India, France and Australia kicked off a new strategic alliance proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron two years ago on Wednesday with the first meeting of top Foreign Ministry officials from the three countries. Maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region obtained the highest turnover in Wednesday’s meeting held by videoconference.
The officials spoke about “enhancing maritime security cooperation,” including maritime dominance awareness, mutual logistical support and capacity building of other friendly countries in the Indo-Pacific region, people familiar with the matter said.
There was broad agreement among the three partners that they should look towards a multipolar world where countries come together for mutual benefit and support rather than a unipolar or multipolar world.
China was featured in the discussions, but the meeting did not focus on a single country. An overview was adopted, an Indian official later told the Hindustan Times. The virtual meeting was co-chaired by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, the Secretary General of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, François Delattre, and the Secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, Frances Adamson.
- COOPERATION IN MARINE SAFETY
- Explore trilateral cooperation in mutual logistical support
- Consider greater operational coordination towards maritime security
- Collaborate to establish a search and rescue mechanism in the Indian Ocean region
- Joining forces in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
- PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH
- Collaborate on therapies and vaccines for COVID-19
- BLUE ECONOMY
- Blue economy initiatives such as hydrography, meteorology and oceanography and marine medicine
- Environmental challenges: marine pollution, etc.
- Collaborate in the identification, monitoring and reduction of sources of contamination.
- INTERNATIONAL SOLAR ALLIANCE
- Promote solutions based on solar energy in countries of the region.
French President Macron was one of the first to call for the construction of a strategic alliance between the three countries that could respond to the challenges in the Asia-Pacific region and the growing assertiveness of China. On a visit to Australia before flying to India in May 2018, President Macron had spoken about the need for partners to ‘organize’. “We are not naive: if we want to be seen and respected by China as an equal partner, we must organize ourselves,” President Macron said in a speech at an Australian naval base. “This new Paris-Delhi-Canberra axis is absolutely key to the region and our joint goals in the India-Pacific region,” he said, according to a 2018 Reuters report.
On the leg of their trip to India, President Macron and Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a plan to step up cooperation in the Indian Ocean to counter China’s growing influence in the region. “The Indian Ocean, like the Pacific Ocean, cannot become a place of hegemony,” President Macron said when the two countries signed pacts that gave Indian warships access to French naval bases in the Indian Ocean.
At Wednesday’s meeting, India’s Foreign Secretary Shringla underscored Prime Minister Modi’s vision for the Indo-Pacific that he had articulated at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018 to promote the concept of Security and Growth for All in the Region or SAGAR.
The three countries also discussed cooperation on global marine commons: blue economy, marine biodiversity, and environmental challenges such as marine pollution. Shringla spoke about India’s interest in collaborating on sustainable fisheries in the Indian Ocean, technologies for harvesting deep ocean resources and ocean thermal energy conversion.
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