Ahead of the next round QUAD Leaders Summit which will take place in Tokyo, May 24, 2022, on Tuesday, Cambodia received the inaugural delivery of COVID-19 vaccines under QUAD Vaccines Initiative.

According to an official statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), a consignment of 325,000 doses of Made in India Covishield vaccines was handed over to the Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh. These vaccines have been gifted by India as part of Prime Minister Modi’s commitment to donate 500,000 vaccines to the Indo-Pacific under the QUAD initiative.

The doses were handed by the Ambassador of India to Cambodia, Ms Devyani Khobragade, along with representatives from the Embassies of Australia, Japan and USA to Cambodia. Last year in March when the QUAD leaders had met for the first time virtually, the QUAD Vaccine Partnership was announced. Under this initiative, the QUAD members have agreed to provide over 1.2 billion doses of Covid vaccines globally.

So far the countries have provided bilaterally and under COVAX more than five million doses to Cambodia. The countries have played an important role in providing the last mile delivery assistance to ensure that the vaccines are translated into vaccinations.

Cold storage equipment, freezers and temperature monitors along with equipment for safety of health care workers has been provided by Japan and Australia and the US has provided training to healthcare workers, contact tracing and data management.

Leaders Summit in May

All the leaders of the member nations including India, the US, Australia and Japan will be participating in the in-person meeting.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will be there.

The three countries – Japan, Australia and the US have imposed a wide range of sanctions on Russian leaders and entities. These countries have been urging other countries to unite against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

All the three-member countries have announced sanctions against Russia and in his bilateral in-person meeting with Prime Modi in New Delhi; the Japanese leader had urged him to intervene with the Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the ongoing aggression and killing of the civilians in Ukraine.

The meeting next month will come close on the heels of the bilateral virtual talks between the US President and Prime Minister Modi as well as the 2+2 Indo-US ministerial.

QUAD-Indo-Pacific Region

For the US, India is an essential partner within the QUAD in realising the shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. In view of the growing Chinese presence in the region, India along with other countries has been discussing the need for a free and open Indo-Pacific.

According to reports, Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea, which it claims belongs to it even as other countries including Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei claim parts of it.

As has been reported earlier, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan in his bilateral in-person meeting with PM Modi had asked him to intervene with the Russian President Putin to urgently put an end to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Expected Agenda

The focus of the meeting besides reviewing the progress made on the initiatives announced in the last Leaders summit in Washington DC, the main agenda would be the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the developments in the Middle East, fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine initiative.

Infrastructure and Connectivity projects

This is another major issue on the agenda of the meeting where all the member countries are expected to discuss joint connectivity projects and transparent infrastructure funding for countries in the region that are debt-ridden.