WASHINGTON -- The leaders of the U.S., Japan, India and Australia -- known as the Quad -- met in person for the first time Friday, signaling the prominence of the informal grouping of like-minded nations as the key and critical format for discussing Indo-Pacific issues.

This time, they launched a new working group on space to join the three existing frameworks on "vaccines," "climate," and "critical and emerging technology" that they announced when they met online in March.

The addition of space -- a domain seen critical to the future of warfare -- further spotlights the Quad's role as an instrument for meeting the challenges posed by China.

"We are four major democracies with a long history of cooperation. We know how to get things done. And we are up to the challenge," U.S. President Joe Biden said at the beginning of the meeting.

The White House summit marked a new chapter in Biden's foreign policy. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, the president said America was moving from a period of "relentless war" to a new era of "relentless diplomacy."

That Biden invited outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to attend, days before Suga's successor is chosen in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election on Sept. 29, shows how keen the American leader was to convene the Quad summit as soon as possible.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks during the Quad summit .   © AP

In a Sept. 1-17 Gallup poll taken after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden's approval rating was down 6 percentage points from August at 43% -- the lowest of his presidency. And for the first time, a majority, 53%, disapproved of his performance. A mid-September Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 49% of respondents had an unfavorable view of Biden, against 47% holding a negative opinion of predecessor Donald Trump.

With 13 months left to the midterm U.S. congressional elections of 2022, Biden's team wants foreign policy to focus on the Indo-Pacific, which a senior administration official described to reporters Thursday as an area where "the challenges of the 21st century will largely play out." These challenges will predominantly come from China, including in space.

In future conflicts, a single strike on the Global Positioning System could hobble the world's strongest military and erase the American warfighting advantage, given how heavily U.S. vessels, fighters, drones and missiles rely on GPS for positioning, navigation and timing.

In written congressional testimony from April, U.S. Space Command commander Gen. James Dickinson expressed concern about a Chinese satellite equipped with a robotic arm that could approach an enemy satellite to disable it.

"China also has multiple ground-based laser systems of varying power levels that could blind or damage satellite systems," he warned.

Japan, too, has turned its attention to space. In this year's Defense of Japan white paper, the Ministry of Defense added a special feature on "Challenges in the Space, Cyber and Electromagnetic Spectrum Domains."

"There is a growing risk that the functioning of satellites could be compromised due to the rapid increase in space debris and the development of anti-satellite weapons," it noted. "Thus, securing the stable use of space has become an important issue."

Earth as seen from the International Space Station. (Photo courtesy of NASA Johnson)

Other new programs for the Quad include a fellowship that will sponsor 100 students from India, Japan, Australia and the U.S. -- 25 from each Quad country -- to pursue master's or doctoral degrees at top American universities in areas related to science and technology. The senior Biden administration official described this as "a clear signal of the importance of these issues to all of our countries' futures."

There will be discussions on steps to bolster supply chain security, particularly for semiconductors, and collaboration on "open RAN" development for telecommunications.

The recent launch of AUKUS -- a security-focused alliance of Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. -- has pushed the Quad into nonsecurity fields.

The Quad "is not a regional security organization," the senior Biden administration official said, also stressing that it has no relation to AUKUS.

"It's important to underscore these are two completely separate initiatives," the official said. "They really have nothing to do with one another."

The emphasis on a nonsecurity angle is likely a nod to India, which has traditionally stuck with a policy of nonalignment. More recently, it has called the stance "strategic autonomy," under which it seeks to keep Indian decision-making insulated from external pressures.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the Quad summit. Is India the weak link of the Quad? China seems to think so.   © AP

But geopolitical consultant Rich Outzen, a retired U.S. military officer and State Department policy planner, said there will be calls to make the Quad more like the NATO military alliance.

"The U.S. needs a pooling of allies and partners to deal with China," Outzen said. "While the U.S. can defeat China in most parts of the world, the U.S. alone may not be able to win in China's periphery, including Taiwan."

"In the past, America's NATO allies such as Germany, U.K. and Turkey were indispensable in defending against Russia," he said. "Now they need a similar grouping for China."

Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said Beijing has tried to sow discord among Quad members or offset Quad influence through other partnerships with different countries.

Traditionally, China has seen Australia as the weak link of the Quad and has targeted the country for retaliation and punishment, Lin said. But now, "since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, China is increasingly viewing India as in a more vulnerable position and susceptible to its influence."

China has begun to suggest to India -- which needs to work with regional countries to stabilize the Afghan situation -- that Chinese cooperation on Afghanistan "will be dependent on India improving relations with China," Lin said. Beijing will use the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to which both China and India belong, for such collaboration, Lin suggested.

Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia at CSIS, said: "It is really interesting that the first Chinese move after the announcement of AUKUS and just before the Quad summit was China's request to New Zealand that it be allowed to join the CPTPP," or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, formerly the TPP.