President Joe Biden is convening the leaders of Australia, India and Japan for a Quad summit in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, this weekend, aiming to put a final stamp on an alliance he hopes will endure beyond his presidency.

The current partnership is set to enter a new era as half of its leaders — Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida — will soon leave office. With an eye toward burnishing his foreign policy legacy, the president is turning to alliances like the Quad – which also includes Australia and India – to make a final diplomatic push to counterbalance China’s rising influence as he prepares to hand off to a new administration.

The deliverables are expected to include the first-ever joint Coast Guard exercise between the Quad countries, an expansion of an initiative aimed in part at monitoring illegal fishing and collaboration to help reduce cervical cancer rates in the Indo-Pacific, senior administration officials said.

“Welcome to the border of Wilmington, Delaware. I’m really pleased that you were able to be in my home, and, and see where I grew up,” Biden said during opening remarks of the summit.

Biden emphasized the importance of “democracy” while also saying that the Quad is “here to stay.”

“We’re democracies. Democracies, who know how to get things done,” Biden said. “While challenges will come, the world will change, because the Quad is here to stay, I believe. Here to stay.”

Biden was later caught in a hot mic moment Saturday in which he can be heard saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping was looking to “buy himself some diplomatic space.”

“We believe Xi Jinping is looking to focus on domestic economic challenges and minimize the turbulence in China diplomatic relationships. And he’s also looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interest,” Biden can be heard saying.

“China continues to behave aggressively, testing this all across the region, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits,” the president continued.

CNN reached out to the National Security Council, which said it is not commenting on the contents of the president’s hot mic moment.

While National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan insisted earlier Saturday during a briefing with reporters that “China is not the focus of the Quad” – it’s clear from White House readouts of the president’s meetings with the other world leaders that China’s increasingly aggressive tactics in the South China Sea will play prominently in the weekend’s summit.

Next steps for a key pillar of Biden’s strategy

Even as officials express confidence in the staying power of the Quad grouping, the question of whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump will lead the next administration, and what approach they will take to alliances and China, could loom large over the weekend gathering as the four leaders map out next steps in their agenda.

“We are, of course, four leading democracies, and political change is baked into the cake,” a senior administration official previewing the summit said. “We believe that the Quad has buy in across our systems and at all levels of government.”

The Quad, which Biden elevated to the leader level at the start of his term, has been a key pillar of his strategy in the Indo-Pacific. China and its aggressive moves in the South-China Sea is expected to feature high on the agenda when the leaders meet on Saturday, US officials said.

National security communications adviser John Kirby on Wednesday said he anticipates the leaders will discuss the “challenges that still exist in the region caused by aggressive PRC military action, for instance; unfair trade practices; tensions over the Taiwan Strait.”

The senior administration official said the leaders’ joint statement will include “some of the strongest language the Quad has ever produced, particularly on the South China Sea and North Korea.”

The leaders are set to announce a series of deliverables, including the first-ever joint Coast Guard exercise between the four countries, senior administration officials said. A US Coast Guard vessel will first take the lead, hosting counterparts from the Australian, Japanese and Indian coast guards on their ship for a period of time. Each country plans to do the same on a rotational basis.

A senior administration official said China should not view the move as a “red flag,” arguing the Coast Guard mission “is focused on reinforcing peace and stability and the continuity of international law in the region.”

The leaders will announce an expansion of the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness, which helps countries monitor illegal fishing and other unlawful activities in their waters, to the Indian Ocean and provide partners with more sophisticated technology and training.

They will also launch a logistics network to allow the US military to share cargo space on aircraft and vessels to be used in humanitarian assistance or disaster relief operations. The partnership also will roll out new Open Radio Access Network pilot projects in the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia.

The president will promote the launch of a bipartisan Quad Caucus in the House and Senate to tout US commitment to the partnership, which Trump’s administration had also focused on at the foreign ministerial level.

But the most personal announcement for the president will focus on new joint efforts to fight cancer. The Quad leaders will launch a new partnership aimed at reducing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific, a global extension of the president’s signature “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, a US official said.

This is expected to include efforts to provide more cervical cancer screenings in the region and increase vaccinations for human papillomavirus or HPV, a main cause for cervical cancer.

The Cancer Moonshot is among the president’s most personal White House initiatives. The program, which works to end cancer, launched when Biden was vice president following the death of his son Beau from brain cancer. It received a boost in funding in 2022, aimed at ramping up cutting-edge cancer research.

The move comes as the president is looking to put a personal touch on his final gathering with Kishida, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sit-downs with foreign leaders

The president welcomed the leaders to Wilmington, located about 100 miles north of Washington, DC, and home to about 71,000 people. India was initially set to host the Quad summit this year but agreed to swap duties as Biden’s time in office dwindled down. The leaders are meeting ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York City next week.

Over the course of two days, Biden will host each of the leaders for personal meetings at his private home where he often decamps on the weekends. The president met with Albanese on Friday and is following that with similar sit-downs with Kishida and Modi on Saturday.

Those one-on-one discussions are expected to be closed to press, a break from the approach to most of the president’s bilateral meetings where reporters typically have an opportunity to witness at least a limited portion of the event.

The main Quad gathering will take place at Archmere Academy, the private Catholic school Biden attended in Claymont, Delaware. This will include a leaders-level meeting, the Cancer Moonshot event and a private dinner.

The president stopped by Archmere on Friday evening to greet members of the school’s football team, which Biden was a part of during his own high school years. When a student asked what it’s like being president, Biden said, “It’s a little bit like being class president. No, I’m joking.”

Several US presidents have used their own homes to foster personal relationships with world leaders. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan hosted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at his ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains in California.

Plans for horse riding, a mutually loved hobby, were scrapped due to rain on the day of the visit, but the royals and Reagans spent time together over a Mexican-style lunch featuring enchiladas and tacos.

President George W. Bush twice hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin at his family homes — once at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in 2001 and again in 2007 at Walker’s Point, the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. At that meeting, the two leaders — along with former President George H.W. Bush — went fishing on the sidelines of talks about missile defense systems.

Trump invited several world leaders to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, while in office. A visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which featured a day of golf, turned into a real-time diplomatic strategy session as the two leaders received word of an unexpected missile launch by North Korea in the middle of dinner at the private club.

The two — with the help of light from aides’ cell phones — pored over documents on a dimly lit patio together in plain sight of the club’s members and guests.

As Biden turns to his own hometown diplomacy this weekend, Kirby said he’s focused on “showing them a place and a community that shaped so much of the public servant and the leader that he became.”

He added, “It’s also a reflection of his belief that, like politics, foreign policy is also personal.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.