{"id":35101,"date":"2018-10-31T15:14:20","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T09:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35101"},"modified":"2018-10-31T15:14:20","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T09:44:20","slug":"india-japan-relations-in-good-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-japan-relations-in-good-health\/","title":{"rendered":"India-Japan relations in good health:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livemint.com\/Opinion\/WGTtAfOQctuXMbOAUuolHP\/IndiaJapan-relations-in-good-health.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India-Japan relations in good health<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Visit of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to India and the bonhomie between the two leaders.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reaffirmation of special ties.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Factors that lead to the bonhomie<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rise of China.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The joint statement calls for \u201ca free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region where sovereignty and international law are respected, and differences are resolved through dialogue, and where all countries, large or small, enjoy freedom of navigation and overflight, sustainable development, and a free, fair, and open trade and investment system.\u201d It is understood that China, which is following an aggressive policy in the region, is targeted in the statement<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The joint statement also endorses the principles on which India decided to sit out the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The statement also does well to hint at the role of China in creating the international problems that North Korea and Pakistan today are.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Also, Japan has been unsure of the US commitment to its allies ever since Donald Trump started his presidential campaign.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capability of North Korea has aggravated Tokyo\u2019s worries about the decoupling of the US-Japan alliance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is not clear whether the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) will be able to hold its own in the face of increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indo-Russian relations, a stabilizing factor in the past, are in flux.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this scenario, India and Japan are the only major forces of stability in the Indo-Pacific.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>How the two countries complement each other?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan\u2019s Ageing population and India demographic dividend.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan\u2019s advanced technology and India\u2019s rich natural and human resources.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan\u2019s excellence in manufacturing and India\u2019s progress in the service sector.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan\u2019s surplus capital which could be a source of FDI in India and India\u2019 hunger for investments, growing markets and purchasing power of the middle class.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Special relationship with Japan<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India is known to grant titles of \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d very generously.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The relationship with Japan, however, is too special to be given the same treatment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, the Indo-Japanese bilateral cooperation is carried out under the framework of a \u201cspecial strategic and global partnership\u201d.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Unprecedented momentum in the past 3 years<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The commencement of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail project (bullet train).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In the last three years,<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan has been made a permanent participant in the Malabar naval exercises which also involves the US.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The two countries have inked a nuclear deal\u2014Japan\u2019s first with a non-signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The India-Japan-US trilateral has been upgraded to ministerial level.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A new trilateral at the foreign secretary level has been initiated with Australia as the third country.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to these, the numbers on Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) and overseas development assistance (ODA) to India have been climbing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last year has seen the highest ever disbursement of official development assistance from Japan in a financial year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Other than the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail, many other high-profile projects like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and Mumbai Trans-harbour link project are under different stages of execution.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Areas of disappointment<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>There are disappointments too;<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trade numbers\u2014below $15 billion annually in the last two years\u2014do not reflect the economic ties between the third and the fourth largest (on purchasing power parity terms) economies in the world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Long pending defence deals\u2014especially the sale of US-2 amphibious aircraft to India\u2014too haven\u2019t moved forward.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, these areas of slow growth cannot take away from the tremendous distance that has been covered elsewhere.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Future<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The two countries are exploring cooperation on infrastructure and human development projects beyond India.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), if pursued with an unwavering focus, has the potential to become a serious counterweight to China\u2019s BRI.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike BRI, the AAGC promises to evolve a consultative mechanism towards identification and implementation of projects.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India-Japan relations in good health: Context Visit of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to India and the bonhomie between the two leaders. Reaffirmation of special ties. Factors that lead to the bonhomie The rise of China. The joint statement calls for \u201ca free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region where sovereignty and international law are respected, and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-japan-relations-in-good-health\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">India-Japan relations in good health:<\/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-35101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704750490},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35101","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=35101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}