A strategic paradigm shift is underway in Asia following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan between 10-12 November. PM Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe must have shared this premonition when they met for the first time as elected leaders in 2014. The two Asian leaders didn’t just read tea leaves in Kyoto when they decided to become custodians of the Indo-Pacific. The past two years were spent in gradually laying the foundation required for the task at hand.
At the Crossroads of Asia
While Modi was elected in 2014 two years after Abe, they had already established a strong personal rapport, the longest between Modi and any foreign leader. Both leaders were elected based on deliverables of economic growth, their respective eponymous economic strategies were aimed at ridding policy paralysis in the system, building their nations’ competitive edge to secure a firm backing at home to promote their ambitious political agendas.
India and Japan were at the crossroads of Asia, witness to the power transition in the region, as China had completed “biding time” and maintaining a “low profile”. China sought to “democratise international relations” with its announcements of a continental and maritime Silk Road project, the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and a “New Asian Security Order” that argued Asia must be ruled by Asians alone. This new order threatened to undermine seven decades of America’s rules-based liberal international order which hinged on its bilateral security alliances (the San Francisco System) and Bretton Woods’ institutions like IMF, and World Bank. At this juncture, scholars argued conflict was imminent between a rising power and a power in decline.
Asia’s Two Pillars Rise
Both Modi and Abe understood that the vagaries of the Sino-U.S. relationship (conflict or cooperation) would either way impact their interests. However, both differentiated in their accommodation towards China and reliance on United States for protection. And both nations sought security in hedging and multi-level, multi-engagement.
The Indian leadership recognised that a Nehruvian approach to foreign policy (nonalignment and resistance towards participation in power balance) would be fruitless as Indian national interests had to be leveraged. India’s foreign policy shifts were thus geopolitical. The emphasis was laid upon “Acting East”. Meanwhile, India’s participation in BRICS forum and membership into the AIIB were a calculation of its own interests that diverged from but did not damage the consensus with Japan.
Japan, on the other hand, realised that Yoshida bargain (PM Shigeru Yoshida had signed the Security Treaty with the U.S., offered a military base to the U.S. in exchange for security protection) the expensive trade-off that compromised on an independent foreign policy. Japan’s foreign policy shifts were structural. Japan sought to gain diplomatic space in realising a “proactive contribution to peace” based on its first National Security Strategy. PM wrestled a tough domestic consensus on amending the right to collective self-defence and re-interpret Article 9 of its pacifist constitution. Meanwhile, Japan’s interests laid in the rules-based international order and Bretton Wood institutions, in the bilateral security alliance with the U.S., and the fruition of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Both India and Japan, along with Brazil and Germany, believed that the UN Security Council must be reformed to reflect the current geopolitical reality. Both India and Japan believed in the East Asia Summit as a multilateral forum to discuss security issues and are both party to the negotiations of the ASEAN and China driven, Regional Comprehensive and Economic Partnership.
The Broad Consensus
When Abe and Modi met in September 2014, they issued the Tokyo Declaration that elevated Indo-Japanese relations to that of a “Special Strategic and Global Partnership”. The three specific agendas of the bilateral partnership were towards ensuring domestic development (transportation, civil nuclear and defence sectors), improving regional integration and global stability.
The two nations had set up the India-Japan Investment Promotion Partnership, with $35 billion aid and loan grants promised by Japan. India has been the highest recipient of aid and assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency. They signed deals to introduce bullet trains and high speed railways (Shinkansen) from Japan connecting Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Chennai-Bangalore which were to transform the Indian landscape. Other core sectors of development were: infrastructure, development of industrial towns and industrial corridors, Smart Cities (Kyoto-Varanasi sister city agreement), agriculture and food processing, etc. Japan’s soft power as a nation of discipline and sophisticated technology much ahead of its time, resonated deeply in the Indian mindset with Japanese brands like Suzuki, Kawasaki, Toyota, Sony and Nintendo. Meanwhile, the export of civil nuclear energy technology didn’t come through in 2014 as the stakeholders in Japan’s nuclear policy felt the deal with India would contradict its interests. They felt that Japan’s vociferous disarmament and non-proliferation diplomacy would be disregarded with the export of nuclear technology to a non-NPT signatory state (India), while simultaneously pressurising North Korea to return to the regime. Meanwhile, Indo-Japanese ties were strengthened with the conduct of bilateral naval exercises, Coast Guard exercises and the sale of 12 US-2 Amphibian aircraft to India since Japan amended its defence export laws.
