Nuclear, explained.
The more that commercial nuclear production is traceable, safeguarded and embedded in international standards, the more opportunities partners have to reinforce responsible nuclear behaviour (Artem Geodakyan via Getty Images)
India’s uranium deal gives Canberra a fresh entry point into the regional nuclear order – and a chance to help write its rules.
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The nuclear triangle in South Asia and Australia’s openingThe nuclear triangle in South Asia and Australia’s opening
For decades, Australian nuclear policy towards South Asia revolved around one problem: India. New Delhi had built nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and Canberra worried that civil nuclear cooperation would weaken the rules it was trying to defend.
That framing is now obsolete. South Asia’s nuclear order is no longer an India–Pakistan problem with China in the background. It is an interconnected China–India–Pakistan nuclear triangle (Opens in new window), shaped by arsenal modernisation, emerging technologies, territorial competition and deepening civil nuclear relationships. What happens inside this triangle increasingly affects the wider Indo-Pacific.
Australia has just acquired a new entry point. In July, Canberra and New Delhi finalised the administrative arrangement (Opens in new window) that operationalises their civil nuclear agreement and enables long-term Australian uranium exports to India for peaceful purposes under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Australia should treat this not as the end of an old non-proliferation argument, but as the beginning of a more ambitious South Asia nuclear policy.
India and Pakistan remain outside the NPT. China is a recognised nuclear-weapon state under it, yet its nuclear modernisation feeds directly into Indian calculations, which in turn affect Pakistan. Pakistan’s civilian sector is also deeply connected to Beijing, with six operable Chinese-supplied reactors and another under construction (Opens in new window).
For Canberra, defending the NPT and managing nuclear risk in South Asia are not identical tasks. Treaty architecture alone cannot encompass a regional nuclear balance in which two weapons states sit outside the treaty and the third is simultaneously a global and regional strategic competitor.
Australian foreign policy should therefore shift from a politics of nuclear eligibility to a strategy of nuclear enmeshment: building additional layers of safeguards, transparency, industrial accountability and risk reduction around the nuclear relationships that already exist.
That makes India the logical starting point.
Australia can remain at the mine-head – exporting uranium while leaving the nuclear architecture to others – or shape that architecture itself.
India’s civilian nuclear sector is undergoing a transformation. New Delhi has set a 100 GW nuclear capacity target for 2047 (Opens in new window), centred on indigenous 700 MWe pressurised heavy water reactors, advanced reactors and small modular reactors. Its ₹20,000 crore (US$2.4 billion) SMR mission (Opens in new window) aims to operationalise at least five indigenous SMRs by 2033, while recent reforms have widened the role of private firms.
A larger civilian nuclear economy will create supply chains, component manufacturers, regulatory relationships, export-control obligations, quality-assurance systems and international partnerships. These can become additional institutional firewalls around civilian nuclear activity. The more that commercial nuclear production is traceable, safeguarded and embedded in international standards, the more opportunities partners have to reinforce responsible nuclear behaviour.
Australia has capabilities relevant to precisely this task. Its safeguards system gives Canberra expertise in nuclear-material accounting and bilateral nuclear governance. Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) contributes nuclear science, materials, waste and security expertise. The AUKUS pact with the United States and the United Kingdom is simultaneously forcing Australia to acquire a far deeper culture of nuclear stewardship, regulation and technical assurance.
Canberra should bring these strands together. Australia and India should develop a second generation of civil nuclear cooperation focused on safeguards implementation, materials accounting, nuclear safety, waste stewardship, regulatory capacity and supply-chain assurance. Australian engagement with India’s expanding civilian industrial base should be designed not simply to facilitate commerce, but to increase transparency and institutional density.
A nuclear power plant located on the outskirts of Delhi, India (Creative Touch Imaging Ltd/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
But an Australian South Asia strategy cannot stop at India. Canberra should also use its diplomatic relationships and multilateral standing to support practical nuclear-risk reduction across the wider region. SIPRI research (Opens in new window) has identified options ranging from doctrinal dialogue and joint threat assessments to communication mechanisms, pre-notification and transparency around emerging strategic technologies. Australia does not need to cast itself as a mediator between India and Pakistan to support such measures. It can be a convenor, technical partner and advocate for stronger regional norms.
There is also a longer-term contest over civilian nuclear influence. China has already demonstrated that reactor exports can create durable strategic relationships. If India succeeds in turning its PHWR and SMR capabilities into exportable technologies, civil nuclear power could become another arena in which Beijing and New Delhi compete for influence across the developing Indo-Pacific. Australia has an interest in ensuring that this competition occurs within strong rules on safeguards, safety, supplier responsibility and materials security.
This should not become an anti-China nuclear bloc. Australia’s interest is more durable than that: a regional order in which strategic competition is surrounded by thicker institutions and greater predictability.
For three decades, Canberra’s nuclear diplomacy with India was dominated by the question of whether engagement would undermine non-proliferation. Events have overtaken that debate. Australia is now a prospective uranium supplier to India, an AUKUS nuclear-stewardship state and an Indo-Pacific power confronting a regional nuclear balance shaped by China, India and Pakistan.
The NPT remains indispensable. But the treaty alone cannot manage every nuclear relationship in a region whose strategic realities have developed partly beyond it.
Australia therefore faces a choice. It can remain at the mine-head – exporting uranium while leaving the architecture surrounding Asia’s changing nuclear economy to others. Or it can use its resources and safeguards expertise to help shape the architecture of nuclear stewardship.
Australia does not need nuclear power stations to become a nuclear-governance power. India is where Canberra can begin proving it.
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