Yet just a couple of weeks prior, India refused an invitation to join the US–Australia Talisman Sabre military exercise, limiting its role to an observer in an apparent effort to avoid upsetting China in the run-up to the G20 Summit in New Delhi. The contradiction in India’s approach just a few weeks apart demonstrates the underlying uncertainty surrounding India–Australia security ties.
Despite the ebbs and flows in the relationship, there is little doubt that India–Australia ties have deepened over the last decade. Besides relenting on the Malabar exercise, India has also elevated its security ties with Australia to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and signed a mutual logistics support agreement.
Common concerns regarding China are driving the two countries closer, far more so than economic or other factors. But India’s discomfort towards security partnerships in general and its contradictory foreign policy imperatives make for halting progress — it needs partnerships to counter China without worsening China–India ties and it needs ties to the West while also seeking to become a leader of the Global South.
The most important variable is the contradiction between India’s desire to be an autonomous power beholden to none and India’s relations with China — which frequently demonstrate the limits of this desire. A great autonomous power requires no security partnerships, not only because it is strong enough but also because it has sufficiently stable relations with all powers. During the Cold War, India looked down upon alliances with a moral clarity that was underlined by India’s relative size and security.
With China’s rise, India has become more open to security partnerships, especially because Beijing occasionally forces New Delhi to confront the reality of its relative weakness. It is at such times that India tends to deepen security ties with Australia. For example, India invited Australia to join the Malabar exercise just a few months after serious clashes on the Sino–Indian border. Yet once a crisis is contained, New Delhi’s interest in deepening its partnerships tends to falter.
New Delhi’s original reluctance to deepen security relations with Australia largely stemmed from concerns that they might be frowned upon by China. As with previous governments, the initial instinct of the new Modi government in 2014 was to stabilise relations with China and focus on economic and trade issues.
India joined the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and sought China’s help to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). India was soon disappointed as Beijing not only scuttled India’s NSG membership but also repeatedly stymied India’s efforts to put terrorists targeting India on the UN blacklist. In June 2017, China and India had a military confrontation at Doklam, near the India–China–Bhutan trijunction. A few months later, India joined Australia, Japan and the United States to revive the Quad.
Yet India remained unwilling to allow Australia to join the Malabar Exercise despite it being a Quad partner and lobbying by Japan and the United States. While India and Australia conducted bilateral military exercises and improved their ties, New Delhi remained wary of the Quad acquiring a military dimension.
This changed after the military confrontation between India and China in June 2020. Within months, India had both raised its security relationship with Australia and invited it to join the Malabar exercise. Australia’s own tango with China contributed too. Canberra’s initial reluctance about the first Quad initiative and its focus on its trade ties with Beijing were key reasons for the tepid first iteration.
The United States is another key driver of the improvement in India–Australia relations. Though it might be unfair to say that India–Australia ties are a subset of US–India relations, they do track rather closely. India–Australia ties followed the broad contours of US–India relations during the Cold War and mimicked the depths the relationship plunged to after the Indian nuclear tests in 1998 and its subsequent revival since then.
Though India–Australia relations today are better than ever, India’s hopes for marginally more stable relations with China represent a slight tension. India continues to confront China at the border — where about 100,000 troops still face each other — but hopes to talk China down. India’s aim for a larger global diplomatic footprint also means balancing ties with countries like Australia and an expanded focus on the developing world through the G20, BRICS and even the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
This means that there is a ceiling to India’s relations with Australia. India will only commit to the absolute minimum necessary, though this will fluctuate depending on the situation at the Sino–Indian border. But the floor for the relationship is fairly close to the ceiling because as long as China remains a security challenge, India will maintain its security ties with Australia and other like-minded partners.
Rajesh Rajagopalan is Professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.