Quad Ministers Pledge Cooperation On 'Coercion,' Climate, COVID

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — 

The United States, Australia, Japan and India on Friday pledged to deepen cooperation to ensure the Indo-Pacific region was free from “coercion,” a thinly veiled swipe at China’s growing economic and military expansion, as their top diplomats convened to also tackle climate change, COVID and other threats.

Foreign ministers of the so-called Quad, the informal grouping of the four countries, vowed to work on humanitarian relief, terrorism, cyber and maritime security and global supply chain challenges.

Despite being outside the group’s scope, an escalating crisis between the West and Russia over Ukraine was also a top agenda item, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken casting Moscow’s build-up as a challenge to the international rules-based order, which he said Quad would work to preserve.

“That includes championing the rights of all countries to choose their own path, free from coercion, and the right to have their sovereignty and territorial integrity respected. Whether that’s here in the Indo-Pacific, in Europe, or anywhere else in the world,” he said in his opening remarks of the meeting.

Blinken arrived in Australia this week as Washington grapples with a dangerous standoff with Moscow, which has massed some 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border and stoked Western fears of an invasion.

Russia denies it has such plans.

The Biden administration wants to show the world its long-term strategic focus remains in the Asia-Pacific and that a major foreign policy crisis in one part of the world does not distract it from key priorities.

Asked by reporters Friday if confrontation with China in the Indo-Pacific was inevitable, Blinken replied “nothing is inevitable.”

“Having said that, I think we share concerns that in recent years China has been acting more aggressively at home and more aggressively in the region,” he said.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the Quad’s cooperation on the region’s COVID response was “most critical,” with cyber and maritime security, infrastructure, climate action and disaster relief — especially after the recent Tonga volcanic eruption — also in focus.

New pledges are unlikely to be announced before a May summit of Quad leaders in Japan that President Joe Biden plans to attend.

Payne also said Ukraine, China and North Korea would also be discussed.

“More than one authoritarian regime is presenting itself in the current world climate as a challenge. DPRK (North Korea), China as well and they will be part of our discussions today. We strongly support U.S. leadership on these challenges,” she said before a bilateral meeting with Blinken.

Britain said the “most dangerous moment” in the West’s standoff with Moscow appeared imminent, as Russia held military exercises in Belarus and the Black Sea following the buildup of its forces near Ukraine.

The Quad nations have begun holding annual naval exercises across the Indo-Pacific to demonstrate interoperability, and the United States itself conducts freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea.

China has previously denounced the Quad as a Cold War construct and a clique “targeting other countries.”

Blinken’s trip comes after China and Russia declared last week a “no limits” strategic partnership, their most detailed and assertive statement to work together — and against the United States — to build a new international order based on their own interpretations of human rights and democracy.

U.S.-Chinese ties are at their lowest point in decades as the world’s top two economies disagree on issues ranging from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea and China’s treatment of ethnic Muslims.

Biden told Asian leaders in October the United States would launch talks on a new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. But few details have emerged and his administration has been reluctant to offer the increased market access Asian countries desire, seeing this as threatening American jobs.

Critics say the lack of U.S. economic engagement is a major weakness in Biden’s approach to the region, where China remains to be the top trading partner for many of the Indo-Pacific nations.

US, EU Pledge Closer Energy Cooperation amid Russian Threats

Washington — 

At their first meeting in four years, officials of the U.S.-European Union Energy Council confronted an urgent, short-term priority – bolstering natural gas supplies amid a Russian threat to invade Ukraine – and a longer-term concern: mitigating climate change.

“We’re coordinating with our allies and partners, with the energy sector stakeholders, including on how best to share energy reserves in the event that Russia turns off the spigot or initiates a conflict that disrupts the flow of gas through Ukraine,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken following Monday’s meeting in Washington.

Moscow has threatened to halt the flow of gas to Europe if economic sanctions are imposed as a result of any further Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“This crisis has been pushing trans-Atlantic unity,” according to Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

“In the medium term, there is the climate neutrality,” explained Borrell, who is also the vice president of the European Commission. “In the short term, it’s security of supplies of gas. Both things go together.”

Europe is likely to rely more on the United States for its gas supplies as a result of the crisis. President Joe Biden has pledged to help Europe find additional liquified natural gas from sources in the United States and other countries if Russia-Ukraine tensions cause disruptions.

“We think we can make up a significant portion of it that would be lost,” Biden said at a White House news conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday afternoon.

That is seen by some environmentalists as counter-productive to achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, something the United States and the European Union have pledged to work together to accomplish.

European officials “are not doing everything they need to be to get their addiction to gas ramped down as fast as possible. They’re really convinced that they need gas, and they see the U.S. as a supplier for that,” Aki Kachi, senior policy analyst at NewClimate Institute in Germany, told VOA News. “Generally, in both the EU and the U.S., there’s a lack of understanding about the climate impacts of gas.”

“Germany has decided to phase out the use of oil and gas very soon and by 2045 Germany will have a carbon-neutral economy as one of the strongest economies of the world,” Scholz told reporters at the White House. “It’ll probably be the biggest industrial modernization project in Germany in 100 years.”

