Scott Morrison likes using the phrase delicate moment in time to describe the international dynamics Australia is now faced with. Its a time to build friendships on many fronts, as the government understands well. But the task is challengingeven in the case of countries that we expect to be natural partners, such as India. The AustraliaIndia Roundtable held in Melbourne this month highlighted the need for a sophisticated knowledge of the different players in our regionsomething which Australia still has to develop.

We wont neglect, of course, our long-term relationships. We will continue to remind the United States that Australia is the best of allies even if we have to cope with a fundamentally unreliable American leadership. It makes sense, as well, to go on reaffirming our commitment to ASEANSoutheast Asia is a part of the world in which we have been seriously involved over a long period. But democracy isnt faring well there, and many countries in the region are more positive about a rising China than we expected. The ASEAN approach to the emerging concept of the Indo-Pacific is also quite different from that of the United States or Japan.

The aspiration of developing closer coordination with Japan and Indiain quadrilateral meetings with the United Stateshas received support from both sides of Australian politics. Alongside our vital US alliance, we have worked closely with Japan over many decades, including in the building of the APEC organisation.

But the Quad concept is perceived in many quarters, including in China, as an anti-China initiative. And in recent timesas Indias prominent strategic analyst, Shyam Saran, has notedthere have been signs that Japan is forging a more constructive relationship with the Middle Kingdom. A lack of trust in the US is likely to be an issue here. It may pay Australian analysts to recall Samuel Huntingtons warning some decades ago that if Japan ever lost confidence in Americas commitment to lead the Asian region it might surprise the world by quickly accommodating China.

Indias policy on the Quad is far from clear. In some quarters theres a call to strengthen the countrys military and to forge more substantial cooperation with the US. A recent paper from the Delhi Policy Group points out, however, that theres little consensus within Indias policy discourse on how to meet the China challenge. Theres still a general aversion to adopting an openly confrontational policy and an unwillingness to abandon the countrys strategic independence and manoeuvrability.

Similar caution is noted in an important new book, Indias eastward engagement, by S.D. Murni and Rahul Mishra. India, the authors assert, has been underplaying its participation in the Quad. It wasnt mentioned in Prime Minister Narendra Modis Shangri-La Dialogue speech of 2018which pleased the Chineseand India continues to favour a balanced approach to USChina relationships, consistent with the emphasis on strategic autonomy which has characterised Indias foreign policy since its Independence.

There can be no doubt that India and China have been clashing over significant issues, but their leaders continue to meet on a regular basis. India is also a member of the China-led regional institution, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Modis statements on the Indo-Pacific concept, one might add, seem closer to ASEANs position than to the USsstressing inclusiveness rather than a strategy for countering China.

Morrison has called India a natural partner for Australia. True, we could do much more together in the future, but Canberras alliance-grounded view of the world contrasts sharply with New Delhis commitment to strategic autonomy. We also differ in the scope of our relations with China. Australia has an immensely beneficial economic relationship with China, while India imports far more than it exports, and fears being swamped by Chinese products if trade between the two countries is freed up further. Adding in its territorial disputes with China, India ought to be more concerned than Australia about Chinayet while the Indian and Chinese leaders continue to talk, our government-to-government interaction seems frozen.

Some commentators are surprised that our prime minister, despite being obviously troubled by certain Chinese policies, continues to stress that we have a comprehensive strategic partnership with China and that a growing China has a right to change the way it engages with the world. In fact, in expressing such ambivalence Australia, like India, may be veering a little towards ASEAN thinking in this delicate moment in time.

In domestic as well as foreign policy its not obvious that Australia and India have shared values. Indias handling of Kashmir and other sections of its huge Muslim community is attracting criticism in the liberal West, and the Modi government is also being accused of authoritarianism. At the AustraliaIndia Roundtable, we were told that if we bothered to learn about what people were thinking in the Indian heartland we would take a more sympathetic view of whats happening. Such knowledge would seem vital in forging a deeper relationship with India, but where might we find it? Certainly not in Melbourne.

The days when we believed the whole Asian region would gradually become democratic, and be set on a path of social development not unlike ours, are long gone. This has real significance for our educational institutions. We are now more engaged economically with the Asian region than everand the countries around us are more prosperous than we could have imagined a few decades ago. However, differences in political culture are not disappearing but hardening. The aspiration towards common values is a distraction. A successful Australia will need to possess the knowledge base to deal with assertive Asian countries on their own terms.

Here we face a crisis. A leading educator in Melbourne explained at the roundtable that if a student in this city of five million people wanted to gain in-depth knowledge of India it would simply not be possible.

Thirty years ago, when the whole world seemed to be experiencing a convergence of social as well as economic systems, this might not have mattered. Today, to contemplate a real partnership with India without specific knowledge of the countrys identityincluding views from its heartlandis simply unrealistic. The same might be said about the other Asian countries with which we are deepening our relations.

These delicate times therefore require an educational as well as a foreign policy strategy.

Anthony Milner is an emeritus professor at the Australian National Universitys Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. He was co-chair of the 2019 AustraliaIndia Roundtable, organised by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, the Delhi Policy Group, Asialink and the Australia India Institute.