The partnership is a key component in the U.S. strategy to counter communist China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
WASHINGTON—Newly sworn-in U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent his first day on the job engaging with his peers from Australia, India, and Japan—a grouping of four that share concerns about the growing challenges from communist China.
The partnership, known as the Quad or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, has been around for nearly two decades. It has played an increasingly visible role in countering Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region, pushing back on the regime’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and pledging to advance cybersecurity cooperation to secure critical infrastructure and supply chains.
The three countries’ foreign ministers, who Rubio met separately, met over the weekend before attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressed appreciation for her invitation to the inauguration ceremony.
“It’s a demonstration of the collective commitment of all countries to the Quad, an iron-clad commitment in this time where close cooperation in the Indo-Pacific is so important,” she said on Jan. 19.
Rubio, who the Senate confirmed on Jan. 20 in a 99-0 vote, hosted the meeting shortly after greeting hundreds of State Department employees at the agency’s entrance hall.
He told them he wants the department to be “at the center of how America engages the world,” a “21st-century agency” that can move “at the speed of relevance.”
“Things are moving faster than ever,” he said, and the department needs to act quickly as it confronts challenges that have few precedents.
Rubio has been a vocal critic of Beijing as a longtime member of the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Intelligence.
At the Senate confirmation hearing, he called communist China “the most potent and dangerous, near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted,” warning that the regime will soon have a chokehold on “much of what matters to us on a daily basis—from our security to our health” if the United States doesn’t change course.