India And Japan Growing Partnership And Opportunities For Co Operation

This e-book is a compilation of the papers presented by the speakers during a two-day International Conference, curated around the theme ‘India and Japan: Growing Partnership and Opportunities for Cooperation’, organised by CPPR – Centre for Strategic Studies, Kochi in collaboration with the Consulate-General of Japan in Chennai on February 26–27, 2019 at Riviera Suites in Kochi. It consists of eight chapters providing a comprehensive outlook on India-Japan relations.

This volume focuses on the rapidly expanding strategic relationship between India and Japan, expanding on the hitherto under-analyzed concept of “strategic partnership,” tracing the history of the interaction, and gauging its current and future trajectories. The rise of China and its challenge to U.S. dominance of the global system is the setting in which the partnership has assumed a major profile, incorporating both defence and economic cooperation on an unprecedented scale. The increasing congruence of Indian and Japanese interests is juxtaposed with the inherent limitations of the partnership to portray a complex picture of a kind of strategic relationship that has become a staple of contemporary international politics.

The emerging strategic relationship between India and Japan is significant for the future security and stability of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. It is also a critical emergent relationship for U.S. security objectives across the Asia-Pacific. India possesses the most latent economic and military potential of any state in the wider Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, India is the state with the greatest potential outside of the United States itself to contribute to the objectives of the "Rebalance to the Pacific" announced by Washington in 2011. This "rebalance" was aimed at fostering a stable, prosperous, and rules-based region where peace, prosperity, and wide respect for human rights are observed and extended. Implicit in the rebalance was a hedge against a China acting to challenge the existing post-World War II rules-based international and regional order. India and Japan share complementary, but not identical, strategic visions. Both seek to manage-and minimize-the potential negative impacts from the rise of China in accord with their own strategic perspectives. As of early 2017, Japan perceives China's growing assertive actions to be a great and rising strategic threat. India is concerned about China's increasingly worrisome behavior but finds itself relatively more dependent upon China for economic growth and less worried about its immediate physical threat than Japan. As a result, India has been, and will continue to be, less vocal in complaints about Chinese behavior, preferring to warn Beijing with subtle signaling and actions. There is broad bipartisan domestic support in Japan and India for enhancing bilateral strategic cooperation now and moving forward. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's role has been a critical factor in the rapid growth of the strategic relationship, and the partnership is unlikely to have moved as far or as fast without his leadership. However, Japan's important relationship with India has been institutionalized in special ways over the past decade that will make it durable-if not as dynamic-when Abe leaves the political stage in Japan. The same is largely true in India. Since mid-2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal approach and his special relationship with Abe have been a significant accelerant to the India-Japan strategic relationship. Indian strategic thinking is broadly supportive of continuing to grow strategic bilateral relations with Tokyo. There is a depth of support in both countries that will foster a robust strategic relationship well into the future. Japan provides India with economic, political, and diplomatic interactions that it cannot replicate elsewhere. Japanese economic assistance is special in that it can undertake projects of enormous scope and scale in the Indian economy-offering a competitive and often preferred alternative to Chinese bids on critical Indian infrastructure projects. As a technologically advanced industrial nation with an established defense industry, and one now enabled to export weapons platforms and technologies abroad due to a historic political evolution, Japan can help India advance its national military and defense capabilities. India provides Japan with a security partner of enormous latent potential and three main short-term advantages. India's border dispute with China causes Beijing to spend more on defense along the Indian border, limiting its attention and defense spending against contested island claims astride Japan. Growing Indian maritime capability will enable New Delhi to assume greater responsibility for Indian Ocean security, allowing Japan and the United States to allocate a greater proportion of their own resources to counter Chinese adventurism in the South and East China Seas. Finally, India has the potential to assist Vietnam to develop as a Japanese security partner in Southeast Asia, as both India and Vietnam currently have many of the same Russian military platforms.

Contributed articles at a round table conference held at New Delhi on March 14-15, 2005.

This pioneering volume brings together a cross-generational group of top scholars and analysts from both India and Japan to study key areas of bilateral cooperation in economics, energy and climate change, security, and global governance and offer concrete policies both countries can undertake to impart vitality and longevity to their partnership. Specific issues covered include trade, investment, energy security, renewable energy, maritime security, peacekeeping, multilateral institutional reform, nuclear non-proliferation, and the rise of China.

