Against the backdrop of turbulence unleashed by the US’ unilateralism and shifting geopolitical realignments, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Tokyo to galvanise relations with a trusted friend and partner which will play a bigger role in India’s development journey.
PM Modi began his two-day visit to Tokyo on August 29 with an ambitious agenda to elevate strategic and economic partnership between India and Japan, liberal democracies with shared stakes in shaping an inclusive Indo-Pacific and a balanced world order. PM Modi will hold annual summit talks with his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba, which will be watched closely in China, the next stop in his two-nation tour.
This is Prime Minister Modi’s eighth visit to Japan, and the first summit meeting with Prime Minister Ishiba. The visit has an added significance in view of shared unease about the US, a once robust partner whose mercurial leader has confounded both countries with his abrasive trade policies. The two leaders will impart a fresh momentum to Special Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan, including defence and security, trade and economy, technology and innovation, and people-to-people exchanges.
The big-ticket outcome of the talks in Tokyo will be unveiling of a 10-trillion-yen (USD 68 billion) decade-long private investment package by Japan in India. This massive investment plan will signal Japan’s strategic goal of promoting India’s rise as a major global economic power and will reinforce Japan’s status as India’s preeminent development partner.
The two sides are also expected to unveil a new framework for economic security which will include stable supplies of critical goods, including semiconductors, essential minerals, communications, clean energy, artificial intelligence, and pharmaceutical products.
PM Modi will visit Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan, to witness an experimental shinkansen bullet train car and visit a major Japanese manufacturer of chip-making equipment. Japan is expected to announce its plans for investing in the next-generation E10 series Shinkansen for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor.
The talks will also culminate in plans for joint defence production and co-development of cutting-edge weapons. The two sides are already working on co-developing the Unified Complex Radio Antenna, the UNICORN project, a common radar mast for use by Indian Navy platforms.
Against the backdrop of China’s growing regional assertiveness, the two sides are expected to enhance cooperation in maritime domain awareness and will enhance coordination in protecting freedom of navigation in South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the broader Indo-Pacific region.
On the geopolitical front, the focus will be on strengthening strategic coordination to bolster the Quad, which is experiencing a bit of drift with US President Donald Trump behaving in a capricious manner with Quad partners such as India. India and Japan need to enhance their coordination to strengthen the Quad as a pressure group against Chinese assertiveness, said Hiroyuki Akita, a commentator for Nikkei Asia.
Author Profile
- Manish Chand is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) and India and World, a pioneering magazine focused on international affairs. He is CEO, Centre for Global India Insights, an India-based think tank focused on global affairs.
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