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The Quad remains a “vital framework”, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said, responding to concerns that the four-nation grouping had mislaid its relevance, and indicated successful an interrogation that ‘Cooperation implicit Critical Minerals’ needed for greenish vigor and hi-tech would beryllium astatine the apical of the docket for the Quadrilateral Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (FMM) connected Tuesday (May 25, 2026). Japan is moving connected captious minerals’ projects successful India, Mr. Motegi besides said, but called for improved infrastructure, much taxation subsidies, and extortion for intelligence spot rights.
The Quad meeting, which volition beryllium hosted by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and volition see Mr. Motegi, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, is expected to instrumentality banal of the struggle successful Iran, the Hormuz Strait blockade, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s sojourn this period to China, arsenic good arsenic acceptable the docket for the Quad Summit that has not taken spot since 2024 amidst India-U.S. tensions connected a fig of issues.
Although the Quad FMs met doubly successful 2025, mounting a caller agenda, the Quad grouping finds small oregon nary notation successful caller strategical documents issued by the American, Australian and Japanese governments. The U.S.’s National Security Strategy, released successful November 2025, says the U.S. would “encourage New Delhi to lend to Indo-Pacific security”, including done the Quad, but did not item its plans for the grouping immoderate further. On May 2, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced Japan’s ‘Updated Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ argumentation during a sojourn to Hanoi, a papers that mentions the Quad conscionable once, successful the discourse of the captious minerals initiative.
“The Quad remains a captious model among countries that stock cardinal values and strategical interests. It has delivered factual results crossed a wide scope of areas, including maritime security, economical security, and cybersecurity,” Mr. Motegi said, successful written responses to questions from The Hindu up of the FMM, but side-stepped queries connected wherefore the mechanics finds small notation successful the strategy documents.
He declined to respond to a circumstantial question connected whether the U.S.’s torpedoing of the Iranian vessel IRIS Dena successful the Indian Ocean connected March 4, 2026 would beryllium raised by chap Quad members, fixed their docket of ensuring a bid and stableness successful the Indo-Pacific region. Mr. Motegi said the gathering would sermon “regional and planetary situations” and nonstop “an unwavering connection that the Quad volition proceed to robustly beforehand applicable practice toward the realization of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)”.
In April, Ms. Takaichi had besides projected a ‘Partnership On Wide Energy and Resources Resilience (POWERR Asia)’, attended virtually by Mr. Jaishankar, that volition coordinate connected oil, state and renewables procurement, financing and retention mechanisms to woody with the vigor situation arsenic a effect of the Iran conflict.
“The countries astir affected by disruptions successful the proviso of vigor and resources passing done the Strait of Hormuz are those successful Asia, and these impacts widen to each countries intimately connected done proviso chains,” Mr. Motegi told The Hindu.
Mr. Motegi said that during Tuesday’s gathering helium looks guardant to “deepen factual practice gathering connected the Critical Minerals Initiative, portion sharing a imaginativeness toward a fair, diversified captious minerals market”.
“Amid the progressively challenging planetary concern we present face, diversifying sources of procurement and ensuring the unchangeable proviso of captious minerals person go ever much captious issues,” the Japanese Foreign Minister explained. The absorption connected captious minerals signals concerns implicit China’s ascendant presumption connected the uncommon world markets, wherever it holds monolithic reserves, processes astir 90% of the minerals, and often restricts exports to assorted countries.
Japan and India had besides launched a abstracted bilateral concern connected captious minerals during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sojourn to Tokyo successful August 2025. Japan has worked connected uncommon world refining operations successful India since 2010s, and that determination is “strong interest” from Japanese companies successful the semiconductor sector, Mr. Motegi said. However, helium said it remains “crucial” the Indian authorities takes measures for the “protection of intelligence spot rights and commercialized secrets, enlargement of the standard and scope of subsidies, and betterment of infrastructure”, successful bid to instrumentality these concern initiatives forward. Reaffirming Japanese FOIP plans for infrastructure projects successful Bangladesh and northeast India, Mr. Motegi said Japan had confirmed with recently-elected Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman that it would proceed enactment connected the improvement of the Matarbari deep-sea port, and beforehand connectivity to northeast India, Bhutan, and Nepal.
