How India-Japan 2+2 dialogue isn’t just about countering ‘China threat’

This week India has a very eventful diplomatic calendar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a visit to Poland and Ukraine, which has come a month after his visit to Russia in the backdrop of the Ukraine-Russia war. Meanwhile, he also hosted Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim early this week with a much-needed reset in ties achieved in the relations with Malaysia, India’s maritime neighbour.

Amidst all this, a key diplomatic engagement that has not garnered enough attention is the 2+2 ministerial dialogue between India and Japan that concluded on Tuesday. The third edition of this dialogue was led by Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from the Indian side and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defence Minister Kihara Minoru from the Japanese side. It comes two years after the countries’ foreign and defence ministers had last met in Tokyo.

Since then, a lot of new developments have taken place across the world where, although Russia’s war with Ukraine has taken precedence over other geopolitical matters for the rest of the major powers, for both India and Japan, the theatre of the Indo-Pacific remains of key importance.

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The rise of China and its expansionist designs in the East China Sea besides the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait is a matter of perennial concern for Japan. Whereas a similar attempt by Beijing to usurp Indian territory in the Himalayas by making outrageous claims as well as its growing footprint in the Indian Ocean continues to worry New Delhi.

Interestingly, both countries have become close partners in ensuring overall security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region with India’s Act East policy as well as PM Modi’s vision for Indo-Pacific coinciding with Japan’s own “Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)”. Interestingly, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida launched his new policy plan for FOIP from New Delhi last year, calling India an ‘indispensable partner’. This signalled how important a rising India is to Japan’s strategic vision in the region. Though the original architect of FOIP would rightfully be PM Shinzo Abe, who first mentioned the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ on the floor of the Indian parliament in 2007 and launched the FOIP officially in 2016. Since then, it has become the cornerstone for Japan’s China policy in the region, where it considers a strong partnership with India as a necessary bulwark against Chinese misadventures.

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While noting the importance of India-Japan bilateral ties, Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa has also written a column for an Indian national daily on the eve of her visit for the 2+2 Ministerial dialogue. This is her first visit to India after becoming the foreign minister of the country, but she has been a long-term advocate for India-Japan friendship. In the column, she has called the two countries ‘co-creators of new solutions’ with their friendship built on a foundation of long historical ties as well as their common status as democracies.

As guided by their overall convergence, India and Japan have broadened their relations, covering diverse sectors in the last decade ranging from defence to economic ties. The overall thrust of their relations is obviously on security, since with the Chinese policy of expansionism, both countries have a common strategic threat.

As a response, in the last few years their defence cooperation has grown manifold with joint military exercises and high-level engagements. During this year’s 2+2 dialogue as well, India has requested Japan to remove bottlenecks in the sharing of advanced defence technology as it is in the process of acquiring the UNICORN technology from Japan, which will be fitted in Indian warships, and give it a superior capability to evade detection by the enemy forces. The two countries are also exploring ways to jointly produce key defence equipment as a part of the Make in India (Defence) initiative. India has stressed joint production, research, and design of defence platforms with Japan rather than simply being a buyer in the equation.

In the domain of economy, India has become a great beneficiary of Japan’s interest in the country’s northeast. Unlike other development partners who look for easier projects, Japan has shown an earnest commitment in developing the northeastern states of India, which not only have societal complexities but have a difficult geographical terrain as well.

India and Japan are working on developing an industrial value chain by linking the region with the Bay of Bengal via Bangladesh using its Matarbari seaport. Discussions were held over this project during this week’s ministerial dialogue as well.

Japan has emerged as the largest foreign development partner for both India’s northeastern states as well as Bangladesh. Its project to develop an industrial value chain is the culmination of its long-standing involvement in the region, where it was earlier treating India and Bangladeshi projects separately. So far it has developed infrastructure such as roads, etc, but now the proposal of an industrial value chain has given the involvement a new dimension altogether.

Besides this partnership between India and Japan in the Bay of Bengal, Japan is also helping India build its first high-speed railway corridor coming up between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. It is based on the famous Japanese Shinkansen technology, enabling trains to run at a speed of around 320 km/hour. An industrial corridor backed by Japan is also shaping up on the western flank of India, which links seven Indian states from Delhi to Mumbai. It would not only provide Japanese companies access to India’s large labour market in view of its own ageing population but would also boost India’s participation in the global value chains. Twenty companies began operation last year from this corridor, including many multinational corporations from East Asia.

Although the tailwinds to take India-Japan relations to a new level are still strong, there may still be a few challenges. First of all, PM Kishida, under whom India-Japan relations have flourished a great deal, is no longer a popular leader in Japan due to the outbreak of multiple corruption scandals against his ministers. His days in power will be numbered, as he has announced that he will step down in September. There will be a short-term uncertainty regarding the new government’s approach to India-Japan ties, but overall strategic convergence will likely prevail over it.

Then there is also the question of a slight blink in Japan’s outlook on China. This is because its 2023 National Security Strategy surprisingly outlined a narrative of a “mutually beneficial” relationship with China as against the 2022 NSS, which outrightly called the country the “greatest strategic challenge”.

Interestingly, the whole idea of a national security strategy goes back to the growing Chinese belligerence in Japan’s backyard in 2013. It was the China threat that led Japan to establish a national security council in the first place. However, today Japan may be tempted to follow a slightly conciliatory policy towards China owing to its economic dependence.

Despite all the talks of decoupling, Japan and China are part of mega trade initiatives such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), signalling that the trend in their relations is more integration and not less. This year, Japan, South Korea, and China have even revived a trilateral free trade agreement, which further points towards more economic cooperation between them.

A lot of Japanese companies have even adopted the ‘China for China’ strategy, where they are building on deeper investments in the country to service the large Chinese domestic market. In a nutshell, the economic relations would continue to reflect in Japan’s overall approach to China, which in turn would affect the glue that binds India and Japan together in the Indo-Pacific.

Still, India and Japan themselves have a lot of independent drivers taking their bilateral relationship forward. This includes India’s emerging middle class and the allure of its vast consumer market for Japan. India also values Japanese technological know-how, its expertise, as well as investments in making India a global manufacturing hub. It has set a target of five trillion yen as investments from Japan over the next five years. For now, there is enough for the two countries to chase a deeper partnership, and meanwhile, China’s aggressive posture would keep giving a timely reminder to Japan to de-risk its dependence on China and look at India instead.

The author is a New Delhi-based commentator on geopolitics and foreign policy. She holds a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She tweets @TrulyMonica. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.