Australia will take part in a large-scale military drill off the coast of India next month that will bring together a quartet of countries concerned by rising Chinese influence.  India, Japan, the United States and -- for the first time since 2007 -- Australia will take part in this November's Malabar naval exercise, a move that will likely spark Chinese protest.  India's Ministry of Defence said the naval drill would take place in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, which has been a hotspot for Indo-Chinese strategic competition. The drill comes at a time when diplomatic tensions between China and Australia, economic tensions between China and the US and military tensions between China and India are boiling. At  a Quad  meeting in Tokyo earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Asian allies to unite against China's "exploitation, corruption and coercion" in the region.