Introduction 1. The Japan-U.S. Alliance 2. Japan-China Relations 3. Japan's Maritime Security Perspectives 4. Japan and the United Nations 5. Japan's Participation in the Global War Against Terrorism 6. Japan's Nuclear Policy 7. Future Prospects Appendices India-Japan Fact Sheet Joint Statement Towards India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership Joint Statement India-Japan Partnership in a New Asian Era: Strategic Orientation of India-Japan Global Partnership Index The book assesses the trajectory of Japan's international relations since the end of the Cold War and highlights the required focal points in India's interaction with Japan as a global and strategic partner. 'India-Japan Global and Strategic Partnership' cannot be analyzed in isolation from the dynamics of contemporary international relations. The fundamental question that needs to be answered is - what is driving Japan's recent attempts to raise bilateral relations to a higher level and impart stronger political, economic and strategic dimensions to bilateral relations with India? The focus of the book is on a critical appraisal of five issues - Reform of United Nations, Disarmament, Rise of China, SLOC protection, and Cooperation against International Terrorism.

Japan -India relations have traversed from "distantly friendly" to "indispensable partners." The significant development of the India-Japan strategic partnership, the convergence of bilateral strategies, and the addressing of broader economic relations and cultural dimensions signify that bilateral relations have entered a "new era" in Japan-India relations. Given the region's emerging geopolitics, diplomatic relations between these two nations have gained momentum beyond the traditional pillars of engagement. New dimensions, namely, human security, environment, disaster risk reduction, climate change issues, innovation, and resilience building have gained currency. Addressing these, this book covers the broader aspects of human security dimensions of India-Japan collaboration. Involving multi and trans-disciplinary research, including in-depth reviews and new data based on case studies from India and Japan, this book sheds light on new convergence frontiers between these two nations. Furthermore, the book suggests specific policy and action measures to enhance human security through the bilateral cooperation between India and Japan, which has a global impact.

This book examines the complex and connected past, present and future of Northeast India and Japan. It looks at the intricate political geography and ethnolinguistic diversity of India’s Northeast, and its historical and strategic relationship between Japan. From the theatre of the Second World War to a potential economic corridor to the Indo-Pacific, the Northeast, which shares a border with China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar, has emerged as an area of central importance in India–Japan relations. The book highlights the importance of connectivity and cooperation in the Northeast region, for sustainable growth, better accessibility, and quality of life. The essays in the volume look shared economic, socio-political and environmental concerns of the two countries as well as the shared legacies between Japan and the Northeast through stories, collective memories and memorials about World War II, and research. They also explore the strategic implications of China’s One Belt One Road initiative in the region and for India–Japan relations, India’s Act-East policy, provincial politics and ethnic conflicts, and the challenges for sustainable development and greater cooperation for the two countries. With contributions from both Indian and Japanese academics, this book will be a key resource on understanding Asian politics. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics and international relations, strategic studies, development studies, and Asian studies.

This book is a rich addition to the existing knowledge on models of development partnership among developing countries. Unlike the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which exclusively focuses on physical infrastructure development with a strong financing component by China, the Asia–Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) envisages a holistic approach toward development partnership based on the spirit of triangular cooperation, demystifying the donor-recipient model of development cooperation. By integrating four distinct pillars of cooperation – connectivity and physical infrastructure, capacity building and skill development, development cooperation projects, and people-to-people and business-to-business partnerships – the book provides a succinct account of how a demand-driven people-centric model of engagement among Asian and African countries could help achieve inclusive and sustainable development without creating any fatal dependence on specific countries or institutions for external funding. In sixteen chapters, the book covers various theoretical, analytical, and policy discussions with respect to the concept and modalities of the growth corridor approach under the free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific; potential opportunities and challenges in economic sectors and fields like agriculture, manufacturing, trade and investment, urbanization, industrialization, human resource development, and the blue economy; social sector priorities including health, education, skill development, disaster management, and women’s participation; and policy issues relating to trade facilitation, the identification of joint projects, modalities and instruments of project execution, and related aspects. The book offers a valuable resource for students and research scholars working in the fields of development economics, development cooperation, international political economy, and international economic relations. It also serves as a handbook for governments and policymakers on issues concerning the suitability of development projects, sources of and innovations in financing, implementation and execution challenges, private sector involvement, and so on.