Although an official agenda is not released yet, the meeting aims to bolster efforts to ensure a “free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific,” Reuters quoted State Department Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott as saying.
“This is what American leadership looks like, strength, peace and prosperity,” Pigott told a regular news briefing on Thursday, June 27.
The quad is a diplomatic partnership between the US, India, Japan, and Australia working together to ensure stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific, especially concerning the long-disputed South China Sea where China is increasingly advancing its claim over the region. According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, the group first came together during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to coordinate response and assistance to affected countries.
The foreign ministers’ meeting is also expected to lay the groundwork for the upcoming Quad Summit that India will host later this year.
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The South China Sea has long been a source of tension between China and the Philippines, with the two countries making overlapping claims over a series of reefs and small islands in the area.
The Trump administration signaled the importance of the issue as the last gathering of Quad foreign ministers on January 21 in Washington marked Trump’s first major foreign policy engagement, held just a day after he was sworn in for his second presidential term.
The group declared strong opposition to “any unilateral actions” that seek to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific region and reaffirmed commitment to upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the region.
“Our four nations maintain our conviction that international law, economic opportunity, peace, stability, and security in all domains including the maritime domain underpin the development and prosperity of the peoples of the Indo-Pacific,” the group said in a joint statement.
Months later, China declared its sovereignty over an uninhabited reef in the South China Sea known as Sandy Cay in April 2025. Chinese state media CCTV said China’s coast guard “implemented maritime control and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” in the region.
