{"id":2014,"date":"2021-06-24T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=2014"},"modified":"2021-06-26T15:04:42","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T15:04:42","slug":"the-dangers-in-australias-blissful-ignorance-about-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=2014","title":{"rendered":"The dangers in Australia\u2019s blissful ignorance about India"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s far from all bad news. But Australians don\u2019t know<\/strong>
that other Asian great power as well as they should.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A major headline from the\u00a02021 Lowy Institute Poll\u00a0is the dramatic decline in the Australian public\u2019s assessment of China, continuing the trend already observed in previous years. While 52% of respondents said they trusted China to \u201cact responsibly in the world\u201d either \u201ca great deal\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d in 2018, in 2021 only 16% did so. Similarly, for the first time in 2021 almost two-thirds of the respondents (63%) view China as more of a security threat than an economic partner. Australia-China relations have\u00a0certainly reached a nadir.<\/p>\n

But what of the Australian public\u2019s attitude to that other Asian great power, India?<\/p>\n

Australia-India relations have never been better. The elevation of the bilateral relationship at the virtual leader\u2019s summit in June 2020 to a \u201ccomprehensive strategic partnership\u201d reflected the obvious chemistry on display between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Scott Morrison.<\/p>\n

The two countries made meaningful progress to advance defence cooperation including the signing of a\u00a0mutual logistics support arrangement, and an agreement to support collaboration between defence science and technology research organisations in both countries. This was followed by Australia\u2019s long-awaited inclusion in the November 2020\u00a0Malabar naval exercises. Also significant was the commitment to boost broader science, technology and research to support responses to Covid-19 and to work together to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities exposed by the pandemic for critical health, technology and other goods and services. Finally, the \u201cjoint declaration on a shared vision for maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific\u201d commits both countries to work together bilaterally to the promote a free, open, inclusive and \u201crules-based maritime order\u201d.<\/p>\n

Given these bilateral developments, one would expect greater public awareness of India\u2019s importance and relevance to Australia, more so given the deteriorating relationship with Beijing. The latest Lowy Poll shows some indication of that.<\/p>\n

In 2020, 61% of Australians said they trusted India \u201ca great deal\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d to act responsibly in the world, up from 45% in the previous year and on par with their views of the United States. Australians continued to display \u201cwarm feelings\u201d toward India, too (measured on a 100 degree scale), which at 56 degrees represented a 4 degree increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n

Less encouraging, however, were public perceptions of Modi, with only 38%\u00a0of respondents saying that they had \u201csome\u201d or \u201ca lot\u201d of confidence in him to \u201cdo the right thing regarding world affairs\u201d, representing a 4% fall from 2020. However, this must be interpreted alongside the striking finding that of all national leaders included in the survey, Modi was least known by the Australian public, with 30% of respondents either unsure or having \u201cno view\u201d of his political integrity.<\/p>\n

Another noteworthy finding is that 81% of respondents viewed India as doing \u201ctoo little\u201d to combat climate change, only one point less than China, and 10 points worse than the United States. Given that respondents ranked climate change as the second highest \u201ccritical threat\u201d to Australia\u2019s vital interests in the next 10 years in 2021, the poor view of India in this regard could lead to current \u201cwarm feelings\u201d dissipating.<\/p>\n

While the questions asked in the Lowy Poll are directed toward unearthing the nuances of public opinion on the Australia-US and Australia-China relationships, the poll suggests the Australian public is not as aware or convinced about the strategic and economic significance of India as is the Australian government. Perhaps the best that can be said is that India and its leaders are neither seen by the Australian public as a significant problem for our national interests (apart from climate change.) The point is that the public do not consider India as a significant part of the solution to our deteriorating relationship with China.<\/p>\n

This shallow public interest and understanding of India is unsurprising given the cursory and sporadic coverage that Indian politics is given in the Australian media. Most of what is reported is viewed through the prism of India-China border clashes, the intractable conflicts between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, or focused on crises of governance such as the Modi government\u2019s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Little is written in the Australian media or academic\/policy circles about India\u2019s foreign policy, or its growing role as part of Australia\u2019s free and open Indo-Pacific strategy. This includes the part it might play in the stated objectives of Australia\u2019s\u00a02020 Strategic Update\u00a0to \u201cshape Australia\u2019s strategic environment\u201d, \u201cdeter actions against Australia\u2019s interests\u2019 or \u201crespond with credible military force\u201d.<\/p>\n

If correct, this situation presents short-term opportunities and longer-term dangers for government policy if the public\u2019s blissful ignorance about and relative disinterest in India persists. On the upside, the government and policy elites will have a free hand to continue efforts to develop the Australia-India relationship with little need to manage or respond to public pushback. There is currently little evidence of any anti-India sentiment among the Australian public.<\/p>\n

However, as Canberra reacts to ongoing Chinese coercion by putting more efforts into deepening the strategic and economic relationship with India, the public will need a better understanding of why the partnership with India is in our long-term interests even if there are short-term obstacles. This is especially important if China seeks to increase pressure on Australia as Canberra puts more emphasis on the bilateral relationship with India or on groupings such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or \u201cQuad\u201d.<\/p>\n

Public ignorance is rarely a sound basis for enduring and ambitious government policy. The Lowy Poll suggests the public conversation about India has only just started.<\/p>\n

Source: The Interpreter, Gettey images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s far from all bad news. But Australians don\u2019t knowthat other Asian great power as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35,41,4,42],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160.jpg",1600,1067,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160.jpg",1600,1067,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160-720x475.jpg",720,475,true],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1230740160.jpg",472,315,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Articles<\/a> Politics<\/a> Stories<\/a> World<\/a>","tag_info":"World","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2014"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2020,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions\/2020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}