Ukraine, the Quad, and India-Australia ties

The ramifications of Russia's Ukraine invasion emerge daily, among them a curious but substantial one for the recently renovated India-Australia bilateral relationship on which the present Australian federal government places so much weight.

While the background is complex and put (perhaps too) crudely here, in recent years, the Liberal-National Party coalition government in Canberra has: swung fully back to a global reliance on America; become increasingly belligerent towards China; and come to regard India as a counterweight to China.

That is because China's increasing Pacific presence (notable recently in the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea) has spooked Canberra into looking for a global alliance reset.

Read more: Quad leaders to hold virtual meet amid Ukraine crisis

That led to Scott Morrison's government becoming enthusiastic about what is now known as the QUAD – an alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia and India. Among other things, that fed further enthusiasm for the "Indo-Pacific" term as a new sphere of influence and activity.

The QUAD is seen as a bulwark against the rising tide of Chinese influence by way of the Belt and Road project. QUAD members regularly cast Chinese activities in areas like the Indian Ocean as rapacious, noting developments like China's repossession of the rebuilt port at Hambantota in lieu of debt payment from the Sri Lankan government.

While concern over Belt and Road activities is reasonable, it has also been used to legitimate drivers behind the need for and justification of the QUAD. In Australia, as a generalisation, Canberra has assumed the QUAD relationship will take priority for all parties involved and, in turn, automatically involve unquestioned unity in all matters.

Which is where the Ukraine crisis has produced a problem.

Several Australian commentators have expressed surprise that QUAD member India has not automatically joined those countries like Australia and the United States in United Nations resolutions on sanctions and related actions against Russia following the Ukraine invasion. A few of those commentators have even seen India's reluctance to join these actions as a betrayal of QUAD fundamentals – and a few have blindly raised the question of why India is still in the QUAD.

These issues will play out in the coming weeks and months as part of the normal labyrinthine United Nations processes attendant on such dreadful conflicts, and India will, no doubt, reach agreements or not with its QUAD partners on them.

But at a deeper level, the sheer nature and future of the India-Australia relationship swing into focus here.

As is well known, this new (and, it has to be said, vigorous) attempt at strengthening the India-Australia relationship is the latest in a string that has not always amounted to much over the years since the end of the World War II. The hurdles are clear enough: India moving to be a republic at Independence; its long-standing commitment to the non-aligned sphere during the Cold War and after; its heavy interaction with Russia during that phase; its strong socialist outlook at a time when governments in Australia were overwhelmingly conservative, and, of course, the extension of the White Australia policy that prevented strong South Asian migration.

Read more: Why the Indo-Pacific region matters to the US

An associated separator was Canberra's long term affinity for the United Kingdom and Europe rather than for "Asia" in general, a trend that began breaking down only in the 1970s and did not reach full flow until much later. Some might argue the full switch of interest and allegiance has still to happen, and they would be right as the present imbroglio underlines.

So this assertion of a strong India-Australia link, and its projection into the QUAD, is based on a new and as yet unsubstantiated platform, and that in turn has given rise to the apparent split on Ukraine.

For example, we now see Australian commentators associated with government and commercial defence industry organisations lambasting India for being careful in criticising Russia. It is apparently a surprise to some that India has long-standing defence industry relationships with Russia.

They and media commentators more widely in Australia somehow see that as a betrayal of the Quad when, of course, bilateral relationships of all sorts within the QUAD will complicate matters enormously. There is too little understanding of India's precise position in all this.

And that is complicated further because some of these commentators also seem to think that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should simply telephone Xi Jinping and ask him to intercede with Vladimir Putin. That is, there is an assumption that India should automatically be "with" the QUAD above other extant bilateral relationships and considerations.

Based on the evidence so far, the India-Australia relationship and those within the QUAD have a way to go to reach maturity. That will require a doubling down from agencies like the Australia-India Business Council chapters in explaining to the government exactly how India works.

(Emeritus Professor Brian Stoddart has a long-standing interest in India and has written on several aspects of the India-Australia relationship.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.