US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met counterparts from Japan, Australia and India on Monday, with the group expected to issue a joint statement calling for a "free and open" Pacific in a rebuke to China.
While not naming it directly, the call from Blinken and the foreign ministers of the so-called Quad grouping will be seen as a clear reference to Beijing in the wake of a series of confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea.
