Biden Meets With Leaders of Indo-Pacific Democracies in ‘Quad’ Summit

President Joe Biden met virtually with leaders from Australia, India and Japan on Friday in the first meeting of heads of state from the “Quad,” an informal grouping of Indo-Pacific democracies. At the meeting, the four countries launched an effort to tackle Southeast Asia’s COVID-19 vaccine shortage, agreed to cooperate on technological development and discussed “aggression” from China. Biden and the other leaders—Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga—published an op-ed in the Washington Post on Saturday discussing the meeting and committing themselves to “an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, secure and prosperous.” Coverage followed similar narratives across bias ratings. Some coverage from across the spectrum focused specifically on the op-ed, the vaccine agreement, or the Quad's relationship to growing Chinese influence in the region.