{"id":35067,"date":"2018-10-31T15:04:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T09:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35067"},"modified":"2018-10-31T15:04:13","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T09:34:13","slug":"new-delhi-and-tokyo-asias-new-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/new-delhi-and-tokyo-asias-new-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"New Delhi and Tokyo: Asia\u2019s new leaders:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livemint.com\/Opinion\/1qMzmJESxhw1pmsZqazbUM\/New-Delhi-and-Tokyo-Asias-new-leaders.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New Delhi and Tokyo: Asia\u2019s new leaders<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The India-Japan relationship is rapidly gathering momentum, taking shape faster than any of India\u2019s other current strategic partnerships<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Changing Trend between India and Japan<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Post 2016 annual summit, the partnership between India and Japan began to take a bolder tone and approach to the changing security environment<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan and India, today are beginning to outline a framework to shape and lead the region.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, the two countries clearly see each other much more strategically \u00a0and realize the importance of shaping Asia\u2019s architecture promoting its growth, development, and stability. Earlier it was based only on economic terms<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both the countries have moved towards exploring the possibilities of collaborating on projects in third countries.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently India and Japan, \u00a0took a step forward with the launch of the \u201cJapan-India Coordination Forum for Development of Northeastern Region\u201d. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is perhaps the only dedicated forum between India and a foreign government on the development of the northeast\u2014a region that physically connects India to southeast Asia<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India and Japan also share a regional view in the Indian Ocean and beyond. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What caused this positive transition?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the fundamental reason for this growing understanding is &#8211; connectivity. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New Delhi is perhaps one of the sharpest and loudest critics of China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan was the first country to come out in India\u2019s support during the Doklam standoff.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apart from development on the domestic front, such as the inauguration of the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed rail 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.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>2016 Annual Summit was the initiation point<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2016, Japan had talked about a \u201cfree and open Indo-Pacific strategy\u201d in Kenya<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The joint statement post the 2016 annual summit laid the ground for a broad Indo-Japanese vision for the Indo-Pacific.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The two leaders discussed the strategy and announced their intention to build a maritime corridor connecting Asia and Africa. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea was simple: to provide seamless connectivity between the two continents with immense infrastructure and commercial potential. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pace of developments since these announcements have been rapid and significant given the technicalities in bureaucratic negotiations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 2016 summit also saw the leaders underlining their intent to enhance connectivity in northeast India, develop \u201csmart islands\u201d and joint collaboration in the port of Chabahar. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>2017 Summit as the Next Step Forward<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 2017 summit significantly advanced the initiative to develop the northeast which shares international borders with China, Bangladesh and Myanmar, with a territory contested by China (Arunachal Pradesh).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the idea of building smart islands is interpreted as developing India\u2019s sensitive Andaman and Nicobar Islands, any real commitments are yet to be seen.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What does these new improvements imply?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 2017 summit though reinforces Indo-Japanese commitment for developing smart islands to boost connectivity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India\u2019s decision to engage Japan in the northeast underlines its pragmatism and a shift toward a bolder foreign policy engagement.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is unmatched intent and willingness in the Indo-Japanese relationship to collaborate on new areas and across the region.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Joint Effort to handle China<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India and Japan realise their limitations in competing with China-led initiatives. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, Beijing\u2019s assertive behaviour, both at sea and its continental border with India, created a platform for deeper collaboration between India and its partners. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India and Japan realize the need to act on the changing security dynamics to secure their interests and strategic ambitions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instead of competing with China\u2019s ambitious commercial activities backed by unrivalled capital, India and Japan began creating an alternative narrative\u2014aiming at stabilizing the region in times of uncertainty. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What should both the countries do, to take forward the partnership?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having outlined the vision and intent, India and Japan will now have to consolidate their economic engagements and expand strategic partnership with specific projects, goals and deliverables.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The key will be in maintaining the steam in this relationship. The bureaucracy on both sides will have to tap into this political will to implement and realize the initiatives that have been laid out.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The partnership must identify infrastructure projects in countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India and Japan must also deepen their trilateral relationships with the US, Australia and France to shape the security architecture consistent with their vision and goals<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Delhi and Tokyo: Asia\u2019s new leaders:\u00a0 Context The India-Japan relationship is rapidly gathering momentum, taking shape faster than any of India\u2019s other current strategic partnerships Changing Trend between India and Japan Post 2016 annual summit, the partnership between India and Japan began to take a bolder tone and approach to the changing security environment&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/new-delhi-and-tokyo-asias-new-leaders\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">New Delhi and Tokyo: Asia\u2019s new leaders:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704794416},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}