France, Australia to restart trilateral initiative with India to counter China

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar with France's Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna. Credit: PTI File Photo

The foreign ministers of India, France and Australia will meet on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York later this month and restart the trilateral initiatives to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar hosted French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna in New Delhi and they agreed to set up a fund to support innovators and start-ups based in India to take ventures to third countries, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. They also agreed to launch a new India-France dialogue on security issues in space.

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“We also look forward to the meeting of the India-France-Australia trilateral in New York later in the month with our colleague, Minister Penny Wong,” Jaishankar said as he hosted Colonna in a meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. He said that India and France also agreed that another trilateral initiative with the United Arab Emirates would also be upgraded to the ministerial level given the positive feedback received from the parleys among the officials of the three nations.

“We want the Indo-Pacific to be an area of stability, rule of law, prosperity, and environmental protection,” said Colonna.

The India-France-Australia trilateral initiative has been in limbo ever since the then-French Foreign Jean-Yves Le Drian opted out of a proposed meeting with his Indian and Australian counterparts in New York last year. The meeting was cancelled.

France was upset over the move by Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to launch a new trilateral security alliance, AUKUS, to counter-hegemonic and expansionist aspirations of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

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The AUKUS is intended to focus on cooperation in the development of joint military capabilities and defence technology sharing. It was launched with the professed objective of creating a framework for the US and UK to support Australia in acquiring a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. The launch of the AUKUS triggered sharp reaction from President Emmanuel Macron’s government in Paris, as it scuttled a $ 37 billion deal inked in 2016 for France to provide Australia 12 conventional submarines.

France, however, over the past few months moved to mend fences with Australia.