Potential and pitfalls of relations with India

Singh, a former Labor senator, attended the Indian Diaspora gathering at Homebush Bay on Tuesday as well as the 2014 Modis event at the same venue. In 2014, Modi, a reasonably new PM, was visiting Australia as part of the wider G20 leaders’ jamboree.

Singh says Tuesday’s rally stood out because it was a two-way event, with NSW Premier Chris Minns and Albanese joining Modi on stage. And in a nod to his hosts, Modi acknowledged First Nations elders in his opening remarks. (Interestingly, Albanese’s own reference to the Voice referendum drew loud cheers.)

A nagging sense of doubt

Nevertheless, despite the evident warmth between the leaders and the growing closeness between the countries, doubts persist as to the durability of these links.

Modi has repeatedly shown that he will put India first every time. For example, opportunistic purchases of cheap Russian oil provide Vladimir Putin with much-needed income and Australia needs to be aware of this. It’s an open question how much the West can rely on him as an ally and partner.

A former US diplomat in India, Ashley Tellis, who earlier this month wrote an article for Foreign Affairs magazine titled Americas bad bet on India, warns against an overly romantic view of India and its potential to be a drag on China.

New Delhi has every interest in ensuring that Chinese power does not come to dominate Asia, because if China comes to dominate Asia unambiguously, then India will be doomed to play second fiddle, Tellis said during a Council for Foreign Relations podcast last week.

India therefore has a strong incentive to partner with the United States to ensure that Asia is a truly multipolar system. But there are limits to what India is prepared to do for the United States, even in the context of this quest for multipolarity.

First, US grievances against China are not always India’s grievances against China.

[Secondly] India cannot escape its geography. He lives near China. The United States lives very far away. [Also] India has a much weaker state compared to China. If you take gross GDP as a measure, China today is between four and five times larger than India.

They are simply not willing to behave as other American allies would. And the two classic opposite cases would be Japan and Australia, where Japan and Australia clearly see working with the United States, even in the context of conflict, as central to their national security interests.

[India] views Americas-China conflicts as Americas-China conflicts, and does not want to make any decision that prejudges it or commits it to working with the United States in the context of a geopolitical meltdown.

What I constantly say is that India wants capabilities that allow it to stand up even against a higher power like China. But he doesn’t imagine coalition defense operations against China appearing anywhere on his menu of options.

The multi-alignment approach

Singh says India’s foreign policy under Modi has shifted towards multi-alignment, a notable break from India’s Cold War approach when it was one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement .

He shifted it to multi-alignment, which allows his worldview to engage with multilateral bodies. It’s good for Australia because we also like to engage in multilateralism, she says.

Ahead of his visit to Sydney, Modi hosted a forum of Pacific Island leaders in Papua New Guinea, only the second time he has visited the Pacific. There, PNG leader James Marape hailed Modi as the leader of the Global South, a figure who could champion the interests of developing countries in international forums.

There is an agenda to be a regional power in the Indo-Pacific and to do that it cannot just focus on the Indian Ocean, it will have to focus on the Pacific, Singh says.

Modi also has bigger ambitions. During their bilateral meeting on Wednesday, Modi and Albanese discussed India’s efforts to reform the United Nations, including making India a permanent member of the Security Council alongside the United States, the United Kingdom , France, China and Russia.

As the country that is now the most populous and nuclear-armed in the world, India has a compelling case. Germany, Japan and Brazil are mentioned as other likely candidates.

Ultimately, Modi wants India to be a world power, Singh says. India has no security alliances unlike other Quad countries. It’s all alone. [External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam] Jaishankar says a lot that India can ride on all sides.

The other area of ​​mistrust for Australia relates to India’s handling of human rights, such as accusations of bigotry against Muslims, or the crackdown on free speech, such as the banning of a BBC documentary that criticized Modi.

It is somehow reduced to freedom of the press, it discriminates against minorities, it is accused of weakening democracy. He seems somewhat of a bully, breakfast host David Koch said when asking Albanese about his good friend Modi.

Albanese usually responds by pointing out that India is the largest democracy in the world, with free and fair elections, and credits Modi with lifting millions out of poverty.

It is not for me to comment on a part of domestic politics in India which, as a democracy, has a range of views, which is a good thing. But there’s no doubt [about] the economic growth that we have seen in India, Albanese said.

The China Question

The obvious tension, however, is that Australia is not shy about slamming China for its human rights abuses, including its mistreatment of a Muslim minority, the Uyghurs.

Singh says both India and Australia have a common interest in remaining liberal, secular and tolerant democracies. We need both nations to stay that way for the relationship to work.

Singh said the convergence of economic and strategic imperatives due to concerns over China’s assertion had given Australia and India reason to come together to shape the region.

We have more in common today. It wasn’t really the case before, she says. Not so long ago, we had a relationship built on lack of trust, missed opportunities and even hostility. It is only in the past decade that we can see common interests underpinning our worldview.

Singh says Modis’ national program to lift its people out of poverty is an opportunity for Australia, pointing out that two-way trade is only $28 billion, or 10% of the value of trade between Australia and Australia. China. India is on track to become the world’s third-largest economy, and unlike fellow Asian giants China and Japan, it is not plagued by an aging population.

It is no coincidence that Modi has met a host of Australian business figures, including mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest.

We really need to convince Australian businesses that India is a country we want to invest in. And we have to be in it for the long haul, because it’s about building relationships and building trust.

Confidence was a key theme in the Modis rally. Modi said the earlier view that Australian and Indian ties had been defined by the three Cs of the Commonwealth, cricket and curry had been complemented by democracy, diaspora and enough (Hindi for friendship), or energy, economy and education.

But the extent of historical relations between India and Australia is much greater than that, and do you know what is the greatest basis of all these relations, do you know? The biggest foundation is mutual trust and mutual respect.