FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry Interactive Seminar on Investment in Australia

1
FICCIFederation of Indian Chambers of Commerce
and IndustryInteractive Seminar on Investment in
Australia

• India-Australia Strategic Relations
• Potentials and Challenges
• Dr.W.Lawrence Prabhakar
• Founding Member, Centre for Security Analysis,
  Chennai
• Associate Professor, Department of Political
  Science,
• Madras Christian College,
• Chennai, India

2
Format of Presentation

• Essence of Strategic Engagement
• Significance of India-Australia Strategic
  Engagement
• Substance of India-Australia Strategic Engagement
• India-Australia Strategic Convergences Potential
  and Challenges
• Assessment

3
Essence of Strategic Engagement

• Strategic Engagement is the comprehensive
  convergence of bilateral relations in political-
  diplomatic, economic-commercial,
  scientific-technical-educational and
  military-to-military partnerships forged-- based
  on consensus with a view to promote deeper
  relations
• Strategic engagement opens possibilities and
  avenues of cooperation, convergence for
  collective endeavours based on mutual benefit
• Strategic engagement promotes a functional basis
  of bilateral cooperation
• Strategic engagement is based on an eclectic
  blend of defensive realism and neo-realism that
  combines the essence of power and cooperation

4
Essence of Strategic Engagement

• Substance of Engagement
• Strategic Visions--Comparative Strategic
  perspectives
• Values and NormsDemocracy, Free markets etc
• Frameworks of Relations--Cooperative security and
  Convergent security
• Issues and PerspectivesPolitical, Economic,
  Commercial, Trade and Strategic dimensions.

5
Significance of India-Australia Strategic
Engagement

• From earlier estrangement to emergent
  engagement based on issues of globalization,
  and Indias rise
• Concert of Democracies proposition
  US-Japan-India-Australia
• Convergence over terrorism and counterterrorism
  cooperation
• Indias expanding Diaspora in Australia and its
  contribution to Australian economy

6
Significance of India-Australia Strategic
Engagement

• India and Australia are thriving democracies with
  vital interests to promote and preserve the
  democratic essence of political, civic and vast
  economic potential in respective
  countriesDemocratic Peace
• India and Australia have shared consensus on the
  scope and stakes of globalization
• India and Australia have a common federal
  structure of polity that addresses
  constitutional and foreign policy issues

7
Significance of India-Australia Strategic
Engagement

• Convergence between India and Australia emerges
  from the following issues of global and regional
  concern
• The rise of China, and the reshaping of Asia
• the future role of the United States in Asia and
  the emerging balance of power
• The importance of Southeast Asia-- specially
  Indonesia
• Indias interests in the PacificFiji--Australias
  reciprocity
• Intelligence cooperation and capacity building
  responses to transnational terrorism and criminal
  networks
• Naval cooperation between RAN and IN
• Regional Maritime Domain Partnership convergent
  with IONS (Indian Ocean Naval Symposium)
  coordinating with Southeast Asian states
• Maritime Intelligence sharing and naval exercises
  with RAN ships in bilateral patterns

8
Substance of India-Australia Strategic Engagement

• Integrated Ocean management policy in the Indian
  Ocean
• i) crimes at sea, such as piracy, terrorism and
  insurgency, drug trafficking
• ii)disaster management in the form of tsunamis,
  cyclones, floods and earthquakes
• iii) marine safety, including search and rescue
  (SAR), salvage, accidents at sea possible
  cooperation between Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and
  the new Australian Joint Offshore Protection
  Command to cooperate on long range identification
  and tracking of ships (LRIT) systems based on
  existing SAR regions in the Indian Ocean
• iv) environmental degradation from oil spills,
  waste disposal and pollution by ships
• v)protection of shipping, trade and keeping
  sea-lines of communication open at all times
• vi) offshore territorial conflicts generated by a
  need to control energy resources, fisheries and
  minerals
• vii) Weapons of mass destruction proliferation
  management.

9
Scope of India-Australia Strategic Engagement

• Energy security relationship-Australian sale of
  Uranium to India under the NSG waiver for India
• Economic interdependence of India and
  Australia-Indias need for minerals for its
  expanding industrial economy
• Indias skilled human resources from its military
  sector for Australias Defence Forces
• Cooperation on Humanitarian issues of Maritime
  Security in tackling climate change induced
  disasters in the Indian Oceansimilar to the
  Operation Unified Assistance in 2004 in the
  post-tsunami relief operations
• India-Australia cooperation is evident in the
  Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the
  Thousand-Ship Navy (TSN) initiative.

10
IIndia-Australia Strategic Convergences
Potential and Challenges

• Strategic relations between India and Australia
  would be conditioned on how New Delhi and
  Canberra would view each powers role in the
  Asia-Pacific security architecture
• While the rise of China and the retreat of the
  US would forge greater cooperation between India
  and Australiathey would not be enduring factors
  since both powers have their respective paths of
  strategic autonomy
• Australias sensitivities towards Indias nuclear
  programme and the reluctance of sale of Uranium
  to India while a similar sale to China
  contradicts Australias position on nuclear
  proliferation
• Attacks on Indians have exacerbated tensions
  between the two countries Indias demographic
  quotient offers to Australia a higher skill
  advantage

11
Assessment

• India and Australia have a substantial agenda to
  deepen strategic engagement on the basis of
  economic interdependence and strategic vision of
  a peaceful democratic Asia
• The India-Australia fulcrum of strategic
  cooperation would be in the Southeast Asia-Indian
  Ocean Region that would bring greater maritime
  cooperation to tackle transnational threats
• Greater economic interdependence based on
  globalization that is deferential to human
  development would be a critical factor for both
  India and Australia even as they contend several
  transnational threats
• India-Australia naval and maritime cooperation
  would be a vital and stabilizing factor in the
  strategic partnership having vital effects on the
  emergent Asian security architecture
• India and Australia need to rework on the issue
  of Indians in Australia who have been subject to
  repeated criminal attacks.

12

• God Bless India and Australia