The United States, Australia, India and Japan, a group known as Quad, on Saturday pledged to uphold peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and "oppose unilateral actions seeking change in status quo by force", they said in a statement.
They also expressed a "serious concern at the militarisation of disputed features, efforts to disrupt other countries' offshore resource exploitation activities", the statement added.
(Reporting by David Dolan and Sakura Murakami; Writing by Katya Golubkova)