India and Japan
Nature of the relationship
Civilizational base. Rooted in Buddhism and spiritual affinity from the monk Bodhisena, who consecrated the Lord Buddha statue at the Todaiji Temple in Nara in 752 AD. The Japan-India Association (1903) is the oldest international friendship body in Japan. Japan entered the political consciousness of Indian nationalists through the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War; associated Indians include Vivekananda, Tagore, JRD Tata, Subhas Chandra Bose and Judge Radhabinod Pal. In 1949 Nehru gifted an elephant to Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo.
Given the depth of Indian ideas in Japanese arts and language, “without Indian influence, Japanese culture would not be what it is today.”
H. Nakamura
Distinctive character. Unlike ties with China, there are no competing national interests, no simmering rivalry and no historical baggage — the two have never been adversaries. Under the US Indo-Pacific framework India is to be the net provider of security; for India, Japan can be the region’s stability provider. Close ties take India out of the South Asia box and past South-East Asia, where the Look East policy stopped.
Asia is shaped by the outlook of the US, the power of China, the weight of Russia, the collectivism of ASEAN, the volatility of West Asia and the rise of India — one imponderable, Japan’s future posture, could change the calculus entirely.
S. Jaishankar
How the partnership is framed. Shinzo Abe called India Japan’s natural ally and, addressing Parliament, invoked Dara Shikoh’s “confluence of the two seas.” Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa notes bipartisan Japanese support whoever governs India; Kanwal Sibal calls the present the “cherry blossom time”; Harsh V. Pant holds it the best the relationship has ever been, Abe having been first to envision a “broader Asia” joining the two oceans.
The four phases — what actually drove each
| Phase (Waltz level) | Core developments |
|---|---|
| I · Pre-Independence (systemic + perceptual) | Russo-Japanese War made Japan a symbol of Asian resurgence; Congress cooled after the 1937 invasion of China and the Bose association. At the Tokyo Tribunal, Judge Radhabinod Pal — the sole Indian — held all twenty-five Class-A accused not guilty; Nobusuke Kishi, a Class-A suspect never charged, became PM in 1957 (Abe’s grandfather). |
| II · Nehru Years 1951–66 (individual level) | India declined the San Francisco Peace Treaty (1951) — it excluded China and the USSR and left Japan short of full sovereignty — and signed a separate Peace Treaty (June 1952) between ‘equals’, waiving reparations, with mutual MFN. India favoured a strong Japan east of China to divert Beijing. Iron-ore supply and yen loans (1958) followed. |
| III · Estrangement 1966–91 (structural + domestic) | Rival Asian-security visions: Nehru’s ‘Monroe Doctrine for Asia’ vs Japan’s Yoshida Doctrine (economics first, US alliance). India saw Japan as ‘America’s surrogate in Asia’ (Limaye). Japan neutral in 1962 and 1965; the 1971 Friendship Treaty with the USSR put them in opposite camps; the 1974 test upset Tokyo. Maruti-Suzuki was the one 1980s bright spot. |
| IV · Re-engagement post-1991 (structural + domestic) | Soviet collapse, the BoP crisis and reforms, the rise of China, sea-lane security and the nuclear question. The Bank of Japan helped in 1991; Look East opened East Asia. Japan named India (with China and Vietnam) ‘Asia’s new economic frontier’ and de-hyphenated India from Pakistan; since 2003 India is the top recipient of Japanese ODA. |
The Modi years — the upgradation ladder
From partnership to ‘special’ partnership. Global Partnership (2000 · Vajpayee & Mori) → Strategic & Global (2006 · Abe) → Special, Strategic & Global (2014 · Tokyo Declaration).
- High-level cadence: Modi to Japan in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023; Abe to India 2014, 2015, 2017; Kishida 2022, 2023.
- Japan’s technology and finance meet India’s infrastructure needs; defence advanced through the 2014 Memorandum of Cooperation, the 2015 framework agreements and relaxed Japanese defence-export rules; the 2016 civil nuclear agreement opened the energy sector.
- Shinzo Abe saw India as the way to widen Japan’s security options beyond a US-centric frame; Modi sees Japan as central to Act East. Japan’s FOIP names India an “indispensable partner.” 2022 marked the 70th anniversary of ties.
Areas of cooperation
Economic & development
- Trade: US$ 17.63 bn (FY 2018-19) → US$ 21.96 bn (FY 2022-23). Japan is India’s 4th-largest FDI source (USD 3.1 bn in 2023-24); cumulative FDI ~US$ 32.058 bn (2000–Sep 2019); about 1,441 Japanese companies operate in India.
- Japan is India’s largest bilateral donor since 1958 (highest ODA commitment FY 2018-19, JPY 522.405 bn); the Delhi Metro is the model project.
| Flagship infrastructure | Detail |
|---|---|
| Mumbai–Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail | Shinkansen technology; 81% JICA financing; Gujarat stretch targeted Dec 2027, full line Dec 2029. |
| Freight & industrial corridors | Western DFC; DMIC with twelve townships; Chennai–Bengaluru Industrial Corridor. |
| Act East Forum (2017) | Roads, bridges and energy links knitting the North-East into a Bay-of-Bengal value chain. |
Security & defence
- Tri-service exchanges institutionalised; Coast Guard exchanges since 2006; ACSA negotiations from 2019. Exercises: the trilateral Malabar, JIMEX, Dharma Guardian (Mahajan ranges), Veer Guardian, Shinyu Maitri and MINEX/EODEX.
