Will PM's Tokyo visit balance India's equation with Beijing?

Asia’s number two and three economies will be having a summit level meeting next week when Japan will host Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (27-29 May). Japan is a crucial ‘swing state’ for India to counter the immense diplomatic, economic and military might of China that continues to power on. Both the leading democracies of the world have had their individual military face-offs with China on their respective boundary issues recently – Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu for the Chinese) islands, India over the Chinese incursion in the Depsang Valley of Ladakh. Thus, both India and Japan have immense concerns over China and it would be but natural that China would dominate discussions between Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe. China would be much like the Shakespearean Banquo’s Ghost in Singh-Abe talks.[caption id=“attachment_812601” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. PTI[/caption] Unsurprisingly, all China-wary powers have started rallying together to deal with the cat-among-pigeons situation triggered by China. The only global superpower, the United States, is naturally leading the pack. US-Japan-India trilateral dialogue Earlier this month, the US, Japan and India held their fourth trilateral dialogue. On 2 May the US hosted Japan and India for their fourth trilateral dialogue at the State Department in Washington. Though officials said the meeting was meant for “exchanging views on a wide range of regional and global issues of mutual interest”, their parleys were inevitably China-centric. The trilateral dialogue was co-chaired by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert O Blake, Jr and Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James P Zumwalt. The Japanese delegation was headed by Deputy Vice Foreign Minister for Foreign Policy Kenji Hiramatsu and Deputy Director-General Kanji Yamanouchi and the Indian delegation was headed by External Affairs Ministry joint secretaries DB Venkatesh Varma and Vikram Doraiswami. These discussions focused on the prospect of greater Indo-Pacific commercial connectivity and regional and maritime security, and cooperation in multilateral fora. All sides welcomed the frank and comprehensive nature of the discussions and agreed the talks help advance shared values and interests. The group agreed to meet again in the fall in Tokyo to continue their deliberations. The importance of Japan for India can be gauged by the fact that Japan is the only Asian country and second in the world—Russia being the other one—with which India has an institutionalized system of annual summits. The world’s two leading peaceful democracies and Asia’s number two and three economies have been holding annual summits regularly since 2006. (With Russia, India has been having annual summits since 2000.) The only blemish in the India-Japan annual summits track record was last year when the two sides could not hold an annual summit. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had planned his visit to Japan last year but the visit, which was to begin from 15 November 2012, had to be cancelled at the eleventh hour because Japan was in the midst of elections. Don’t be surprised if the two sides try to make up last year’s loss and hold two annual summits this year – the second one perhaps towards the end of the year! This is precisely what a key Indian official told this writer. The importance of India for Japan is brought out by the fact that for the last one decade India has been the largest recipient of Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA). From 2003-04 to September 2012, India has received over $35 billion under Japan’s ODA programme on commitment basis. Besides, a total of 59 projects are under implementation with Japanese loan assistance. The loan amount committed for these projects is over $12 billion. These projects are in the sectors of power, environment and forests, urban transportation, urban water supply and sanitation, rural drinking water supply, tourism, irrigation, agriculture, shipping, railways, renewable energy and financial services. The Japanese have not been cutting corners when it comes to giving financial assistance to India even though their economy has been badly affected by the global recession since September 2008. This is despite the fact that in view of its sluggish economy, Japan slid down to number three spot in the world and second position in Asia in terms of economic rankings, ceding ground to China in early 2011. Japan’s silent revolution in Indian infrastructure growth It is a fact that there is no other country like Japan when it comes to concrete deliverables by a foreign country in India’s growth story. The Japanese have been silently revolutionizing the Indian infrastructure for years. And unlike some other prominent foreign powers, the Japanese don’t make a song and dance about it. The Delhi Metro, built with Japanese financial aid and technical expertise, is one such concrete deliverable. Now more than three dozen Indian cities are trying to emulate Delhi Metro. But wait! The Delhi Metro example is soon set to be overshadowed by even much bigger and more ambitious infrastructure projects which will positively affect tens of millions of Indians – the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project and the Dedicated Freight Corridor Projects on the Mumbai-Delhi and the Delhi-Howrah routes. The Japanese government has also expressed interest to help establish a Chennai-Bangalore Industrial corridor and a Dedicated Freight project in the south, connecting the cities of Bangalore and Chennai. The $75 billion DMIC is no ordinary infrastructural corridor. It is a corridor of opportunities. The Indian prime minister has repeatedly said India would be investing $150 trillion in infrastructure projects by 2017 or so and has asked for liberal investments from major powers like France, Germany, UK and Russia. Japan is the locomotive for this corridor of opportunities. Inevitably, it will figure very high on Manmohan Singh’s agenda during his talks with Shinzo Abe. The writer a Firstpost columnist and a strategic analyst. bhootnath004@yahoo.com.