Australia is the center for evangelism for India
They want to keep that distance with India. so that they can continue the conversion
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...3-25377,00.html
I have always been surprised at the relative lack of warmth between Australia and India, over the years. This is all the more surprising because of the shared colonial legacy, the English language and cricketing ties. The problem seems to have an uncanny resemblance to the troubled India-US relationship in the past decades.( Read Strobe Talbott's "Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, And The Bomb" for a better understanding of this.) Australia seems to be trapped in the cold-war diplomatic positions vis-a-vis India. The feeling in Indian diplomatic circles is an equally strong disdain for Australian foreign policy.
India didn't take lightly Australia's indignant reaction to India after 1998 nuclear tests.To Indian policy makers, it smacked of hypocrisy for Australia to make such noise when it was sitting pretty under the protection of a US Nuclear umbrella. Since there was not much of dependency on Australia for anything (trade, defense ties etc.) India ignored Australia after that for a long time.Indian view of Australia is that of a US lackey, not having any independent and coherent policy towards India.
The fact of the matter is that Australia has little or no leverage with India now. There is absolutely no way Australia can hurt India.If Australia wants to build a new relationship with India and have access to the huge market, its upto the government to take the steps. If Australia doesn't sell Uranium to India, Kazakhstan will benefit. Who loses out? Years of sanctions and US sermons couldn't make India join NPT or CTBT. Finally US saw reason and came around for a Nuclear deal with India.
It required a George Bush to take that painful step towards pushing India-US relationship past the roadblocks strewn by old prejudices. In my opinion, it will require a similar kind of visionary foreign policy and leadership from Australia to move a relationship with India forward. Otherwise India and Australia will go on merrily with their policy of ignoring each other forever.
They want to keep that distance with India. so that they can continue the conversion
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...3-25377,00.html
I have always been surprised at the relative lack of warmth between Australia and India, over the years. This is all the more surprising because of the shared colonial legacy, the English language and cricketing ties. The problem seems to have an uncanny resemblance to the troubled India-US relationship in the past decades.( Read Strobe Talbott's "Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, And The Bomb" for a better understanding of this.) Australia seems to be trapped in the cold-war diplomatic positions vis-a-vis India. The feeling in Indian diplomatic circles is an equally strong disdain for Australian foreign policy.
India didn't take lightly Australia's indignant reaction to India after 1998 nuclear tests.To Indian policy makers, it smacked of hypocrisy for Australia to make such noise when it was sitting pretty under the protection of a US Nuclear umbrella. Since there was not much of dependency on Australia for anything (trade, defense ties etc.) India ignored Australia after that for a long time.Indian view of Australia is that of a US lackey, not having any independent and coherent policy towards India.
The fact of the matter is that Australia has little or no leverage with India now. There is absolutely no way Australia can hurt India.If Australia wants to build a new relationship with India and have access to the huge market, its upto the government to take the steps. If Australia doesn't sell Uranium to India, Kazakhstan will benefit. Who loses out? Years of sanctions and US sermons couldn't make India join NPT or CTBT. Finally US saw reason and came around for a Nuclear deal with India.
It required a George Bush to take that painful step towards pushing India-US relationship past the roadblocks strewn by old prejudices. In my opinion, it will require a similar kind of visionary foreign policy and leadership from Australia to move a relationship with India forward. Otherwise India and Australia will go on merrily with their policy of ignoring each other forever.