Australia and France decide to enhance security cooperation with India in Indian Ocean region

Australia and France decided to enhance security cooperation with India in the Indian Ocean region, as the leaders of the two nations – Anthony Albanese and Emmanuel Macron – agreed to leave behind the tiff over the AUKUS and mend ties.

The thaw in relations between Australia and France has cleared the way for India to restart its trilateral dialogue with the two nations, particularly with focus on the maritime security in the Indian Ocean region, where China has been trying to spread its tentacles.

“We (Australia and France) are determined to be active in regional for and to enhance security cooperation with Pacific countries, in particular on maritime surveillance with regional agencies, and in the Indian Ocean, including in partnership with India,” according to a joint statement issued after the French President hosted the Australian Prime Minister in Paris.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his then counterparts in the Australian and French governments had held the first trilateral dialogue in May 2021, committing to working together “to achieve a free, open, inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific”.

But the second round of talks among the ministers could not take place so far as the relations between Australia and France plummeted after Albanese’s predecessor Scott Morrison joined the US President Joe Biden and the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to launch the AUKUS, a new security coalition to counter the military aggression of China in the Indo-Pacific region. The AUKUS was intended to create a framework for the US and UK to support Australia in acquiring a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. The launch of the AUKUS triggered sharp reaction from Paris, as it scuttled a $37 billion deal inked in 2016 for France to provide Australia 12 conventional submarines.

India, Australia, Japan and the US also relaunched the Quad in 2017 in order to counter the expansionist aspirations of China in the Indo-Pacific region, albeit with a benign agenda. France has also stepped up its security cooperation with India in the Indo-Pacific region.