- Both oppose any unilateral change to the status quo in the East or South China Sea and uphold a Free and Open Indo-Pacific; the US-India-Japan trilateral is at ministerial level; the newest forum is the QUAD.
Science, technology, nuclear & space
- S&T Agreement (1985); India-Japan Science Council (1993); joint laboratories in AI, IoT and Big Data; DAILAB and the Indian Beam Line at KEK Tsukuba; ~570 under SAKURA Science.
- Civil nuclear agreement in force 2017 — India the first non-NPT country among Japan’s thirteen such partners. ISRO–JAXA MoU (2016) with a prospective joint lunar mission; the first Space Dialogue (2019).
- The 2023 MoC and the India–Japan Semiconductor Supply Chain Partnership cover design, manufacturing, research and supply; 5G under the 2021 ICT MoU.
Health, climate & people-to-people
- AHWIN for Ayushman Bharat; SISTERs for drug development; Ayurveda cooperation with Kanagawa. The 2022 Clean Energy Partnership targets carbon neutrality through hydrogen, LNG and ammonia.
- Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Tokyo (2009); the Japan-India Tourism Exchange Year (Apr 2023–Mar 2025, ~400,000 travellers in 2024); the Technical Intern Training and Specified Skilled Worker pathways. Both are G4 partners on UNSC reform.
Areas of concern and contestation
- Alignment gap. Japan is in the US alliance and sanctioned Russia; India did not. India is reserved on the South China Sea and Taiwan while vocal on the LAC.
Relations have tended to be “low on ambition and high in rhetoric.”
S. Jaishankar
- Shivshankar Menon: India’s preference for strategic autonomy and its three priorities — security, development, status — restrain how far it will go; the non-alignment tradition is unlikely to be abandoned, which can frustrate a Tokyo keen to balance China.
- Economic underperformance. Despite CEPA, trade slipped from $18.43 bn (2011-12) to $17.63 bn (2018-19), dwarfed by Sino-Indian trade. Divergence on RCEP (Japan pushed India in; India stayed out) and Osaka Track e-commerce.
- Shyam Saran: India failed to catch the Japanese trend to diversify away from China; the special leader-to-leader bond has not become a commercial partnership.
- The Asia-Africa Growth Corridor: up to $200 bn reportedly mooted, but nothing concrete since 2017.
- Geography keeps them far apart; defence-industrial cooperation is thin (the US-2 amphibious talks are protracted); language and Japan’s exacting standards raise entry costs; neither has a specific China policy, even though India’s China trade is more than 20% of Japan’s total trade.
India & Japan amid US–China tensions · and in Africa
- Rajaram Panda: China is uneasy that India and Japan are finding common ground and reads the friendship as ganging up against it; Manmohan Singh’s 2013 Tokyo visit, when Sino-Japanese ties were frosty, discomfited Beijing. Barring Pakistan and North Korea, Asia is unhappy with Chinese assertiveness — the Senkaku with Japan, the border with India.
- C. Raja Mohan: Japan’s new ‘realism diplomacy’ has three parts — reorienting diplomacy, building deterrence, and deepening defence partnerships with India, the US and Australia — spurred by Ukraine, Taiwan and the Beijing-Moscow “alliance without limits.” Yet the specific disputes each has with China are bilateral and territorial; it is not clear they can back each other on these.
- Regional architecture reflects the jostling: FOIP, AUKUS, the Quad, and IPEF.
Africa — the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (Purnendra Jain)
- An AAGC vision document, commissioned after the Nov 2016 Modi-Abe summit, named four areas (capacity and skills, quality infrastructure, development projects, people-to-people) but offered no implementation roadmap.
- It runs against China’s growing footprint and the BRI, both viewed with suspicion — a new competition with Africa as the playground, with possible unintended effects on the Indo-Pacific balance.
Scholars · theory · policy (Japan)
Views of scholars
- Rohan Mukherjee & Anthony Yazaki: the advances since 2006 trace to Abe’s active security policy — the National Security Council, a National Security Strategy, and the reinterpretation of Article 9 to allow collective self-defence.
- Jagannath P. Panda: Abe’s “broader Asia” rested on four aims — a stronger Japanese maritime position in the IOR, joint leadership with India, security ties beyond the US alliance, and new commerce in India.
- Satoru Nagao and Jeff M. Smith read expanded defence ties as convergence against a disruptive China; Shivshankar Menon (Choices) sees Manmohan Singh’s values-driven policy complementing Japan.
Theoretical lenses: Realism — counterbalance China · Liberalism — rules-based order, Quad · Balancing vs bandwagoning · Soft power — anime, Bollywood
Policy direction
- The tie needs years of intensive high-level engagement before it self-sustains. C. Raja Mohan: Ukraine helped a pacifist Japan connect diplomacy with defence; both were too deferential to China and must add military content.
“Diplomacy needs to be backed by defence capabilities, and reinforcing defence capabilities will also lead to persuasiveness in carrying out our diplomatic efforts.”
Fumio Kishida