India Japan Relations: Expanding Special Strategic And Global Partnership

India Japan Relations

Prime Minister Modi, after coming to power, chose Japan as his first destination for a bilateral visit outside India’s immediate neighbourhood, reflecting importance of Japan in India’s foreign policy, economic development and her place at the heart of  India’s Act East Policy. India and Japan are Asia’s two largest and oldest democracies with ancient cultural links and enduring goodwill between their people. The two countries are joined together by convergent global interest, critical maritime inter-connection and growing international responsibilities. They share an abiding commitment to peace and stability, international rule of law and open global trade regime. Their economies have vast complementarities that create boundless opportunities for mutually beneficial economic partnership.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe  in a meeting in Tokyo in September’14, pledged to realize the full potential of India-Japan strategic and global partnership for continuing progress and prosperity for their people and for advancing peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the world, marking a dawn of a new era in India-Japan relations.

Since their first meeting in September’14, the two Prime Ministers have intensified and invigorated multi-sectoral dialogues between their Foreign Ministers, Defence Ministers, National Security Advisors and Ministers dealing with finance, economy, trade, science & technology, infrastructure and connectivity and energy to build deeper mutual understanding and cooperation. Both leaders reaffirmed the importance of defence relations between them in their special strategic partnership by signing Memorandum of Cooperation and Exchanges in the field of Defence by regularization of bilateral maritime exercises, joint exercises between Coast Guards and Japan’s continued participation in India-US Malabar series of exercises. Japan’s new policy on transfer of defence equipment and technology has ushered a new era of co-operation by unlocking enormous potential for transfer and collaborative projects in defence equipment and technology between the two countries e.g US-2 amphibian aircraft. The two leaders have affirmed their shared commitment to maritime security, freedom of navigation and overflight, civil aviation safety, unimpeded lawful commerce and peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with international law.

At a time of growing global turmoil, tensions, transitions and disruptions, the two leaders affirmed that a closer and stronger global partnership between the two countries is indispensible for a prosperous future of the two countries and peace, stability and prosperity in the world, in particular, in the inter-connected Asia, Pacific and Indian Ocean Regions. The two leaders have committed to build strong partnership to promote economic and social development, capacity building and infrastructure development in other countries and region.

The India Japan relationship is rapidly gathering momentum. A foundational pillar of this relationship is connectivity. Apart from development on the domestic front, such as the inauguration of the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project, India and Japan are now projecting this partnership at a regional level, beginning in South Asia, expanding into the Indian Ocean and onwards to Africa. Where India struggled to meet its domestic requirements on infrastructure development, it is now outlining regional strategic connectivity and infrastructure investments in partnership with Japan.

Geopolitical Competition

Post 2016 annual summit in November’16, PM Modi and PM Shinzo Abe announced their intention to build a maritime corridor connecting Asia and Africa. This intention crystalized into the “Asia Africa Growth Corridor” (AAGC) in May’17, a week after India refused to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Japan’s concern about China’s assertive behavior and rising profile in South China sea and Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and India’s concern about disputed land border with China and its strategic implications of commercial engagements in its neighbourhood, created a platform for deeper collaboration between India and Japan and their partners. India and Japan realized the need to act on the changing security dynamics to secure their interests and strategic ambitions. Instead of competing with China’s ambitious BRI backed by unrivalled capital, India and Japan began creating an alternative to BRI and complicate China’s strategic calculus and maintain a multipolar world by stabilizing the region in times of uncertainty. The intention of AAGC is to address the region’s challenges, deepen regional co-operation and integration, strengthen regional economic and security forums and promote peaceful resolution of disputes. The AAGC focuses on four areas 1) Development Co-operation projects  2) Quality infrastructure and institutional connectivity  3) Enhancing Skills  4) People to People Partnership.

The development of connectivity via quality infrastructure and other projects including capacity building for shared prosperity under AAGC will be carried out bilaterally and with other partners in an open, transparent and non-exclusive manner and based on international standards, responsible debt financing practices and in alignment with local economic and development strategies and priorities of the countries, These parameters of AAGC removes flaws under Chinese built projects, especially fears of “debt traps”.

India Japan Collaboration for "Act East Policy"

Apart from AAGC, the two countries are collaborating to enhance connectivity in North East India through India Japan Act East Forum and develop “smart islands”, interpreted to be Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The Act East Forum established last year has served as a driving force to advance India-Japan co-operation in the North East. Its second meeting was held on 8 October’18 with the following outcomes:

For implementation:

1. Meghalaya North East Connectivity  Phase 1: Tura-Dalu (NH-51)  Phase 2: Shillong-Dawki (NH-40)
2. Mizoram North East Connectivity  Phase 1&2 : Aizwal-Tuipang (NH-54)
3. Sikkim: Biodiversity conservation & Forest Management
4. Nagaland: Forest conservation livelihood improvement

Reaffirmed Intentions:

1. Completion of Gelephu-Dalu corridor including Dhubri/Phulbari bridge project, which will be the longest river bridge in India, as Phase 3 of North East Road Network connectivity improvement project.
2. Main District Roads (MDRs) and Other District Roads (ODRs) for socio-economic development
3. Project for Renovation and Modernization of Umiam-Umtru stage III hydroelectric power station.
4. Sustainable Forest Management in Tripura and similar project for consideration in Meghalaya.

13^th India-Japan Annual Summit (28-29 October’18)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Japan on October 28-29, 2018 for India-Japan Annual Summit with Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. The visit saw deepening ties across the board, especially on defence and security. Both leaders reviewed the significant milestones achieved over the last four years and outlined shared vision for the future of India-Japan relations.

The two leaders shared their view that in order to achieve this shared vision, India and Japan must endeavour to work together for a rules-based and inclusive world order that fosters trust and confidence by enhancing communication and connectivity to ensure rule of law, unimpeded trade and flow of people, technology and ideas for shared prosperity.

Key Highlights of Annual Summit:

1. Establishing the “Platform for Japan-India Business Cooperation in Asia-Africa Region to enhance the exchanges between Japanese and Indian businesses toward developing Industrial corridors and Industrial network in the region.
2. India Japan plan to cooperate in areas such as development of LNG-related infrastructure in Sri Lanka; housing, education and electrification projects in Myanmar; bridge and rail projects in Bangladesh and business development and health initiatives like cancer hospital in Kenya.
3. Launching of a comprehensive India-Japan Digital Partnership with the vision to develop IoT and AI solutions for societal benefits.
4. Deepen bilateral security and defence co-operation by instituting Foreign and Defence Ministerial (2+2) dialogue.
5. Commence negotiations on the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA) to enhance the strategic depth of bilateral security and Defence co-operation. This is similar to logistic support agreement which India has signed with US and France which allow navies to use each others bases, either at home or overseas, thereby fundamentally increasing a country’s ability to sustain its presence in an expanded region. 
6. Signed agreement towards enhanced exchange of information to expand Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) between the Indian Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF).
7. Commencement of co-operative research in the area of Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) and Robotics.
8. To continue efforts with regard to cooperation on US-2 amphibian aircraft.
9. Japan announced joining of International Solar Alliance.
10. Agreement to conclude a bilateral Swap Agreement of USD 75 billion For External Commercial Borrowing (ECB), no mandatory hedging will be required for infrastructure ECB of more than 5 years minimum average maturity.