Quad raps China for SCS manoeuvres, backs Philippines

China expectedly loomed over the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Tokyo Monday as India, US, Australia and Japan expressed serious concern over Beijing’s “dangerous manoeuvres” in the South China Sea (SCS) and called for an Indo-Pacific in which no country dominates and no country is dominated.
In a first, India also joined others in upholding in a joint statement the 2016 arbitral tribunal award that refuted Beijing’s expansive claims over SCS waters in its maritime dispute with the Philippines as the basis for peacefully resolving such disputes.

Foreign minister S Jaishankar and his US, Australia and Japan counterparts - Antony Blinken, Penny Wong and Yoko Kamikawa respectively - called the award a significant milestone and.
India had for the first time last year, in a joint statement with the Philippines, unambiguously asked China to adhere to the legally binding tribunal award Beijing has always called null and void. Before that India had restricted itself to only calling for respecting the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), under which the tribunal was instituted.
As they reassembled in Tokyo after the recent China-Philippines tensions, the ministers said they’re determined to contribute to maintaining and developing the free and open maritime order consistent with UNCLOS in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, and for this purpose, to enhance collaboration with regional partners. They also announced initiatives to enhance regional maritime domain awareness in the Pacific through satellite data, training and capacity building. “In line with such efforts, we intend to geographically expand the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) to the Indian Ocean region,” said the joint statement.

The ministers also committed to soon having the 2024 Quad summit which PM Narendra Modi is now looking to host on the margins of the UNGA in New York in September, pending the availability of Japanese PM Fumio Kishida. Japan is yet to confirm because the date for ruling LDP election might clash with the General Assembly session, making it difficult for him to travel abroad.
In his opening remarks, while talking about the need for Quad to uphold