CHENNAI: Australia should play a significant role in evolving convergences between Asian democracies as it was in a strategic position to leverage its leadership for regional cooperation, speakers at the inauguration of a two-day seminar on `Rising convergences: Australia, India and East Asia' organised by the Australian High Commission on Friday said.

Regional security and stability, especially in East Asia, were important for Australia as three-fourths of its total trade were with that region, John McCarthy, Australian High Commissioner to India, said.

The emergence of new power structures such as India and China had to be factored into emerging shapes in regional architecture. India was the sixth biggest export market for Australia.

"The rise of India is in everybody's interest as it is the single most important aspect of changing regional structures. It will benefit all, as a multipolar Asia is preferable to a unipolar Asia. The rise of China as a global power is also of importance," Mr. McCarthy added.

Inaugurating the seminar, N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, said Australia's strategic importance lay in the fact that it was a developed country in a region of mostly developing countries.

"If there is to be an Asian century, then India and China must develop and do well and must co-operate [with each other]. Though India's trade with ASEAN and China had exponentially multiplied, in terms of access to media, especially the Internet, a huge gap existed between China and India. While China had 128 million Internet users, Indian users came up to only 25 million, and this needed to be addressed."

C.P. Chandrasekhar, Professor of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the success of India and China was defined by the absence of major financial crises but China had a large trade and current account surplus, unlike India. While China's dynamism was based on manufacturing, India's was based on services. However, both showed a high degree of dependence on U.S markets. Perspectives in the West saw a "threat" in that India and China were exploiting the benefits of the new knowledge economy.

As far as research and development went, more than half of the world's top R&D spenders conducted their activities in China, India or Singapore. The implications were the emergence of a new global division of labour where China and India were still instruments of battle than the warriors themselves, he said.

K. Venugopal, Joint Editor, The Hindu and The Hindu Business Line, said Australia and India had complementarities of interest that would enable them to do business with each other.

While Australia could help India in areas such as energy, farm produce, education and technology, India could offer a huge market for goods and services, a cost-effective intellectual power and foreign direct investments. Trade between the two countries had more than tripled in four years.

Australia could also invest in India in areas such as farm management, mining and construction and banking and insurance.

Manoj Joshi, Editor (views), Hindustan Times, said that despite the mutual threat perceptions between India and China, there were also counter-currents creating mutual Sino-Indian interests through cross-investments and trade.

Bambang Harymurti, Editor-in-Chief, The Tempo, Indonesia, said Australia should facilitate open and mutual dialogues among India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and the ASEAN community,

V. Pandiyan, Deputy News Editor, The Star, Malaysia, Raja Mohan, Strategic Affairs Editor, The Indian Express, and Gautam Adhikari, Editor, Daily News and Analysis, were among those who spoke.

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