The United States, Japan, India and Australia will establish a joint Indo-Pacific shipping surveillance system to better control illegal fishing and maritime militias.

The project is aimed at China, which experts believe is responsible for most of the illegal fishing activities in the region.

This is the most visible result of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) Summit in Tokyo.

Patrick Welter

Correspondent for business and politics in Japan based in Tokyo.

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With regard to the war in Ukraine, the heads of government of the four countries called for the integrity of the territorial integrity of states and for a peaceful solution.

However, they did not jointly condemn the aggressor Russia.

"It's only natural that there are cases where we don't completely agree," said Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, citing India's traditional ties with Russia.

The Quad Group is part of efforts by the United States and Japan to curb Chinese expansionism in the Indo-Pacific through institutionalized alliances.

The foursome was revived in 2017.

Since last year, the heads of government have met four times, both virtually and in person.

On the fringes of the meeting, US President Joe Biden denied the journalists' question as to whether the United States' "strategic ambiguity" on the Taiwan issue was dead.

What is meant by this is that America is keeping open how it would react in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

The day before, Biden had promised Taiwan military support in the event of an attack for the third time, but also stated that America's policy had not changed.

The maritime surveillance initiative aims to track down illegal fishing and smuggling and so-called maritime militias.

These include Chinese fishing boats, which act as a kind of coast guard to demonstrate Chinese territorial claims in the East and South China Seas.

With the initiative, the Quad wants to enable partner countries in the region to observe ships in their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones in a timely manner.

Satellite-supported and based on commercially available data, the system should also be able to track ships that have switched off their automatic position sensors.