Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jingping during a bilateral meeting in Wuhan, ChinaWikimedia
India already has maritime cooperation agreements in place with Indonesia, Japan and the US when it comes to the Indo-Pacific. “You can see that Australia was slightly outside this arc, now it has been brought into this special club,” said Bhatia.
“What isn’t mentioned here, but may have agreed upon and will come out slowly, is the Malabar Naval Exercises. So far, there were only three countries who participated — the US, India and Japan. Now Australia may also be invited to this,” said Bhatia.
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