The ‘emerging axis’ of autocratic powers epitomised by China’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine is, as Australia’s top intelligence chief Andrew Shearer recently said, one of the most troubling strategic developments today.
And just as those axis nations—which also include North Korea and Iran—have as many strategic differences as commonalities, countries such as Australia that are worried by, and looking to counter, this malign axis should understand that they’ll need to accept and work with a range of approaches from partners.
This reality was underscored by remarks made at ASPI-hosted events in recent weeks by India and the Philippines—two key regional players who are dealing with China’s assertiveness in their own ways but whom are both important partners to Australia.
First, India. The emerging giant’s stance on the axis is the more complicated. India has had a long strategic partnership with Russia, going back to the early Cold War. Yet it has an equally long history of disputes with China. This has included not just the contest over their unsettled border but also tensions stemming from Beijing’s support to Pakistan and its barely disguised efforts at undermining India on a variety of issues such as refusing to allow India to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group which governs transfers of civilian nuclear technology and material, and refusing to back India’s efforts to promote UN Security Council reforms as well as India’s quest for a seat on the Security Council.
So where does that leave India with respect to the new axis? At the Raisina Down Under summit, which ASPI co-hosted with India’s Observer Research Foundation, India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar answered by explaining that the three biggest countries of the Eurasian landmass formed a strategic triangle. This was, he reminded the audience, basic geometry learnt in all schools.
It was in India’s interests, he said, that it ‘never allow two sides to come to a point where the third is utterly disadvantaged’.
‘And I would even argue going beyond that,’ he continued, ‘at a time when … Russia’s relationship with the West is very badly damaged and Russia is turning more and more towards Asia, it’s useful in Asia that we give Russia more options … The more broadly Russia is engaged by Asian countries, frankly, that will allow that much more political, diplomatic flexibility for everybody concerned.’
The implication was that it is a better Indian strategy to tolerate Russia’s aggression and lawlessness, and to engage with both Russia and China through groupings such as the BRICS—which also includes Brazil and South Africa—than leaving India’s Eurasian strategic peers to pursue their no-limits partnership unchecked and without giving Moscow some kind of off-ramp.
Jaishankar’s further implication is that this is not just in India’s interests but the broader region’s and the West’s as well. Of course, whether this undermines the rules-based order intended to protect smaller and weaker states, and whether it’s a convenient excuse for India given its reliance on Russian energy and defence equipment, are both fair questions.
Still, India’s approach can clearly offer strategic balance. Better to have India there than not, Jaishankar is effectively saying. India, he pointed out, is neither Western nor anti-Western.
Our challenge is not to pressure New Delhi to pick a side. We should remember that China represents as much or more of a military and political threat to India as it does to any other country. It’s a principal reason why New Delhi invests in relations with Canberra and Washington, and why it participates in the Quad. We also know New Delhi is genuinely concerned by Russia’s growing closeness to China and by the two authoritarian states’ ‘no limits’ partnership.
The Philippines, by comparison, is a smaller player whose main goal right now with respect to China is to preserve its sovereignty. The strategic priorities it articulates are shaped accordingly. Speaking to an ASPI audience in Melbourne just days after the Raisina event, Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr stressed the importance of calling out coercive action by China and the need for like-minded partners to do so together. There were no geometric metaphors—just a demand that the threat be clearly understood and responded to.
The Philippines has its own backstory: a treaty ally of the United States against both the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, and a more recent history in which the mercurial leader Rodrigo Duterte harmed his countries’ interests by trying unsuccessfully to find a modus vivendi with Beijing.
Despite the different approaches, these are both very important partners to Australia. It’s worth noting their common strategic assessments and their emphasis on collective action. We know that limiting our reading of strategic challenges to ‘major power competition’ is wrong. Collaboration among regional powers, including smaller ones, is critical to what Foreign Minister Penny Wong calls ‘strengthening influence, leverage and sovereignty’.
Australia and likeminded countries such as the US and Japan need to assure India, the Philippines and others in the region—with all their varied approaches to the China challenge and the growing axis—that it is in their interests and the region’s to work with us.
The foundation is mutual interest rather than strategic altruism, as Ashley Tellis once characterised it. This doesn’t make it transactional however. Rather it is based on core principles of territorial integrity, democratic sovereignty, individual freedoms and national security. It might be useful for all sides to acknowledge this.
