FOREIGN ministers of the anti-China “Quad” alliance met in New Delhi today pledging to share intelligence, build port infrastructure for naval co-operation in the Indo-Pacific and jointly invest in mining and processing critical minerals.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio elaborately billed the four-country bloc of the US, India, Australia and Japan “a linchpin in a cornerstone of our global strategy as a nation.”

It announced its first joint regional infrastructure project, upgrading port infrastructure in Fiji. The US National Security Strategy published last November listed giving the “US military greater access to … ports and other facilities” across the Pacific and Indian oceans as a priority.

The US is also seeking to wean itself off dependence on China for critical minerals, with China dominating not just the extraction but the processing of 19 of the 20 most used industrial minerals including graphite, gallium and cobalt. China has placed additional controls on the export of many minerals since 2025 in response to US tariffs.

Asked about the Quad summit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said “we do not support forming exclusive small groupings or bloc confrontation.”

Chinese think tank the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative reported yesterday that there had been a marked increase in naval showboating by non-Asian countries along its coasts and through the Taiwan strait since 2024.

While these “freedom of navigation” demonstrations of Western military might were previously mainly conducted by the United States, it said, the navies of Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand were now also at it.