The key to building strategic ties between Australia and India is patience and realistic expectations, top Australian diplomat Peter Varghese has said, underlining that the booming economic relations will be the "load- bearing pillar" in bilateral partnership.
Speaking at Australia India Institute annual oration yesterday here, Head of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Varghese said, "We have committed to a strategic partnership."
Varghese, the former Australian High Commissioner to India, said, "The economic relationship is booming. Our geo strategic interests are converging. We are finding more common ground in multilateral for a welcome if still nascent change from the days when differences over trade and on-proliferation soured a generation of Australian and Indian diplomats towards each other."
"This growing convergence applies to both our strategic and economic interests, the latter driven by a structural complementarity in trade and investment. Indeed it is the economic relationship which, in my view, will be the load bearing pillar of the relationship in the medium term," he said.
Varghese who took over as Indian High Commissioner when Indian student safety issue was at the peak in 2009 however, said, "The key to building the Australia-India relationship is patience and realistic expectations."
"India punishes impatience," he added.
"If we get the economic relationship right, the strategic partnership will follow, although there will be a long lag between when India arrives as an economic power and when it arrives as a strategic power," he said.
"In my view, the Australia-India story will be broadly similar to the Australia-Japan story: trade led, commodities dominated, values influenced and then broadening into a strategic partnership," he said.
India's changing sense of its strategic interests will bring it closer to Australia. But there will be limits to how far and how fast India will want to go in this direction, Varghese said.
