The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : India, Japan shaping a new future?

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Thursday, May 12, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

India, Japan shaping a new future?

P. S. Suryanarayana

The new closeness in ties between India and Japan is a significant move away from the unstable equation in the aftermath of Pohkran-II.

JAPAN'S EFFORTS to fashion a dynamic partnership with India and New Delhi's positive response can be traced to some significant perceptions of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The two countries, in Mr. Koizumi's view, are now bound by not only their shared old values of democracy and related principles but also a new convergence of strategic interests.

A promise of more substantive economic engagement has been held out by both sides in the context of Mr. Koizumi's talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders in New Delhi on April 29. Capturing attention, though, is the agreed move to view the bilateral relationship under a new prism of their "strategic interests" in the Asian and global theatres.

This signifies a major shift from the unstable equation that followed India's testing of nuclear weapons in 1998. Japan was furious with India then. Indeed, in geopolitical terms, the shift has occurred quite gradually. In a sense, the visit to India in August 2000 by the then Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, set off a thaw on the frosty bilateral front.

More recently, a catalytic factor was the recognition by both sides that they might benefit by supporting each other for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. It has been their objective, for about a year now, to try and secure the same prerogatives as those enjoyed at present by the five in this category.

For historical reasons, China is the only Asian country in this super-league of "board of governors" on the global stage (an American phrase). That being the case, the latest reaffirmation of Japan-India cooperation in this sphere has come to define, for the time being, their new "convergence of strategic interests".

Tokyo and New Delhi certainly share other strategic interests as well, pledging to work as "partners against proliferation" of weapons of mass destruction across the international spectrum. Another categorical affirmation is about cooperation to fight international terrorism and to promote energy security as also environmental protection across the world.

If managed imaginatively by both India and Japan, their new pledge of enhanced cooperation on strategic issues can be sustained even after the outcome is known about their joint efforts to take their rightful places in the Security Council.

Ties with China

Equally relevant is how Tokyo and New Delhi interact, individually and also jointly, with Beijing in the run-up to the end-game and during it, whenever it might take place, for a possible expansion of the Security Council.

Surely, the incremental rapprochement between India and China, now being witnessed, is not a factor behind the recent deterioration of the ties between Tokyo and Beijing. However, their trilateral equation is now very much in focus in Asia.

China has now told the review conference in New York on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that those still outside its framework should accede to it as states without atomic weapons. This implies that China would like India (and, of course, Pakistan and North Korea) to join the NPT as states without any atomic weapons in their arsenals or perhaps without the status of nuclear powers under international law. Japan's position on such universality of the NPT coincides with that of China.

This, however, is only one aspect of the equation among China, India and Japan. China and Japan, despite differences on a range of other issues, have remained very much on talking terms, as evident at the recent Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta and the Asia-Europe Meeting in Kyoto. This augurs well for the Tokyo-New Delhi dialogue too.

Authoritative Japanese sources indicate that there is no need for apprehension that India may get sucked into any of the controversies between Beijing and Tokyo — history of World War II in the Asia-Pacific theatre or even the shared perception of the United States and Japan about the centrality of Taiwan to the future security of this theatre.

Emerging power

While Mr. Koizumi has recognised that India is now "stridently emerging as a global power", aided by "a robust economic growth", the sources emphasise that New Delhi is a "very strongly independent-minded" player too. Moreover, Mr. Koizumi tends to see India and China as key global powers from Asia. It is in this context that Japan is now looking at India closely beyond the bilateral engagement. However, this is not similar to the Japan-U.S. "Bilateralism Plus", which a Japanese expert, Akiko Fukushima, and some others perceived as a possibility even before these two countries very recently placed Taiwan at the core of Asia-Pacific security issues.

In the economic domain, India and Japan have now agreed to foster a comprehensive engagement through an expansion of trade in goods and services as also of investment flows. Above all, the possibility of a Japan-India economic partnership agreement will be explored. On a note of statesmanship, Mr. Koizumi has evinced "interest" in Dr. Manmohan Singh's proposal for an "Asian Economic Community".

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