The bilateral virtual summit held on 21 March — and the subsequent agreement on 2 April — marked a new phase in India–Australia relations, especially in the larger security and defence context. On 22 March, Australia committed to a landmark investment package worth $280 million with India to further grow the bilateral economic relationship and support jobs and businesses in both countries.
Military Partnership
Since the 2000s, dialogue partnerships between India and Australia have seen a new phase of engagement. The signing of several bilateral agreements — such as the Memorandum on Defence Cooperation in 2006 and the Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation in 2009 — culminated in the binding 2020 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Regular defence engagements range from frequent prime ministerial visits to tri-service staff-level military dialogues, indicating political will for a future military partnership.
Militarily, in addition to the multilateral maritime Exercise Malabar, both countries participate in AUSINDEX, an exercise which ensures mutual interoperability. India and Australia have jointly taken part in 10 bilateral exercises and 17 multilateral exercises as of 2022, facilitated by the 2020 Mutual Logistics Support Agreement that enables reciprocal access to military bases — as exemplified by India’s recent deployment of P8 surveillance aircraft to Darwin.
There is also institutional crossover between both countries, with Indian institutes training army personnel from Australia and vice versa. This remains significant in forging genuine friendships and trust for strategic partnerships. The recent summit also announced the establishment of the General Rawat India–Australia Young Defence Officer Exchange Programme. This will increase shared understanding of working culture and issues of strategic importance among military personnel.
Collaboration in defence-sector research and development is crucial — a joint working group between India’s Defence Research Development Organisation and Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Group has been in motion since 2018.
Increasing bilateral investment in the ongoing Australia–India Strategic Research Fund and the Australia–India Innovation and Technology Challenge is yet another positive development for defence, technological and commercial cooperation.
While India is focussing on defence manufacturing to better balance imports and domestic manufacturing needs, India’s modernisation demands will continue to outstrip domestic supply. This opens the scope for cooperation, with India expressing interest in Australian defence equipment — such as the Bushmaster and Hawkei armoured light mobility vehicles, radar technologies and undersea applications.
Economic Cooperation
On April 2, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and and his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison presided virtually over the signing of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement, negotiated in torturous detail over the last decade. The ECTA is expected to give a fillip to bilateral economic ties.
The INDAUS ECTA (India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement), reflects PM Modi’s vision of the essential unity of the two countries and of their future being as strong, steadfast and resilient as the mighty Indus. While the second phase of the agreement will be in place by the end of the year, the ECTA deal is apparently fully in compliance with WTO rules and Article 24 of GATT which, inter alia, allows countries to grant special treatment to one another by establishing a free-trade association, provided that “(1) duties and other trade restrictions would be eliminated on substantially all the trade among the participants, (2) the elimination of internal barriers occurred within a reasonable length of time….”
India–Australia cooperation on economic and strategic fronts can also be promoted by ‘polylateral’ actors — such as non-governmental organisations, academic institutions, businesses and think tanks. This includes cooperation between Indian and Australian private sectors and the incentivisation of multinational projects to engage Indian enterprises.
The deal with India removes tariffs on more than 85% of Australian goods exports to India, worth A$12.6 billion, rising to almost 91% over 10 years. Tariffs will be scrapped on sheep meat, wool, copper, coal, alumina, fresh Australian rock lobster, and some critical minerals and non-ferrous metals to India. It will see 96 per cent of Indian goods imports enter Australia duty-free.
The ECTA should give a boost to India’s labour-intensive manufacturing sector, with a considerable leg-up to the pharma, textile, gemstone and jewellery sectors. Indian students in Australia will find an easier pathway to employment, and there will be greater ease of visa for a range of skilled human capital from India in demand in Australia, including chefs and yoga instructors. No less important, Australian coal will probably get relatively unfettered access to India.
Quad and ECTA
Defence linkages seem to be a natural way forward, given the common threats both countries face in their maritime space. Apart from cooperation through the Quad and ASEAN frameworks, greater security cooperation in Indian Ocean littorals can be fostered through forums and partnerships such as the India Ocean Rim Association, the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, and the Australia–India Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative Partnership.
Critics are busy predicting the demise of the Quad because the central theatre of conflict has moved to Europe, and because of India’s perceived “neutrality” over the war in Ukraine, but the ECTA signals that India’s relations with Australia — two central pivots of the Quad — are as strong and resilient as ever.
Comments
The India–Australia relationship is not without its challenges. For example, the perception gap between India’s ‘strategic autonomy’ and Australia’s conceptualisation of national independence is a potential hurdle to deepening future security cooperation. The current trajectory of India’s foreign policy — especially in defence relations — is more focussed on issue-based partnerships than comprehensive relationships, limiting the scope of relationships with partners. What is clear is that the relationship has the backing of the leadership at the highest levels.
It is time for India–Australia cooperation to go beyond ‘cricket, commonwealth and curry’ to form a stronger relationship that transcends nascent cooperation initiatives. The potential for the recently-signed ECTA should be considered in this larger context. India–Australia friendhip is off to a good start, but it should never be solely reactionary to an ever-changing geopolitical landscape in the neighbourhood and beyond. Rather, it must continue in a self-sustaining manner.
Two multicultural, federal democracies that share concerns about stability in the Indo Pacific, are apprehensive about Chinese hegemonic designs, and are increasingly coordinating their policies, are natural partners of the future.
