Open Forum
New Delhi, 2 January 2010
India & Japan
THE STRATEGIC
CONVERGENCE
By Prakash Nanda
Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Yukio Hatoyama launched on
Tuesday last an action plan to take their security dialogue, including
counter-terrorism, to the "next stage" and gave a push to a key
economic pact. But a breakthrough in the critical civil nuclear area eluded
them, with the visiting Japanese premier expecting India to sign the CTBT and
Singh indicating that New Delhi’s decision on it would follow its ratification
by the US and China.
In a nutshell
then, how did the first trip of the new Japanese premier to India go? The
habitual naysayer will regard the visit as below average, highlighting Hatoyama’s cool response to New
Delhi’s hope of securing civil nuclear technology from Japan. But such
a view does not stand close scrutiny. Overall, the trip was a success story.
For a
country, which alone has faced nuclear attacks, it is understandable why Japan is so
sensitive on matters such as NPT and CTBT. But that does not distract the fact
that over the past few years New Delhi and Tokyo have agreed on more issues,
disagreeing only on a few.
In fact, the
most important aspect of Hatoyama’s three-day visit (December 27-29) is that it
took place. Unlike the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan most of the time and had developed a clear
policy of strengthening ties with India
in the 21st century, Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ),
which stunned the world with its remarkable victory in August, has focussed too
much on China.
In its election manifesto, India
did not find a single mention.
The DPJ and
its secretary-general Ichiro Ozawa have been too sensitive to the Chinese
concerns and aspirations in Asia and the rest
of the world. The way Ozawa flew 645 people, including 143 DPJ members of
parliament, to Beijing in five planes early this
month and the manner he forced the Japanese emperor Akihito to grant an
exceptional audience to Xi Jinping, China’s
vice president reveal the changed foreign policy priorities of Japan under the
new regime.
Naturally the Indian policy
makers were worried whether the Hatoyama regime will share the vision of the
LDP, which had strongly advocated for a greater role for India in the Asia-Pacific region and the
proposed East-Asian Community (EAC) – something China has never appreciated.
Similarly, it was being watched whether Hatoyama would continue the recent practice
of the annual summit meetings between India
and Japan.
Since Manmohan Singh had gone to Tokyo last
year, it was the turn of the Japanese counterpart to be in Delhi before the year ended.
It is heartening that on both
the counts Hatoyama has dispelled Indian worries. He has kept up his
appointment in New Delhi.
And his foreign minister Katsuya Okada has envisaged opening EAC membership to Japan,
China, South Korea, ASEAN, Australia,
New Zealand, and India -- the
same members as the East Asia Summit that had taken place in 2005.
What all this indicates is that factors promoting India and
Japan as global partners are becoming increasingly more relevant with each
passing day, thereby ensuring that the momentum is not lost with the change of
the regimes, whether in Delhi or Tokyo. Some hard facts will make this point
clear.
A recent Japanese survey revealed India as the most favoured
destination for long-term Japanese investment. India
is regarded by 70 per cent of Japanese manufacturers as the most attractive
country to do business with followed by China
(67 per cent), Russia (37
per cent) and Vietnam
(28 per cent). In 2008 Indo-Japan bilateral trade stood at over US$ 13 billion
and was in favour of Japan
with US$ 2.6 billion. This figure is expected to cross the $20-billion mark by 2010-end.
Japan has been India's largest bilateral donor for
over a decade. For the past four fiscal years, India
has also been the largest recipient of Japanese ODA, overtaking China. The ODA
has been and is being utilized mainly for infrastructure projects viz. power plants,
transportation, environmental projects and projects related to basic human
needs. In fact, the Singh-Hatoyama summit specifically focused on the
infrastructural developments, particularly the proposed Dedicated Rail Freight
Corridor (DFC) between Delhi
and Mumbai.
In February last, the Japanese foreign ministry had
conducted an opinion survey in India
on the image of Japan.
Its results were quite interesting. 76 per cent of the respondents
perceived the current state of Japan-India relations either as being very
friendly or friendly, showing that a positive image of Japan has been
established. Asked about which countries are important partners for India, 48
per cent, 30 per cent and 14 per cent of respondents chose the US, Russia, and
Japan, respectively. 92 per cent were positive when asked if Japan is a reliable friend of India.
The respondents perceived Japan to be a technologically-advanced,
economically powerful and a peace-loving country, demonstrating that there were
strong public images of Japan
being the most advanced in science and technology and that it was a peaceful developed
nation. 79 per cent perceived Japan’s
economic assistance to India
as beneficial, and 94 per cent welcomed the presence of Japanese companies in India.
But then economic relations constitute only one component, if
India and Japan have to
remain “global partners”. Along with economic cooperation, the other pillar of
future India-Japan relations has to be “strategic convergence”. And here are
some compelling facts.
India is the
largest democracy in Asia and Japan
the most prosperous. Both are functioning and vibrant democracies, with a
social matrix which emphasizes harmony and consensus, rather than
confrontation. Both economies are market- oriented and largely
complementary. They share a common desire for peace and stability and believe
that the UN should be strengthened and its decision-making apparatus made more
representative. Both support a cooperative and comprehensive approach to
combating international terrorism and sea-piracy
Therefore,
it was in the fitness of things that Singh and Hatoyama signed an ambitious
joint declaration entitled 'New Stage of India-Japan Strategic and Global
Partnership', which has an action plan on security cooperation as its
centrepiece. The plan based on a declaration signed in October last year,
included a newly-established "2-plus-2" dialogue framework at the
sub-cabinet/senior official level involving the external affairs and defence
ministries.
The
all-encompassing plan includes sustaining various strategic and defence
mechanisms, including an annual strategic dialogue at the foreign-minister
level, regular consultations between national security advisers, and regular
meetings between defence ministers.
All told, India and Japan are natural allies in the
Asia-Pacific region, sharing common potential threat perceptions, particularly
from China (which, concurrent with her economic advancement, has embarked on a
significant upgradation and modernisation of her conventional forces and
nuclear arsenals) and its strategic nexus with North Korea (which is
problematic for Japan) and Pakistan (problematic for India). By themselves neither North Korea nor Pakistan had the technological
capability or financial resources to afford nuclear weapons and long-range
missiles. These missiles in the case of North
Korea cover the Japanese heartland and Okinawa and in the
case of Pakistan
cover the Indian heartland.
It is legitimate to question as to why China provided these deadly arsenals to failing
states likes North Korea and
Pakistan.
The answer is obvious. China’s
intention has been to develop strategic pressure points by proxy in South Asia
against India and in North
East Asia against Japan.
Reason enough why India and Japan must have
strategic congruence. –INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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