Quad leaders agree to invest more than $50 billion in Indo-Pacific infrastructure

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, US President Joe Biden, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese issued a joint statement on May 24 stating that the Quad will seek to extend more than $50 billion in infrastructure assistance and investment to the Indo-Pacific region over the next five years.

The leaders are “committed to working closely with partners and the region to drive public and private investment to bridge gaps,” according to a joint statement released after the second in-person Quad summit, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The $50 billion assistance will help achieve this goal.

The four nations also agreed to bring decades of skills and experience together to catalyze infrastructure delivery in the region while deepening cooperation on infrastructure, which is critical to driving productivity and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, at the ongoing second meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also known as QUAD summit. They also pledged to address debt concerns, which have been aggravated in many nations by the coronavirus outbreak.

The four presidents said during the QUAD summit that they are collaborating closely with experts, the region, and each other to combine their toolkits and knowledge to better connect the Indo-Pacific.

“We will deepen our collaboration and pursue complementary actions in identified areas, such as regional and digital connectivity, clean energy, and climate resilience, including disaster resilience in energy-related facilities that reflect the region’s priorities, including the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific,” the leaders said in a joint statement.

In an increasingly digital world with sophisticated cyber threats, the Quad leaders also recognized the urgent need for a collaborative strategy to improve cybersecurity. Under the Quad Cybersecurity Partnership, the Quad partners will coordinate capacity-building programs in the Indo-Pacific region and will launch the first-ever Quad Cybersecurity Day to help individual internet users in the four countries, the Indo-Pacific region, and beyond better protect themselves from cyber threats.

To realize the Quad’s vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, the leaders have committed to sharing threat information, identifying and evaluating potential risks in supply chains for digitally enabled products and services, and aligning baseline software security standards for government procurement, as well as leveraging their combined purchasing power to improve the broader software development ecosystem.

The QUAD welcomed the Prague Proposals on Telecommunications Supplier Diversity and agreed to improve interoperability and security by signing a new Memorandum of Cooperation on 5G Supplier Diversification and Open RAN. They also agreed to increase industry engagement, notably through Open RAN Track 1.5 events, and to look into methods to collaborate on the deployment of open and secure telecommunications technology in the region.

The Tokyo summit is the Quad Leaders’ fourth meeting, following their first virtual meeting in March 2021, in-person Summit in September 2021, and virtual meeting in March 2022. The first-ever in-person Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or QUAD summit, in Washington, DC, included not-so-subtle undertones to China. The QUAD countries have consistently called for a “free open, rules-based order, established in international law and unafraid of coercion, to bolster security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”

On the sidelines of the event, PM Modi held bilateral discussions with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Australia’s freshly elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.