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India and Japan - Towards Permanent Interests

India's economic growth in recent years and America's sudden interest in New Delhi have caused Japan to sit up and take serious note of India. It was Yoshiro Mori and Atal Behari Vajpayee, who set the ball rolling for Indo-Japanese relations in 2000 with a call for "global partnership." Junichiro Koizumi and Manmohan Singh followed up with the "eight-fold initiative" in 2005. Singh and Shinzo Abe in Tokyo have now decided to make the partnership "strategic" as well. The new addition will be a cause of some considerable inquiry in the immediate neighbourhood and it is therefore, important to reiterate that India and Japan should, as mature nations, find their own reasons for - to use an expression familiar in India's neighbourhood - an "all-weather" friendship, instead of relying on the US to egg them on or on China to scare them into one.

To start with, Singh and Abe have identified the right starting point for the expanded partnership, namely economics. An EPA/CEPA between the two countries, as the Report of the Joint Study Group states, "rests on complementarity of the partner economies" and is without doubt far more useful than an FTA between China and India at the present stage. Further, this economic partnership could serve as "a building block for an even larger regional economic integration." This must indeed be pursued as a strategic goal. India might have brought Japan into the SAARC to offset the choice of China, but it is a powerful choice nevertheless. Japan already occupies a hugely important place in many South Asian economies and its potential contribution in enhancing India's own role in South Asia must not be underestimated.

Politically, India, for its part, can play a role in helping Japan expand its "diplomatic horizons," particularly in Southeast Asia. Japan's "value oriented diplomacy" is its big idea to counter the unease in the rest of East Asia over Japan's normalization, and parallels in some respects, the way in which the Chinese came up with their theory of "peaceful rise" to counter the China threat theory. India has for long espoused its democratic values in motley groupings such as the NAM and the Commonwealth to little effect. Today it is in a position to work in concert with Japan and the US to ensure that those values hold as much meaning outside its borders as they do within them. India and Japan as part of their declared aim of expanding the "arc of freedom and prosperity" can together play important roles in both Afghanistan and Myanmar, for example. The "arc" provides an alternative vision for areas as different as Southeast Asia, Central Asia and increasingly Africa, where Chinese influence has been on the ascendant in recent years.

India should, however, not forget that Abe made his first official visits abroad, to South Korea and China, the first Japanese Prime Minister to do so. This was not only a message to the US but also to the rest of the world. India should be informed that as much as Abe is interested in expanding ties with India, Japan's primary interests lie in its immediate neighbourhood. Also, almost before the hype on the Singh visit had died down, The Japan Times (20 December 2006) editorialized that while Japan and India were "natural partners", "[t]he relationship will not be friction free."

To this India can respond only by shedding its timidity and taking on a more proactive role in East Asia itself. Japan, Australia and the US held their first ministerial-level trilateral strategic talks in late 2005 and it is about time that India became a part of this framework. Will this rattle the Chinese or rankle them as well? It might be the first but not necessarily the second and that is an important distinction. The Chinese it must be understood have read their Palmerston and follow perfectly well the logic of national interests. If anything, they would be surprised if India did not take the next logical step and grab the opportunity to increase its profile in East Asia. Would China turn down a similar opportunity? Not likely. And why should India think this might offend the Chinese when the latter have often enough declared their faith in India's independent foreign policy?

The lack of adequate knowledge and expertise on each other in India and Japan places limits on growth in the relationship in the short term and it will take a great deal of effort to prevent this from turning into a long term disadvantage. Inter-governmental cooperation alone is insufficient in this respect. Greater dialogue and interaction between the citizens of the two nations is essential for generating the trust and comfort levels required for a truly global and strategic partnership. If India is to remain of "crucial importance" to Japan, and vice-versa both countries must leverage not just the advantages of their economic relationship and shared geopolitical interests but also take seriously the shared values that form such an important component of their warming ties. That is the way towards shared permanent interests for both countries.