Modi visit marks a high point in Australia India relationship

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia last week marked a high point in this country’s relationship with India.

The south Asian nation is our sixth-largest trading partner with two-way trade valued at $46.5 billion.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.Credit: Janie Barrett

But this is a fraction of the $251 billion traded between Australia and China. The gap highlights the size of the opportunity a new trade deal with India now represents.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Modi emphasised a mutual desire to boost trade between the nations when they held bilateral talks on Wednesday.

Australian negotiators are now pushing to conclude the Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement, or CECA, with India after talks were given fresh impetus during Modi’s visit.

The Sunday Age reveals today that Trade minister Don Farrell has instructed Australian negotiators “to make swift progress for an early conclusion of this new free trade deal”.

Albanese says there is an ambition to have a deal done “later this year”.

The partnership between Australia and India not only promises to boost our economy, it also has implications for security in our region.

But there is an asymmetry in our relationship which has echoes of the asymmetry of our relationship with China – our biggest trading partner.

And as we have seen in the past few years, China has used trade to coerce and punish at points of complexity in Australia-China relations, evidenced at times such as Beijing’s response to the AUKUS agreement and Australia’s signalling of concern over the treatment of Uighurs.

While the diplomatic freeze with China appeared to have thawed on the sidelines of the G20 summit, during a meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Xi Jinping, China’s $20 billion in economic sanctions are still hard felt by Australian farmers.

New trading partnerships are vital to reduce our economic dependency on China. A stronger military partnership with India could also strengthen Australia’s security in the Indian Ocean.

Significantly, India did not object to the AUKUS nuclear submarines agreement because a stronger deterrence against China provides a shared benefit.

Military ties have strengthened between both countries, with India inviting Australia to host the Malabar naval exercises. Australia has, in turn, invited India into its Talisman Sabre drills later this year, involving more than 30,000 military personnel from 13 nations.

Peter Varghese, a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, says the relationship between India and Australia is in “a sweet spot” after having long been a one-sided relationship.

Varghese, who is now chancellor of Queensland University, says that after many years of indifference, India is now serious about building the relationship.

Together, India and Australia can potentially help balance and constrain China when it acts against international democratic norms.

As Varghese explains, however, there have been several periods in India’s 75 post-independence years when its liberal democratic character has been sorely tested – most notably the period of the emergency under Indira Gandhi. Today there are again signs the liberal democratic character of India is under pressure.

Last month, India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was sentenced to two years in jail for defaming Modi, whom Ghandi had likened to a thief in April 2019. The sentence was precisely the length necessary to ensure Gandhi’s disqualification from the lower house of parliament.

As The Sydney Morning Herald’s Malcolm Knox has pointed out, Australia has remained silent on a number of human rights issues in India, including its persecution of ethnic minorities, imprisonment of human rights activists, its global leadership in internet shutdowns and its targeted political censorship.

India has also remained neutral in its response to Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Varghese acknowledges these signs should not be lightly dismissed. “They are not the figments of the imagination of India’s enemies or the government’s political opponents. India’s many friends are also troubled by them,” he says.

Varghese is ultimately optimistic about India’s ability as a true democracy to be self-correcting.

While the benefits of a stronger alliance are clear, the Australian government must ensure it approaches engagement with another superpower with eyes wide open.