‘India’s RCEP stand disappointing’
KV Prasad & Sandeep Dixit
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 4
Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu has said Canberra’s strategic and defence ties with India were at an all-time high but New Delhi needed to join the Regional Economic Cooperation Partnership (RCEP), a 16-nation economic free trade arrangement.
She was speaking to The Tribune on the eve of her departure from India after a four-year tenure, a period that saw a major upswing in bilateral ties. In fact, there was an India factor in Australian PM Scott Morrison’s come-back-from-behind win as it was credited to his steadfastness in going ahead with the Adani coal mine in Queensland and the jobs it would generate.
The High Commissioner said both countries were working on a visit by Morrison. He was to visit India and attend Raisina Dialogue in December but was unable to make it because of bushfire emergency. She would not hazard a guess if and when the India-Australia two plus two of Foreign and Defence Secretaries would be upgraded to the ministerial level. But the current Secretary-level meetings have served the cause well and the third India-Australia two plus two in December focused broadly on foreign policy and strategic policy relationship, the backbone of bilateral ties.
“At the end, it was very clear while we might have some differences of approach or emphasis, broadly speaking, both countries see things in very similar ways.This explains why we are able to work in different formats in trilaterals or even in the quadrilaterals,’’ the High Commissioner observed.
Australia was a vocal supporter of India’s entry in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) and is a firm backer of its entry into the UNSC as a permanent member along with Japan, Germany and Brazil. However, she described India’s decision on RCEP as “disappointing’’.
The High Commissioner observed. “Our very first response was to say to India that the door is wide open. When India is ready to join RCEP, Australia will support that. There were many reasons that went into India’s decision. I believe there was not anything that could not have been negotiated or surmounted. We saw a lot of progress in the last phases of RCEP negotiations and are very confident we can continue to negotiate in that framework. At this stage, we would like to see what we can do to progress our discussions with India on RCEP and, of course, a lot of talk about what we might do bilaterally”.
Australia, she said, continued to welcome Indians through a “transparent, non-discriminatory’’ immigration policy. “If people qualify, they are able to migrate. Yes, it is challenging to qualify but Indians are doing very, very well. I see no reason why that should change in the short term.’’
