Biden prepares to host historic ‘Quad’ summit at White House . . .

President Biden is preparing to host the first-ever in-person summit of leaders from the so-called Quad countries — the U.S., India, Japan and Australia — in a sign of growing momentum behind what began as a Trump-era push to rally Asia’s most powerful democracies into a more formal grouping to confront and contain communist China. The Sept. 24 White House summit dovetails with this week’s announcement of a U.S.-Australian-U.K. security pact that many see as a parallel effort to counter China. The administration’s embrace of the pact and promotion of the Quad underscores what analysts say is an accelerating U.S. shift in focus toward the Indo-Pacific region after decades of war and focus on terrorist groups in the Middle East and Afghanistan… (Excerpts from the Washington Times)