Author: Rajesh Rajagopalan, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The annual Malabar naval train — which now entails all 4 Quad navies — concluded in August 2023. India resisted Australia’s participation for a number of years earlier than relenting in 2020. The newest train was even held in Australia, signifying the deepening of India–Australia safety ties.

Yet simply a few weeks prior, India refused an invite to affix the US–Australia Talisman Sabre army train, limiting its position to an observer in an obvious effort to keep away from upsetting China within the run-up to the G20 Summit in New Delhi. The contradiction in India’s strategy only a few weeks aside demonstrates the underlying uncertainty surrounding India–Australia safety ties.

Despite the ebbs and flows within the relationship, there’s little doubt that India–Australia ties have deepened during the last decade. Besides relenting on the Malabar train, India has additionally elevated its safety ties with Australia to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and signed a mutual logistics assist settlement.

Common issues concerning China are driving the 2 international locations nearer, way more so than financial or different elements. But India’s discomfort in the direction of safety partnerships usually and its contradictory overseas coverage imperatives make for halting progress — it wants partnerships to counter China with out worsening China–India ties and it wants ties to the West whereas additionally in search of to turn into a frontrunner of the Global South.

The most vital variable is the contradiction between India’s want to be an autonomous energy beholden to none and India’s relations with China — which continuously display the boundaries of this want. An amazing autonomous energy requires no safety partnerships, not solely as a result of it’s robust sufficient but additionally as a result of it has sufficiently steady relations with all powers. During the Cold War, India seemed down upon alliances with an ethical readability that was underlined by India’s relative dimension and safety.

With China’s rise, India has turn into extra open to safety partnerships, particularly as a result of Beijing often forces New Delhi to confront the fact of its relative weak point. It is at such occasions that India tends to deepen safety ties with Australia. For instance, India invited Australia to affix the Malabar train only a few months after critical clashes on the Sino–Indian border. Yet as soon as a disaster is contained, New Delhi’s curiosity in deepening its partnerships tends to falter.

New Delhi’s unique reluctance to deepen safety relations with Australia largely stemmed from issues that they is perhaps frowned upon by China. As with earlier governments, the preliminary intuition of the brand new Modi authorities in 2014 was to stabilise relations with China and give attention to financial and commerce points.

India joined the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and sought China’s assist to turn into a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). India was quickly disillusioned as Beijing not solely scuttled India’s NSG membership but additionally repeatedly stymied India’s efforts to place terrorists concentrating on India on the UN blacklist. In June 2017, China and India had a army confrontation at Doklam, close to the India–China–Bhutan trijunction. A number of months later, India joined Australia, Japan and the United States to revive the Quad.

Yet India remained unwilling to permit Australia to affix the Malabar Exercise regardless of it being a Quad associate and lobbying by Japan and the United States. While India and Australia performed bilateral army workouts and improved their ties, New Delhi remained cautious of the Quad buying a army dimension.

This modified after the army confrontation between India and China in June 2020. Within months, India had each raised its safety relationship with Australia and invited it to affix the Malabar train. Australia’s personal tango with China contributed too. Canberra’s preliminary reluctance concerning the first Quad initiative and its give attention to its commerce ties with Beijing had been key causes for the tepid first iteration.

The United States is one other key driver of the development in India–Australia relations. Though it is perhaps unfair to say that India–Australia ties are a subset of US–India relations, they do observe somewhat intently. India–Australia ties adopted the broad contours of US–India relations through the Cold War and mimicked the depths the connection plunged to after the Indian nuclear checks in 1998 and its subsequent revival since then.

Though India–Australia relations in the present day are higher than ever, India’s hopes for marginally extra steady relations with China characterize a slight rigidity. India continues to confront China on the border — the place about 100,000 troops nonetheless face one another — however hopes to talk China down. India’s goal for a bigger global diplomatic footprint additionally means balancing ties with international locations like Australia and an expanded give attention to the growing world via the G20, BRICS and even the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

This means that there’s a ceiling to India’s relations with Australia. India will solely decide to absolutely the minimal essential, although this may fluctuate relying on the state of affairs on the Sino–Indian border. But the ground for the connection is pretty near the ceiling as a result of so long as China stays a safety problem, India will keep its safety ties with Australia and different like-minded companions.

Rajesh Rajagopalan is Professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.