By welcoming Australia to the Malabar exercise, India has shed its inhibitions on Quad, going all out against China.

India recently announced that Australia will participate in the crucial naval exercise Malabar, bringing together the four member nations of the “Quadrilateral Initiative”, also known as the “Quad”, for a great show of power after a gap of 13 years.

Australia’s inclusion in the exercise comes at a time when India is embroiled in a border dispute with China and two weeks after Quad’s foreign ministers held extensive talks in Tokyo with a focus on enhancing their cooperation on the Indo-Pacific, a region. which has witnessed growing Chinese military assertiveness.

As Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne recently noted, the decision to include Australia in the crucial exercise is therefore not only a sign of growing cooperation between Quad countries to safeguard the opening of the Indus. -Pacific and maritime security.

But more importantly, the decision marks a major shift in the direction of India-Australia relations and India-China relations. India’s decision to include Australia is not only further evidence of the growing closeness of ties between New Delhi and Canberra, but also marks the end of any inhibitions that India, as well as Australia, may have had in seeking alliances that the face directly against China.

To understand how this change in attitude occurs, it is important to analyze what the Malabar exercise is all about.

Exercise Malabar is a naval exercise that began in 1992 as a naval exercise in which the Indian and American navies participated. The exercise was suspended in 1998 after India conducted nuclear tests, but resumed as an annual event in 2002 after India joined the United States’ efforts against global terrorism. The year 2007 was crucial, it was a turning point in the history of the Malabar exercise as it expanded to include Japan, Australia and Singapore.

In September 2007, ships, planes and submarines from the five countries gathered in the Bay of Bengal to participate in a joint naval exercise. This was the first time that the United States, Australia, Japan and India had joined since the group was formed in May 2016 in Manila.

China opposed the grouping and the exercise, and even issued a management. Defense experts called the group a “democratic coalition” formed to “contain China’s rising power.” According to a BBC In the report, the four members, however, denied these claims, calling the group a “strategic association” formed with the aim of maintaining regional security, and was not “targeting any particular power.”

However, the reality on the ground was different. In the months leading up to exercise Malabar, there was “a wave of high-level exchanges” between the four nations, according to reports. While Australia sent its naval commander to India to discuss the “mechanics of the collaboration and the details of the exercises,” then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in New Delhi with offers of economic and commercial assistance. In return, according to BBCAbe wanted New Delhi to join Tokyo to anchor “an Asian arc of freedom that stretches across the Indian and Pacific oceans and provides a democratic bulwark, presumably against undemocratic powers.”

However, shortly after the 2007 Malabar exercise, Australia withdrew from the Quad, allegedly because it “excluded” China.

Since the Quad is no longer in operation, Australia was also excluded from the Malabar exercise of 2008. The war games continued to expand in terms of the scope of joint operations in subsequent years, but remained restricted to India, the United States and Japan, who joined the Malabar exercise as a permanent member in 2015.

In 2017, the Quad was revived, but India was not ready to welcome Australia to the Malabar exercise. This was despite the fact that in 2017, the Indian and Australian navies were conducting separate bilateral military exercises.

In 2018, Japan began pressuring India to allow Canberra to join the crucial military exercises. But India continued its opposition, and rejected Australia again by rejecting its request for “observer status”. Meanwhile, the navies of the two countries continued their bilateral military exercises. In 2019, the Indian and Australian navies met again for bilateral exercises, but not for Exercise Malabar.

Finally, on Wednesday India confirmed Australia’s participation with the Royal Australian Navy which will participate in the crucial naval exercise after a 13-year gap.

So what changed?

In 2008, the new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd withdrew from the Quad because the group excluded China. What that meant is that Rudd did not want to antagonize China and, in the process, damage economic relations with Beijing, with whom Canberra largely had no qualms at the time.

Trade with China, however, has suffered greatly recently. Especially after Australia demanded a global investigation into the spread of the new coronavirus. China has responded to Australia’s research demand by halting imports of Australian wine, beef and, most recently, barley.

According to an article in The diplomatAfter Australia left the Quad in 2007, India was wary that Canberra might do so again. In part, the reason for India’s suspicion was also due to the fact that, unlike Japan and India, which are involved in territorial disputes with China, Australia had no such reasons to oppose China. But that was before China became firm in the South China Sea. This assertiveness has continued even as the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a continent that creates part of the divide between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, Australia is intrinsically committed to the security of the region,” he writes. The diplomat.

Additionally, reports of China’s meddling in Australian politics, protests against Hong Kong’s anti-extradition bill, and reports of human rights abuses of Uighur Muslims have further increased negativity in Australia. China’s handling of information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic has further increased this negativity towards Beijing.

From India’s point of view, it is important to note that the period from 2014 to the Ladakh clash in June 2020 has been one of the most intense meetings between the leaders of India and China.

Just as Rudd did not want to antagonize China, the Narendra Modi government has also been treading carefully on matters related to the Chinese keeping channels open for talking. Modi had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping even after the Doka La showdown in 2017.

In fact, India had resisted Japan and Australia’s efforts to include the latter in the Malabar exercise between 2017 and 2019 so as not to antagonize China.

However, the current stalemate in the Ladakh standoff and the deaths of 20 soldiers in June has narrowed the ground for India to maintain inhibitions or go the route of diplomacy.

Welcoming Australia back to exercise Malabar is a crucial step in shedding any inhibitions India may have had regarding quad biking or building a military alliance.

With contributions from agencies