Australia is stepping up military co-operation with India in a bid to give a four-way partnership with Japan and the US “teeth”, in what sources say is a play to keep Washington engaged amid concerns over China’s growing military might.Anthony Albanese and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi will on Thursday meet in Melbourne just days after China launched a nuclear-capable missile into the South Pacific.While there will be plenty of smiley photo opportunities, NewsWire understands much of the talks will centre on defence and security.Both Australia and India, alongside Japan and the US, are members of the Quad – a strategic partnership to check China’s power, as former US president Joe Biden was caught on a hot mic admitting at its last leader level summit in 2024.Mr Biden said at the time Chinese President Xi Jinping was “looking to buy himself some diplomatic space … to aggressively pursue China’s interest”.“China continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea … South Asia and the Taiwan Straits,” he told Mr Albanese and the prime ministers of India and Japan.“It’s true across the scope of our relationship, including on economic and technology issues.”Mr Biden’s successor, Donald Trump, has not seen the same value in the Quad, with his chief diplomat Marco Rubio relaying to counterparts last year that the forum needed to evolve to become a “vehicle for action”.Mr Rubio’s call to turn “ideas and concepts into … concrete actions” is what underpins efforts from Australia, Japan and India to strengthen military ties, according to government sources from all three countries.Outcomes from Mr Albanese’s meeting with Mr Modi are expected to mirror the Joint Statement on Enhanced Defence and Security Cooperation agreed with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in May, which “focuses on strengthening capability, deepening integration and bolstering interoperability”.Mr Modi has himself recently secured high-level agreements with Japan.An Australian source unauthorised to speak publicly said defence ties with both India and Australia had developed “naturally” but that efforts had intensified over the past two years to, in part, show the Trump administration that the Quad “could grow teeth”.Meanwhile, Indian and Japanese diplomatic sources were hopeful meaningful military engagement could be enough to interest Mr Trump in a leader level summit.With Albanese-Modi meeting taking place in the shadow of Monday’s missile test, the leaders will undoubtedly canvas it.The Indian government has been cautious to comment on it but New Delhi’s economic engagements in East Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific mean it has skin in the game.Nathan Attrill, a China expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told NewsWire the launch was “designed not just to demonstrate capability, but to test how Indo-Pacific countries respond to China’s growing military reach”.“Beijing is signalling that in any future Taiwan crisis, it can project power far beyond the Taiwan Strait and impose strategic pressure across the wider region,” he said.A nuclear power, India is well placed militarily and economically to counter China.It shares a massive border and has easy access to the Strait of Malacca – the chokepoint through which 80 per cent of China’s oil transits.