As China advances and the U.S. retreats, Japan-India ties grow stronger

Japan Times

4 days ago

At a summit in Washington earlier this month, foreign ministers from 'the Quad' nations of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. agreed to work together to ensure a stable supply of critical minerals and released the following joint statement: 'We are committed to a region where all countries are free from coercion and strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.'
The Quad diplomats were, of course, referring to China's growing economic and military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region and its gray-zone threats in the South China and East China seas. But 'coercion' is also an accurate description of U.S. President Donald Trump's aggressive trade policies in the region and insistence, as with NATO in Europe, that the nations of the Indo-Pacific increase their military spending and take more responsibility for their own defense.
In this environment, bilateral India-Japan relations are more important than ever. Located on two ends of the Indo-Pacific region, India and Japan are pivotal to shaping a stable and viable counterweight to Chinese ambitions and the volatility of Trump's second term. Both countries possess a strategic heft that makes them invaluable to any Indo-Pacific strategy and have a record of success in regional coalition building and strategic autonomy to advance their own shared interests, whether in the Indo-Pacific or Southeast Asia.
India-Japan relations have a nuanced history, including collaboration between Japanese forces and the Indian National Army, an Indian nationalist military force allied with Tokyo, in World War II. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first articulation of the 'Indo-Pacific' took place in New Delhi in a speech to the Indian Parliament on the 'Confluence of the Two Seas' in 2007, when he spoke of how 'the Pacific and Indian Oceans are now bringing about a dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and prosperity.'
In addition to the Quad, both Japan and India are members of a clutch of ASEAN-led regional bodies, the Group of 20 and the Group of Four, which is seeking a seat in a reformed U.N. Security Council. In addition to forming the Quad in 2007, India and Japan's contemporary history is built on a robust relationship anchored in the 2011 India-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership of 2014.
These partnerships sprung from three significant events a decade earlier. First, after years of investing heavily in China, the country's 2005 anti-Japanese riots led to a shift of focus toward India. Second, given Japan's special postwar relationship with the U.S., the Indo-U.S. Civil Nuclear Agreement, announced in July 2005, was necessary for the growth of ties with India. And third, the arrival in Japan of more outward-looking prime ministers like Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) and Shinzo Abe (2012-2020) led to deeper diplomatic relations.
Moreover, Japan has played a significant role in India's development with nearly $60 billion worth of Official Development Assistance loans, grants and technical cooperation since 2000. This includes around $2 billion for Northeast India through which Japan seeks to forge links to Southeast Asia, where it not only provides oda, but its foreign direct investment is double that of China.
Japanese money has helped build the Delhi and Chennai Metros, the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and other roads, bridges and bypasses. Another prestige project Japan is undertaking is the high-speed rail corridor between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Indeed, FDI from Japan has increased steadily and it is now the fourth-largest investor in the country.
Military cooperation is also increasing. In 2004, the Indian, U.S. and Japanese navies came together to provide humanitarian assistance after the devastation caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami. In 2007, at the suggestion of Abe, the Quad was formed. That same year, Japan began to participate in the Indo-U.S. Malabar naval exercises. Japan's Self-Defense Forces have now been participating in it regularly since 2014 after it developed a sharper Indo-Pacific focus.
Greater defense cooperation makes sense. India's entire border with China is disputed and remains unsettled — largely due to Chinese mendacity. Today, a rising China flexes its muscles and prioritizes national security; it rubs up against Japan in the Senkaku Islands and its neighbors in the East and South China seas, as well as the Himalayas.
Meanwhile, the first Trump administration sounded a warning bell for Japan, signaling a more transactional relationship with the U.S. As a result, in December 2022 Japan announced that it would double its defense expenditure to 2% of gross domestic product and also acquire military capabilities it had previously avoided, such as long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles. It also announced plans to sharply enhance its cybercapabilities, satellites and unmanned aerial- and maritime-systems to support counterstrikes. Structural changes were made to the higher command of the Japanese military and it reached out to the U.K. and Australia for defense-enhanced ties. January 2023 also saw the first time Indian fighter aircraft landed in Japan for a joint military exercise, Veer Guardian.
India remains leery of military alliances, but in May Tokyo and New Delhi agreed to organize a new defense cooperation consultation body, and there is considerable scope for bilateral ties in that area. Though both collaborate with the U.S. and see it as a vital balancer of China in terms of security, they also need to hedge against Trump's mercurial ways. In the past, India and Japan have made attempts to work together in areas like long-range amphibious aircraft. New Delhi had at one time also sought information on possibly making Japan's Soryu-class submarines in India but, for a variety of reasons, no deal materialized.
Currently, there is an important agreement between Japan and India to transfer and co-develop advanced naval stealth technologies such as the Unified Complex Radio Antenna mast for warships and submarines. The two countries also have an agreement to jointly develop an advanced underwater surveillance system and other maritime technology to enhance their deterrence capacity in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The potential for expanding joint production of defense equipment that would leverage Japan's advanced technology with India's manufacturing capacity has barely been touched.
Another focus, which overlaps the Quad relationship, is building economic resilience through supply-chain diversification in areas like semiconductors and rare earths. There is considerable scope to deepen their Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement by boosting trade and investment that will counter U.S. tariff threats and Chinese economic coercion. The two also need to put more energy into their 2017 idea of creating an Asia-Africa growth corridor.
Crucial to stronger India-Japan ties are the high-level 'two-plus-two' meetings between the nations' defense and foreign ministers, the last of which took place last August in New Delhi. At that meeting the two sides agreed to enhance cooperation 'to reflect contemporary priorities and be responsive to contemporary security challenges facing them.' Those same challenges — emanating from both Beijing and Washington — will no doubt be high on the agenda next month during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's scheduled visit to Japan.
Manoj Joshi, a journalist and distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, is former political editor of The Times of India and the author, most recently, of 'Understanding the India-China Border: The Enduring Threat of War in High Himalaya' (2022).