India and Canada just signed the Civil Nuclear Agreement, which would allow Canada to participate in the nuclear field in India and permits India to import Uranium and nuclear equipment from Canada.
Canada took time to make its decision – it has been over two years since its neighbour U.S. signed the Civil Nuclear 1-2-3 Agreement with India in a landmark deal between the world’s two biggest democracies. It is actually the eighth country to sign such an agreement (after the U.S., France, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Argentina and Namibia). My guess is that Canada and India will cooperate aggressively, given that Canada was the original supplier of nuclear reactors to India (the CANDU Reactors), and also the fact that it is the world’s largest producer of Uranium.
Where is our friend Australia in all this ? Nowhere to be sure.
Australia has become very close to China over the past four years or so that no other country matters to it anymore. China is the biggest importer of Australia’s commodities today, notwithstanding the arrest of an Australian company executive in China a few months ago. Everything will be forgiven, or managed out, if China continues to drive the commodity boom in Australia (as it does with several other countries, notably in Africa). Though Australian ministers (both Federal and State) have been visiting India many times over the past six months, including the famous Labour Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, Australia is losing its mindshare rapidly in India. And, nobody has been kicked up about Mr Rudd swinging a cricket bat while on his visit to India. He did not answer the tough questions properly. Why is Australia losing out in India ?
Many reasons – but the biggest one is the bashing up of Indian Students who pay top dollar to get a second-rate Australian eduction divvied up from suspicious institutions which shows a corrupt educational administrative system. No checks and balances, no audit, random colleges driving up recruitments for unapproved degrees – sounds more like a Third-World situation to me. There have been more than couple of hundred attacks on unsuspecting Indian Students, mostly in their early twenties. Dads and Moms from the rich states of India are not happy, and that would have a huge impact on the Australian Education Revenues – one out of every four foreign students in Australia is from India. And, now an Australian Commission has concluded that this pattern of attacking Indians is NOT due to racism !
Secondly, Australia is cozying upto China aggressively, and is not using the right kind of diplomacy with India to smoothen frayed nerves in relation to its approach to China. This is absolutely required, as India is not a country to be overlooked for the future of Asia and the future of the world. We are talking about 1.1B people with an economy growing at 7% this year, and we are also talking about an influential global player.
Thirdly, while Australia supplies Uranium to China, it refuses to supply to India, though the 1-2-3 deal has been approved by the NSG (Nuclear Supplers’ Group), on the pretext that India has not signed the NPT (Nuclear Proliferation Treaty). But, Australia refuses to look at the track record of India in Nuclear Non-Proliferation. China is the worst offender, having transferred sensitive and banned nuclear technology to North Korea, Pakistan, Iran and God knows how many others. Simply because it is huge and powerful, has a high-seat in the U.N. Security Council, has the fastest growing economy in the world, has over USD 2 Trillion in U.S. Treasuries (!), and imports lot of stuff from Australia, all the bad things that it did or doing now are ignored. What kind of justice is this – even the U.S. is overlooking everything bad that China continues to enjoy doing – like oppression of human rights.
Well, that is the might of China’s ECONOMY and ECONOMIC GROWTH. Everyone will come under China’s domination, and Australia is no different despite being one of the two Western Societies in Asia Pacific.
Someone recently asked me which product brand of Australia that I like (from the available ones in India that are not many) – I said I like “Ragu” pasta sauce ! There is no significant product, commodity, or business brand from Australia that is really popular in India. May be coal mines ? Need we say more ?
I hope what Australia is losing in India in terms of business and mindshare is picked up by collaborative partners like Canada and ofcourse, the U.S.
And, Australia – better go back to fundamentals of diplomacy, free society (bring justice to affected parties and do not talk empty English), partnership, a better education system with controls in place, et al.
We are waiting to see that happen.
Cheers,
Vijay Srinivasan
29th November 2009
Mumbai
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