by Hindol Sengupta
India and Australia have just finished, in August, a major naval exercise in the waters near Perth in Australia. The two navies conducted this exercise complete with tactical manoeuvers, cross-landing of helicopters and a stream-past under the Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX).
The two countries raised the level of their strategic engagement to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2020, and in the same year the two countries signed a pathbreaking Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) which allows militaries of both countries to access each other’s military bases for logistics support. More recently, the two countries have also announced a historic trade deal, Economic and Cooperation Trade Agreement (ECTA), the biggest such deal signed by India in a decade with a major economy.
The latest naval exercises take forward Australia and India’s increasing cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and furthers India’s strategic commitment to SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) in the Indian Ocean region that defines its vision for maritime cooperation.
The two countries are expanding consistently the scope and depth of their relationship as the key regional pivot around which Indo-Pacific strategizing in constructed. India and Australia are both part of the Quad grouping which also includes the United States and Japan and seeks to counter hegemonistic policies in the Indian Ocean region and keep the region democratic and open-spirited.
This essay argues that this cooperation is advancing as steadily in strategic matters as it is in business and trade (which is more commented upon). The ECTA deal for instance is more of the most comprehensive trade deals that India has concluded and has particular significance because India has refused to join regional trade negotiations and initiatives led by China but has forged an independent path of securing bilateral deals which enable countries seeking to get a toehold into the Indo-Pacific to negotiate favourable terms with one of the fastest growing large economies in the world.
With the deep common concerns in the Indian Ocean region, Australia and India are in many ways becoming preferred partners of one another in negotiating rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, not least most recently between the United States and China on Taiwan. Their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership spoke of the two countries sharing, “… a vision of a free, open, inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific region to support the freedom of navigation, over-flight and peaceful and cooperative use of the seas by adherence of all nations to international law…”
India and Australia, as strong democracies, have an abiding interest in staring down authoritarian expansionism in the Indian Ocean region and the two countries are consistently deepening the scope of their cooperation – from military collaboration to strengthening education ties.
It helps that Indians are now perhaps the most influential and upwardly-mobile minority community in Australia, highly educated and engaged in society, in everything from politics to business. This highly engaged community provides further impetus to the deepening of ties including urging a commonality of strategic purpose.
Even the strength of the business ties, including the latest trade deal, which is to be ratified soon by both countries, draws from the power of the strategic commitment to build supply chain routes that are unimpeded and secure from authoritarian and revisionist policies.
The Australia-India relationship today is one of the most significant bilateral relationships in the world, often described in fraternal terms by politicians in both countries. Trade between the two countries is soaring and expected to near double from around $27 billion to $45 billion in the next five years.
But, as political and diplomatic leaders of both countries have noted, there is scope for much further growth. There is truth in that. The Indo-Pacific is only starting to churn and great action, in every sense, is awaited in this geography in the next two decades. And India and Australia can look forward to providing one of the most definitive relationships in the region.
In this growth strategic intent will be as critical as business acumen and opportunity as it is the strategic aspect that would create the right climate for doing business.
Hindol Sengupta is an award-winning historian and public policy practitioner. He is also the co-founder of Global Order.
