India helps balance China's weight

The Defence Minister is one of the few people who understands that India's rise will be just as important to Australia as that of China.

You could easily have missed it, but Stephen Smith's visit to the US recently was one of the most important by a minister in decades.

For the first time, a member of the Government equated the importance of India's rise to Australia with that of China. And it has been a long time coming.

Australia's relationship with India has suffered through a chequered and highly volatile period in recent years.

This has included the wrongful deportation of Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef in 2007; an outburst of racial tension on the cricket field in 2008; the so-called "curry bashings" of Indian students in 2009; and the blind introduction of visa requirements last year which threatened to lead to a 70 per cent drop in Indian student entries.

But most of all, a ban on uranium exports has become a bad symbol of our foreign policy relationship.

It might seem trivial but Mr Smith's speech to the highly esteemed Brookings Institution in Washington focused almost twice as much on India as it did on China.

"Australia, like India, is an Indian Ocean country," Mr Smith said.

But the reality is that for far too long Australia has been focused almost solely on the Asia Pacific to the neglect of the emerging centre of geopolitics in the Indian Ocean.

Fuelled by Hugh White-centric doctrines of a bipolar US-China ballgame, India has been completely overlooked in the process.

The Indian Ocean region is home to 48 countries, including five members of the powerful G20 forum, a population of 2.6 billion people, or 40 per cent of the world's population, and contributes 10 per cent of global GDP with more than 40 per cent of all trade passing through it.

These are figures China is all too aware of with their "String of Pearls" strategy of building military bases and shipping dockyards all the way from Hong Kong to the port of Sudan.

China hopes this will help open up traditional strategic chokepoints such as the Strait of Mandab, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Lombok through which 70 per cent of its trade passes.

China also looks set to launch its first aircraft carrier as early as this month, no doubt aimed at further projecting its military presence throughout the Indian Ocean region.

China's rapid military build-up has caused many to shift their focus to India as a potential counterweight or hedging strategy in the tussle for regional power.

British Prime Minister David Cameron visited India last year with a big ministerial delegation.

His visit came after a speech which outlined the Government's program and included an "enhanced partnership" with India as one of the main foreign policy goals.

Last November, US President Barack Obama wound up a highly successful visit to India underscoring what he called "a natural and strategic alliance of democracies". He simultaneously lent support to New Delhi's campaign for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

And as recently as the end of last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrapped up her second visit in office telling India "it is time to lead".

All this has left Australian diplomats scrambling to forge new security relationships with the biggest democracy and its one billion people before it is too late.

In 2007, then defence minister Brendan Nelson confirmed Australia would not upgrade its existing trilateral security alliance with Japan and the US to include India.

The position, which was quickly endorsed by the incoming Rudd Government, was largely - and rightly - seen as kowtowing to Chinese concerns over their south-western neighbours.

But Mr Smith's speech last week sets the scene for a reversal of this decision when Australia is also vice-chair of the 18-member Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Co-operation ahead of its chairmanship in 2013.

Australia's proactive and consistent lobbying for a new broad, security-focused regional institution - borne through Mr Rudd's Asia Pacific community idea - resulted in the upgrading of the East Asian Summit to include the US and Russia.

This represented a significant win for India, left out of the previously dominant Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, and one for which New Delhi should recognise Canberra's central effort in sprouting.

It is time for Australia to begin developing its security links with India more seriously, not just militarily but also around counterterrorism in the wake of more deadly attacks in Mumbai last month.

Doing so is not just in our interests but in the interests of the region.

In doing so we should remember that the biggest shipping and rapidly developing naval port in the Bay of Bengal, Chennai, is closer to Perth than Shanghai is to Sydney.