The trans-Atlantic partnership has pledged to increase collaboration on reducing emissions from fossil fuels and expanding use of energy from the sun, wind, batteries and hydrogen.

“As we face geopolitical tensions and the challenge of climate change, we need more, not less, trans-Atlantic cooperation,” Kadri Simson, the European Commission’s energy commissioner, said at the meeting’s opening.

European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson speaks during a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles, at th

At the start of Monday’s discussion, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the goals set out in Washington and Brussels have significant geo-political ramifications at a time when energy prices have “gone through the roof” on both sides of the Atlantic amid the threats from Russia.

“This is not just an energy and climate issue,” Granholm told the meeting. “It also is potentially the greatest peace plan that ever existed, to be able to build out energy independence from clean energy.”

Together, the economies of the U.S. and the EU represent about 45% of the world’s economic output, and an even smaller percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions. That means for the world to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, the legally binding international treaty on climate change, other major emitters will need to make good on their ambitious pledges.

“If only the EU and the U.S. are taking action, it wouldn’t be enough,” Kachi noted. “But it’s not really the case because China and India and other countries are also major investors in renewables.”

Biden's High Court Pledge Shows Growing Power of Black Women

As he struggled to survive the 2020 Democratic primary, Joe Biden made a striking pledge before voting began in heavily African American, must-win South Carolina: His first Supreme Court appointment would be a Black woman.

On Thursday, with his poll numbers reaching new lows and his party panicking about the midterm elections, Biden turned again to the Democratic Party’s most steadfast voters and reiterated his vow to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer with the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

The striking promise is a reflection of Black women’s critical role in the Democratic Party and the growing influence of Black women in society. It’s also a recognition that Black women have been marginalized in American politics for centuries and the time has come to right the imbalance of a court made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries, a change Biden said Thursday is “long overdue.”

Black women are the most loyal Democrats — 93% of them voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.

And it’s Black women’s reliability as Democratic voters that makes it so important for the party to respond to their priorities and keep them in the fold, said Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University. “Democrats know Black women are going to turn out for them so they have everything to lose if they don’t do this.”

Black women turned out to vote for Biden in greater numbers than for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and they were vital in Biden’s wins in states like Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Overall, they made up 12% of Biden’s voters and reached even higher percentages in heavily African American states like Georgia, where they represented 35% of his support. In that state, which Biden won by just over 12,000 votes, he earned the backing of 95% of Black women.

Biden, in particular, owes Black voters, and especially women, a debt from the primaries. His campaign was on life support before South Carolina’s primary in late February 2020, when he secured the endorsement of Rep. James Clyburn, the kingmaker of the state’s Democratic political orbit, by pledging to select a Black woman for the Supreme Court.

“His campaign was struggling,” Clyburn recalled on Thursday, citing Biden’s three straight losses in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. “This was quite frankly do or die for him, and I urged him to come out publicly for putting an African American woman on the Supreme Court.”

Biden already made a fundamentally important statement about the importance of Black women in his coalition by selecting Kamala Harris as his vice president. But putting a Black woman on the court is another historic step. Republican Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 presidential campaign, vowed to put the first woman on the Supreme Court and nominated Justice Sandra Day O’Connor once in office.

But Biden’s pledge also responds to issues Black women care about, said Glynda Carr, president of Higher Heights For America PAC, which advocates for Black women in politics. “Black women are very in tune with knowing the court is important to our daily lives,” said Carr, citing big cases on voting rights and abortion.

The decision isn’t just a win for Black women but for all voters concerned with ensuring that government reflects the actual population, said Tom Bonier, a Democratic data analyst. As such, he said, it should rally Democrats of all races.

“To the extent that Biden, at this point, is suffering from lower approval ratings, part of his challenge is just reassembling his coalition and reminding those voters who sent him to the White House why that vote mattered,” Bonier said.

President Joe Biden will choose a replacement for Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. His choice could be among these women. (Click image to enlarge)

Biden’s early discussions about a successor to Breyer have focused on U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss White House deliberations.

Childs is a favorite of Clyburn. The House majority whip said Thursday that she had “everything I think it takes to be a great justice.”

The robust roster of Black women for the Supreme Court is a testament to their growing professional progress over the past few decades, experts say. Black women — like women of all races — have been increasingly likely to earn college degrees over the past two decades. Although they still lag in other crucial categories such as pay, the court seat is another milestone.

“We could not have imagined the sheer number of overqualified women a few decades ago,” Brown said.

The nomination of a Black woman is also significant for Black men, said Adrianne Shropshire of BlackPAC, a political organization that tries to elect more Black Democrats. That’s in part because the current sole African American on the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, is a conservative Republican whose decisions often go against the desires of the heavily Democratic Black community.

While Black men are not quite as Democratic as Black women, they still overwhelmingly back the party — 87% voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast.

Still, Shropshire warned, a Supreme Court appointment is only one step in ensuring Black voters are motivated in 2022 and beyond.

“For Black folks in the country, the thing that looms largest is, are their daily lives changed?” Shropshire said. “For the president — and the vice president — it is going to be more than this appointment.”

“I don’t think it’s helpful for people to say, ‘Well, the one thing we got is a nomination on the Supreme Court,'” Shropshire added.