Eyeing China, Biden seeks a free & open Indo-Pacific with Quad allies

President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India, and Japan promised Friday to work together for a stable, open, and democratic Indo-Pacific in a veiled dig at China during their first in-person summit together. In Biden's latest effort to cement US leadership in the face of a rising China, the so-called Quad agreed to move ahead on a joint plan to provide Covid-19 vaccines around Asia, launched a new climate initiative and said the four nations would begin holding annual summits. Without any explicit mention of China, the leaders of the four democracies in a joint statement said they…