US, India, Japan and Australia agree to billion-dose vaccine pact

US President Joe Biden (left) and Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, second left, attend a virtual Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) meeting with leaders of Japan, Australia and India in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C, U.S., on Friday, March 12, 2021. Biden and the other leaders of the Quad countries are meeting for the first time meant to project a common front in the face of China's tussles on the Himalayan border with India, crackdown in Hong Kong and trade reprisals against Australia. - Bloomberg

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters): The United States and three of its closest Indo-Pacific partners committed to supplying up to a billion coronavirus vaccine doses across Asia by the end of 2022 at a summit on Friday carefully choreographed to counter China's growing influence.

President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan - countries together known as the Quad - pledged at their first summit to work to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific and to cooperate on maritime, cyber and economic security, issues vital to the four democracies in the face of challenges from Beijing.