Stakeholders to Stabilising Powers
In a year’s time, economic cooperation was gradually reaping dividends as in October 2014, there was a 6% increase in Japanese companies in India as both nations now sought to strengthen people-to-people cooperation. There was a growth of 18.2% Indian tourists to Japan in 2015 as Japan sought to set up its National Tourism Office in India to court the burgeoning middle class. In a boost to ties, India, too, extended “visa on arrival” to Japanese citizens to India. Japan had promised $12 billion in soft loans to India and, in principle, signed the MoU on civil nuclear cooperation with India. Japan had to assuage domestic actors of India’s credentials as a responsible actor with nuclear weapons. India and Japan in December 2015 gradually moved from being stakeholders in the system to becoming stabilising powers. Abe in 2007 had earlier proposed the “Confluence of Two Seas” (Indian and Pacific Ocean) in his address to the Indian Parliament. Seven years later, it was the first time that both nations identified the Indo-Pacific region as the theatre of their partnership, signed a Joint Vision Statement and sought to transform the security order. The lack of a military alliance between them did not hinder the maiden attempt at coordinating security policies to improve regional connectivity. India became part of RIMPAC 2016, Japan participated in the International Fleet Review, India promoted its Project SAGAR (Security and Growth For All) and Japan its Quality Infrastructure Fund. Both nations sought to strengthen ASEAN-SAARC integration through cooperation in frameworks of BBIN and BIMSTEC. India and Japan (in contrast to U.S. and China) found a favourable audience in Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, etc. They individually set up relations with smaller nations (IOR countries) and Pacific Island nations. They dovetailed their interests with the United States and engineered two trilaterals: India-Japan-United States (which got upgraded to the Foreign Ministers’ level) and India-Japan-Australia. Japan became a permanent participant in the India-U.S. Malabar exercise since 2015. The U.S. vacillated from providing strategic space for China to grow and imposing costs on its aggressive behaviour. While China had no intention of being tamed, the Americans looked towards India and Japan in the IndoPacific to stabilise this transition.
Power Shift to Paradigm Shift
The once pandered fears of a G2 (Sino-U.S.) strategic alignment by Asians cannot be dismissed at the moment. The American security system gradually lost its credibility in the last year of the Obama administration because of its inability to adapt and manage this power transition. The Philippines’ walkout from the alliance and China’s blatant dismissal of international norms in refusal to abide by the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling on South China Sea, portends a highly turbulent period where “might is right”. China with Xi Jinping as its “core leader” now waits in the wings to fill the possible strategic vacuum created due to American retreat with Donald Trump coming to power. To borrow Kyoto University Professor Takenori Horimoto’s words, is Asia on the brink of a paradigm shift from a power shift?
In this light, the Indo-Japanese relations are now on the brink of transformation, especially with the fallout between India and China over NSG admission. The simultaneous progress towards Indo-Japanese civil nuclear cooperation could mean that India could rely on a mature strategic partner as Japan.
The prospects for bilateral cooperation on regional integration (from Africa), civil nuclear cooperation, security ties and counter terrorism loom large since PM Abe and PM Modi’s discussion in September 2016 of “an open and free India and Pacific oceans strategy”. India and Japan are now ready to define their new roles as probable custodians of the Indo-Pacific and pursue their interests, deftly managing the shifting tides to respond to this paradigm shift.
(Nidhi Prasad is a PhD student at the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Relations, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)