Tony Abbott, Australia’s special trade envoy for India and a former Prime Minister, described India as a “emerging democratic superpower” during his visit to New Delhi last week “A quick trade agreement with India, he added, would be a significant sign of the democratic world’s shift away from China.
Abbott said in an opinion article for “The Australian’ newspaper on Monday that a trade deal with India may make “the world safer for democracy”.”
According to Abbott, India has restarted the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, with the first in-person Quad meeting planned before the end of the year.
“India and Australia are like-minded democracies with a stalemate in their relationship, at least until Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India. India has resurrected the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue under (Prime Minister) Modi, and the first in-person Quad meeting is scheduled before the end of the year,” he said.
Abbott, who was Prime Minister at the time China and Australia inked a bilateral free trade deal in 2015, said China’s fearsome influence stems from the free world’s decision to include a communist dictatorship in global economic networks.
“At the time, it was assumed that increased wealth and greater economic freedom would eventually lead to political liberalisation as well. That was certainly my opinion in 2014, when we signed China’s first trade agreement with a G20 country. Our exports to China grew as a result, even faster than theirs to us; nevertheless, the present capricious boycotts of Australian coal, barley, wine, and seafood illustrate that trade is exploited as a geopolitical weapon by the Beijing regime,” Abbott said.
