Australia to harness Quad capabilities to boost Indo-Pacific supply chain: Scott Morrison

On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated that his country is striving to harness the capabilities of Quad members in an attempt to improve the resilience of Indo-Pacific supply chains and build an open, accessible, and secure technology ecosystem. Speaking at Sydney Dialogue for "Deepening technology Partnership among Quad countries," he said that Australia is working within the Quad to strengthen critical infrastructure resilience against cyber threats, benchmarking against best practices around the world. "Our time of rapid technological change is no different. It corresponds with major global challenges, ranging from the immediate threats posed by COVID-19 and related economic disruption to climate change and geostrategic competition," he added as reported by ANI.

He stressed that technology aids in a better capacity to influence the norms and values that will shape technological growth in the years ahead. He went on to say that technology is at the centre of how the countries are responding to all of these concerns now. The obvious fact is that technologically advanced countries have more economic, political, and military power, he claimed. The Australian Prime Minister stated that India and Australia have a lot in common in terms of technology and that the two nations are already cooperating on cyber security, critical and emerging technologies, critical minerals, and the digital economy.

Morrison to speak at Bengaluru Tech Summit

Furthermore, Morrison announced that he will speak at India's largest technology Summit, the Bengaluru Tech Summit, on Wednesday and will discuss some of the complementary projects with India. "At September's first in-person Quad Leaders Meeting in Washington DC, we agreed to strengthen lines of effort across a number of very important areas, including, Technical standards, 5G deployment and diversification and detailed horizon scanning and mapping, he was quoted as saying by ANI. He added that the leaders also discussed supply chain security for semiconductors and their critical components, as well as ways to collaborate on new biotechnologies.

It is worth mentioning here that after a virtual summit earlier this year, the first-ever in-person Quad Leaders' Summit was held on September 24 in Washington after the United Nations General Assembly session. The heads of all four Quad countries (Indian, US, Australia, Japan) participated in the Summit which saw discussions on several world issues. The Summit was majorly focused on the diplomatic, economic, and human rights policies in Afghanistan followed by an extensive discussion on the Indo-Pacific region.

(With ANI inputs)

Image: AP