India becomes Asia-Pacific shaping power on Modi's tour
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Narendra Modi completed a three-nation tour of Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand, with Australia announcing it will invite an Indian military instructor to serve at the Australian Defence College — a reversal of the 1998 defence-cooperation freeze imposed after India's Pokhran nuclear tests.
- Australia finalised an 'administrative arrangement' to actively facilitate uranium exports for India's civil nuclear energy programme, ending a decade-long holdup caused by Canberra's own parliamentary politics.
- Modi's Australia visit produced concrete agreements on expanded defence cooperation, maritime security, cyber- and critical technologies, clean energy, skills, investment, and critical minerals — described in the piece as substantive rather than cosmetic.
- India is positioning itself as a 'shaping power' rather than a 'balancing power,' explicitly refusing to join any bloc, accept China's claim to regional primacy, or outsource its China policy to Washington, Canberra, or Tokyo.
- Strategic autonomy, the article argues, is informed by 'millennia of Indian civilisational thought' — framed as a refusal to be chosen for, not a refusal to choose — and dismissed Western critiques labelling it hedging or opportunism.
- Middle powers like Japan, Indonesia, and Australia are cast as the load-bearing nodes of the emerging Asia Pacific, since none can dictate terms to the international system but all can prevent it from tipping into instability.
Why it matters: Australia's decision to embed an Indian military instructor at its Defence College — reversing 28 years of estrangement since the 1998 Pokhran sanctions — gives India a concrete institutional foothold in Pacific security architecture alongside operationalised uranium exports and critical-minerals cooperation, materially reshaping the region's balance of power beyond rhetoric.
