India – Australia Strategic Partnership Signed During Virtual Summit

Elevating their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, India and Australia have signed a crucial agreement for reciprocal access to military logistics. It all happened during a virtual summit between Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison on Thursday evening.

Both of the nations upgraded their “2+2” foreign affairs and defense dialogue to the ministerial level. They also unveiled a shared vision for maritime cooperation in the Indo- Pacific. The Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), one of seven agreements signed during the summit, will facilitate reciprocal access to military logistics facilities, allow for more complex joint military exercises and improve interoperability between the armed forces of the two countries.

While opening Televised remarks in Hindi, PM Modi said, “India is committed to expanding its relations with Australia in a comprehensive and quick manner. This is important not only for our two countries, but also for the Indo-Pacific region and the world”.

“The comprehensive strategic partnership formed by the two sides will take them to a whole new level of relationship and continue to build the trust because we want commercial and trading relationships that are built on trust”, Morrison said.

He also the joint declaration on cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and said, “We share an ocean and we share responsibilities for that ocean as well – its health, well-being [and] security and the relationship we’re forming around those issues and our maritime domain is the platform for so many other things between our countries”. The summit was held against the backdrop of growing tensions with China for both India and Australia, though secretary (east) Vijay Thakur Singh of the external affairs ministry told an online briefing there was no specific discussion on China. However, many of the items on the agenda – shared democratic values, rules-based multilateral systems, an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific, respect for transparency, strengthening and diversifying supply chains for critical health, technology and other goods and services, and cooperation in rare earth minerals – appeared to be aimed at countering China’s influence in the region, experts said. PM Modi said the two sides should focus on how their relationship can be a “factor of stability for our region and for the world”, while Morrison said Australia is working with friends such as India and Japan to provide a ‘steadying and stabilizing and wise influence during…an incredibly difficult time’.

Morrison said Australia is “committed to an open, inclusive, prosperous Indo-Pacific and India’s role in that region…will be critical”. He also tacitly referred to Australia’s demand for a probe into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic while commending India’s taking over as chair of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s executive board. Australian PM added, “This is a very important time to be chairing that executive board. I have no doubt the way that that will be led under India’s leadership will be critical to how we deal with many difficult problems that we are encountering globally, particularly in the health area”.

Besides, other important agreements signed by the two nations during this virtual bilateral summit include a framework arrangement on cyber and cyber-enabled critical technology cooperation, an MoU on cooperation in mining and processing of critical & strategic minerals, and an implementing arrangement on cooperation in defense materials.