The case for alliance: 

The case for alliance:

Context:

Rise of China and uncertainty over America’s role in Asia has brought Japan and India closer

Introduction:

• Japan has come closest to being India’s natural ally in Asia
• The emerging Asian dynamic, suggests that Delhi and Tokyo must necessarily draw closer.

Growing concerns:

• Rapid rise of China and the other is the growing uncertainty over America’s future role in Asia.
• Rising China has dethroned Japan as the number one economic power in Asia

Reasons for rapid rise of China:

• Nearly 40 years of accelerated economic growth has helped China inch closer to the aggregate GDP of the United States.
• Military modernisation over the past decades has given Beijing levers to contest US military dominance over Asia.
• China’s GDP is now five times larger than that of India. Beijing outspends Delhi and Tokyo on defence by more than four times.
• According to the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, China’s defence budget ($216 billion) is more than twice that of India ($56 billion) and Japan ($46 billion) put together.

India and Japan Current developments:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi  had put Japan at the very top of his foreign policy agenda.
• Modi continuously nudged the Indian establishment to think more strategically about cooperation with Japan — from high speed railway development to the modernisation of transport infrastructure in the Northeast.
• Tokyo and Delhi have expanded their maritime security cooperation, agreed to work together in promoting connectivity and infrastructure in third countries in India’s neighbourhood. They are pooling their resources — financial and human — to develop the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor.
• Today, Japan has come closest to being India’s natural ally in Asia.

Background:

• Japan was the only nation to extend public support to India during the Doklam confrontation with China
• Two decades ago, in the aftermath of India’s nuclear tests, Tokyo was at the forefront of the international condemnation and the imposition of collective economic measures against Delhi.
• Way ahead:
• Delhi and Tokyo have come a long way since the tensions over India’s nuclear tests in the late 1990s. But there is much distance to go before they can showcase at least an alliance-like relationship.