Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi kept up the tradition of Chinese leaders visiting Africa at the beginning of the year. For 32 years, this tradition has been in vogue and the Chinese FM, between 4 and 7 January, visited Eritrea, Kenya and Comoros in the Indian Ocean.

Though the QUAD and AUKUS had received wide media attention in India, with each analysis applauding the merit of these initiatives, another significant development that took place in the past week has somewhat received less attention. The import of this is no less significant as the earlier initiatives of QUAD and AUKUS that sprang as a response to China’s belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Australia and Japan signed a new defence agreement on 6 January 2022, which both PM Scott Morrison and PM Fumio Kishida hailed as a landmark. The Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) is Japan’s second such Agreement with any country, after treaty ally US, and in essence, will allow Australian and Japanese armed forces access to each other’s territories through deployments, and to work seamlessly with each other on defence, joint training and humanitarian operations by easing restrictions on the transport of weapons and supplies.