Context:

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is on a visit to India.

Image Source: The Indian Express

India-Australia Relations: Present Status

•  Recent years have certainly seen the end of political neglect. Sustained high-level exchanges have provided much-needed political momentum to the India-Australia partnership.
• After much hesitation, Delhi is now reciprocating. In 2022, 10 union ministers from India traveled to Australia.

Shared Interests:

• Although India-Australia shared democratic traditions, the English language, extended neighborhood, and massive economic synergies, it was hard to bring them close together.
• The complementarity between a rapidly growing Indian economy and the energy and mineral-rich Australia was always there to see. 
  • But it is only in the past couple of years that this complementarity has been turned into a concrete Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA).

Harnessing Complementaries:

• Strengthing India’s supply chains: As Delhi turns to clean energy in a big way and ramps up its production of electronic goods, Australia’s role as a major supplier of critical minerals has come into view. 
  • The ECTA will strengthen India’s supply chains for the critical minerals essential to produce mobile phones, flat screen monitors, wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars in India.
• Cooperation in education: Australia also has a strong fit with the Indian effort to modernize its higher education sector under the New Education Policy.
  • Nearly 60,000 Indians are studying in Australia at the end of 2022.
• China’s Challenge: The rapid rise and assertiveness of China provided a powerful new context for the transformation of Asia’s international relations, including bilateral ties between Delhi and Canberra. 
  • Given the vast size of the Indo-Pacific theatre, Delhi and Canberra also need to enhance their political coordination and strategic collaboration in the various subregions — including the southern ocean, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, eastern Indian Ocean, and the South Pacific.

Challenges:

• Mutual political neglect, ignorance of commercial possibilities, and Cold War geopolitics limited the possibilities for bilateral relations during the 20th century. 
• Delhi and Canberra must recognise the continuing anxiety in the region about the potential problems the Quad could trigger, especially with China. 

Conclusion:

• The rapid growth in the strategic salience of the India-Australia relationship underlines the importance of continuous re-evaluation of relationships and the questioning of the political assumptions about other countries that acquire a life of their own and prevent productive diplomacy.

News Source: The Indian Express