Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER KAMIKAWA:  (Via interpreter) Thank you very much.