22 November 2025, NIICE Commentary 11954
Ritika Suneja
The foreign minister of Australia, Senator Penny Wong, paid an official visit to India on November 20, 2025, for the 16th India-Australia Foreign Ministers’ Framework Dialogue (FMFD) and her 26th meeting with External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar. In an official statement before the visit, Foreign Minister Wong shared that “Australia and India have never been closer and our partnership has never been more consequential-it is crucial for us and crucial for the region in a sharper and more competitive world. My visit continues the high tempo of engagement between our two countries and reflects the ongoing work of the Albanese Government to deepen our relationships and strengthen our resilience”. India-Australia relations have thrived under the Albanese administration, and the visit of Foreign Minister Wong is a first to India after her government secured a landslide victory in the May 2025 federal elections.
During the FMFD that followed, foreign ministers reviewed the different facets of bilateral relations under the India-Australia Partnership Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP), which included trade & investment, defence & security, energy, and people-to-people ties, among others. That being said, the timing of the FMFD is significant on several grounds. Firstly, it took place at a time when New Delhi was preparing to host the much-awaited QUAD leaders’ summit, but due to the uneasiness surrounding India-U.S. relations, the summit has been postponed to next year. The unease stems from the U.S. imposing 50% tariffs on Indian goods in an attempt to punish New Delhi for buying Russian oil and weapons. New Delhi’s continued interactions with Moscow remain a growing concern for the Trump administration, considering that its purchase of Russian oil is viewed as indirectly supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine. The imposition of tariffs that came into effect in August 2025 has also affected the trade negotiations between New Delhi and Washington. Although they resumed the talks in September 2025, nothing substantial has come out of it; even though there are moments of optimistic announcements by representatives of the countries. Additionally, repetitive claims by Donald Trump that he stopped the India-Pakistan conflict in May 2025 that took place in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, even though New Delhi outrightly denied any third-party intervention, continue to test New Delhi’s delicate relationship with Washington. Against this backdrop, India’s engagement with other prominent members of the QUAD, in this case India’s bonhomie with Australia, has become essential in order to maintain the robustness of the grouping that took years to materialise.
Secondly, at the bilateral level, New Delhi and Canberra are a set of trusted partners in the Indian Ocean and the broader transcontinental region of the Indo-Pacific, that supports the post-Cold War international rules-based order, which believes in the sanctity of norms, institutions, and liberal political values and gave rise to multilateralism and global commons. And since the rules-based order was primarily US-led, relations with Washington often serve as a consequential factor among countries that are engaging with one another. In that context, both Canberra and New Delhi share their own unique set of relations with Washington, as the former has been Washington’s treaty ally and has remained under a US, US-led or US-backed security shield since 1951, and the latter has largely maintained a strategic autonomous posture that has aligned with its own set of global power ambitions since its independence. Also, in the case of New Delhi, external powers have played a significant role in determining its relationship with Washington. Nevertheless, New Delhi and Canberra have managed to share the same set of convergences when it comes to democratic values, allegiance to multilateral institutions, and a well-calibrated understanding of the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region that is a blend of major, middle, and emerging powers.
Thirdly, the year 2025 marks the fifth anniversary of the India-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which also observed a reception being hosted by the Australian High Commission in New Delhi. The event was graced by Dr Jaishankar as the guest of honour, with the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Richard Marles, visiting New Delhi to mark the occasion. As per the official data, over the course of five years, the countries witnessed enhanced defence ties including increasing annual exercises and activities, signing of the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement, establishment of Australian universities campuses for Indian students in 2024, the launch of Renewable Energy Partnership and strengthening of cultural and people-to-people ties, including through the Australian Government’s Centre for Australia-India Relations for Indian Australians. Additionally, to mark 5 years of CSP, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh embarked on a visit to Australia, where he participated in the inaugural Australia–India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue. In this regard, the defence relations between India and Australia become increasingly important as they tend to diversify their respective defence partners. With global uncertainties pertaining to the Russia-Ukraine war, the periodically erupting systemic West Asian tensions, and China’s not-so-benign activities in the South China Sea that forms the heart of the Indo-Pacific region, the India-Australia partnership at the defence and security level only increases the interoperability and maritime domain awareness, which carries much strategic weight
Final word
All things considered, India and Australia are enjoying a promising partnership at present, one that is marked by strategic convergence of interests in which the quest for upholding the rules-based international order dominates. And in that scenario, the intensity of high-level engagements plays a consequential role, and as the Australian envoy Philip Green OAM shared, “of all the counterparts that Senator Wong has met in the world, Dr Jaishankar is the one with whom she has met the most often- 26 times”.
And that said, it is these regular interactions that only foster a healthy and viable bilateral relationship between countries, especially at a time when international politics is undergoing a geopolitical flux resulting in a more contested and fragmented environment marked by unilateralism and uncertainty.
Ritika Suneja is a Research Intern at NIICE and has completed her Master's in Politics and International Relations from Pondicherry University.
