Biden triggers cancellation of ‘Quad’ summit to tackle Chinese aggression

President Joe Biden threw two summits into chaos on Tuesday with his plans to return to the United States immediately after the G7 meeting — a decision that led to Australia canceling a meeting of the Quad leaders.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Wednesday that he would cancel the meeting with the US, India and Japan because Biden cannot attend. The leaders of those four Quad nations would discuss ways to counter China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

Instead, the Quad leaders will try to meet on the sidelines of the G7 in Hiroshima as officials frantically negotiate a new schedule of events to accommodate Biden’s changing plans.

Albanese told reporters in Australia that the four leaders were trying to meet in Japan at the G7, which he would attend as a guest, as Australia is not a G7 member.

“At this stage, we don’t have time for that appointment,” he said on Wednesday. “This is a decision made overnight, our time, in the United States.”

Biden canceled the portion of his trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea to return to the United States to meet with congressional leaders about the debt crisis.

Those two stops were meant to reaffirm the US commitment to the Pacific as China’s political, military and economic power in the region increases.

The sinking of two of the three legs of a major overseas voyage is a foreign policy setback for Biden, who has focused heavily on the Pacific — and countering Chinese President Xi Jinping’s influence there.

In November, Biden met Xi at a G20 meeting in Bali, but tensions between Beijing and Washington have since risen.

There is talk of a call between Biden and Xi, but none have been scheduled as of yet.

The Biden administration is concerned about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s moves in the Indo-Pacific and relations between the two nations have deteriorated

Meanwhile, the US president tries to make up for his cancellation by offering the Aussies a state visit – a prestigious event the United States offers to its closest allies.

Albanese said Biden invited him to the US for a state visit later in the year. The two leaders spoke on the phone Tuesday, when Biden informed him of the change of plans.

President Biden stressed the importance of the Quad. He was obviously very disappointed with some of the actions of some members of Congress and in the US Senate,” he said.

“Obviously the domestic priority for the president is understandably to play a role in solving those problems.”

Biden was also scheduled to address a joint meeting of the Australian Parliament during his stop in Australia. He would have been the first US president to speak there since Barack Obama nine years ago.

The president would also make a stopover in Papua New Guinea on his way from Japan to Australia. The decision to cancel that visit also comes as a blow, as Biden would have been the first sitting US president to officially tour the country.

Biden is still scheduled to arrive in Hiroshima, Japan, on Thursday for a meeting with G7 leaders. The G7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In addition, Japan invited Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Australia, the Comoros (currently holding the presidency of the African Union) and the Cook Islands (currently chairing the Pacific Islands Forum) to the G7 meeting.

But the US debt crisis will be lurking during the trip. The United States has never defaulted on its debt. When that happens, the economic devastation could be felt around the world.

The Treasury Department reiterated on Monday that they still believe the day the nation runs out of money to pay its bills could be as early as June 1.

Biden met with the Big Four congressional leaders — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Harkin Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell — at the White House on Tuesday to try to move negotiations forward.

Crunch time: Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell met in the Oval Office with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris

In announcing the change in his travel plans, he said dealing with the debt limit was just too important.

“There was an overwhelming consensus, I think at today’s meeting with congressional leaders, that defaulting on debt just isn’t an option. Our economy would go into recession,” Biden said.

And the White House pointed out that Russia and China would like to see the US default.

“There are countries like Russia and China that would like nothing more than for us to default so they can point the finger and say, ‘You see, the United States is not a stable, reliable partner,’ spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday. to reporters.

Republicans have said they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to major cuts.

Biden will now have to spend much of his time at the G7 reassuring leaders that the United States is a reliable partner.

Kirby said Biden’s message would be that “the United States is a strong, reliable partner and he is working hard to raise the debt ceiling as he should because he understands its importance to our international reputation and our credibility and that they don’t have to worry about that part.’

China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region will also be a hot topic when leaders meet in Japan.

‘The PRC [People’s Republic of China] and managing that competition with them, as well as dealing with the full scope of the challenges that the PRC presents in the Indo-Pacific region, will definitely be on the agenda of the G7,” Kirby said.

“We’re not going to the Indo-Pacific this week to swing arm,” he noted. “We will talk with allies, partners, friends and neighbors about mutual challenges and opportunities in the region, and how we can take advantage of each other’s capabilities and the strong geographic presence that so many of these countries have.”

Although China is on the agenda, it is unclear whether G7 leaders will criticize Beijing in a public statement.

“There are countries like Russia and China that would like nothing more than for us to default so they can point the finger and say, ‘You see, the United States is not a stable, reliable partner,'” spokesman John Kirby said.

The war in Ukraine and support efforts there will also be discussed, as will climate change and Biden’s clean energy drive.

Biden will also hold side meetings at the G7, including with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The president will also visit the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima and meet survivors of the atomic bomb.

The White House declined to answer questions about whether Biden will apologize for the United States’ use of an atomic bomb on Japan during World War II.

“The president intends to visit the memorial and pay his respects to the innocents who died in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima,” Kirby said.

The Peace Memorial is the remains of the only building in Hiroshima to survive the nuclear blast.

Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016, but made no apology for the US attacks.

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. Collectively, the bombing killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. It remains the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.