Beyond AUSINDEX: A defining moment for Australia-India relations
The AUSINDEX naval exercises that took place in early April were the culmination of gradually deepening engagement, particularly with regard to defence and security cooperation. The significance of the exercises that took place in the Bay of Bengal, which constituted the largest ever deployment of Australian defence personnel to India, should not be understated
It is important to consider how elections taking place in both countries will impact the progress that has been made in recent years. In recent years, much effort has been made to furnish the Australia-India relationship, a dwelling that has for too long been occasionally and fleetingly occupied but otherwise ignored. The bilateral would be more complete if the economic and cultural integration had progressed in parallel, but few would argue that progress has been made in recent years.
The AUSINDEX naval exercises that took place in early April were the culmination of gradually deepening engagement, particularly with regard to defence and security cooperation. The significance of the exercises that took place in the Bay of Bengal, which constituted the largest ever deployment of Australian defence personnel to India, should not be understated. The governments that emerge from the respective national elections in Australia and India will be gifted a bilateral in movement.
Australia’s Coalition Government made the Australia-India relationship a priority. A discursive adjustment was made to the nomenclature of Australia’s foreign policy priorities when it started to reference the Indo-Pacific. In its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, India was recognised as a priority of the ‘first order.’ The Quad concept was revisited in 2017 at the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manilla in 2017. In 2018, two-plus-two Foreign and Defence Secretaries’ Dialogue was held, and Australia would have been a willing participant in the recent Malabar exercises, had they been invited.
It is tempting to view the ebb and flow of progress through the prism of electoral cycles. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“the Quad”) was initiated in 2007, when Australia was governed by a Coalition of Liberal and National parties. In the same year, Australia was also invited to participate in the Malabar naval exercises as an observer. The Australian Labour Party (ALP), elected in late 2007, withdrew from the Quad, which many believed would compromise the new government’s relationship with Beijing, almost immediately. An election will be held in Australia on 18 May, and the ALP is leading in the polls. Does the bilateral again stand on undulating political ground?
Such a superficial analysis would perhaps ignore shifting domestic and international contexts, as well as the personalities of those influencing foreign policy. More than a decade has passed since 2007, when Australia participated in both the first meeting of the Quad and, as an observer, the Malabar naval exercises. During this period, the emergence of Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump has moderated Australia’s attitude to both the People’s Republic and the United States. The next Australian Government will likely hold a more nuanced outlook and balanced approach than any of its predecessors.
This changed approach started to emerge during the final months of the incumbent Coalition Government. Marise Payne, who replaced Julie Bishop as Foreign Minister in mid-2018, worked to improve Australia’s relationship with China, which had reached a porous state. Payne travelled to Beijing in November 2018, an act that had eluded her predecessor for well over two years. During the election campaign, new initiatives such as an annual ‘Festival of Australia’ and ‘National Foundation for Australia-China Relations’. Importantly, the renewal of one bilateral did not come at the expense of another, as evidenced by the AUSINDEX exercises.
If the ALP is elected on 18 May, this sensible, balanced approach is likely to continue. Australia’s relationship with India will be key to this balance, as will a renewed focus on ASEAN. Labour’s spokespersons for Foreign Affairs, Senator Penny Wong and for Defence, Richard Marles, have both expressed their support for the Quad. Intelligently, the Quad was not described through the prism of Australia’s relationship with China, but in
the context of its engagement with ASEAN. The Quad, they wrote in a co-authored opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review, “can play a similarly valuable and complimentary role…” and can “reinforce ASEAN’s central structures and institutions.”
ASEAN provides a nice framework through which both Canberra and Delhi can pursue the Quad arrangement in a way that is less optically problematic concerning their respective relationships with Beijing. Both countries are seeking appropriate responses to the rise of China, even if those responses are governed by different parameters. Both countries fear China but only India has memory of direct conflict in defence of its borders, in 1962. Both countries are seduced by China’s economic potential; only Australia is reliant on it. India has a substantial internal market; Australia does not.
If Prime Minister Narendra Modi is returned to power, he will likely continue to pursue a moderated, nuanced approach vis-à-vis China. The decision not to invite Australia to participate in the Malabar naval exercises, which took place prior to a summit between Modi and Xi, is an example of such moderation. A consciousness of Chinese sensitivities will nuance but not deter a deeper engagement for India in the Indo-Pacific.
A new approach is also emerging from the less sophisticated, zero-sum game thinking that informed Australia’s approach to international relations for over a decade. A more equivocal relationship with the United States, a more confident approach to China, and an outlook balanced with a commitment to deepening engagement with ASEAN and India will become apparent in the coming years. These developments may allow sufficient space to develop a more substantial relationship, which extends beyond security and towards a more complete cultural, economic and strategic engagement.