Changing Contours of the Japan-India Defense Relations

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Changing Contours of the Japan-India Defense Relations

Pranmita Baruah - 3/4/2010

The history of India-Japan cooperation is relatively short. The defence cooperation between the two states was basically initiated by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. During his August 2000 visit to India, Mori and counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee signed a bilateral agreement entitled ‘Global partnership between Japan and India in the 21st Century’. Japan hoped to build a multifaceted cooperative relationship with India in a wide range of fields. At that time, both sides talked about institutionalizing a dialogue between the ministries of defence and foreign affairs for coordinated actions on security and foreign policy related issues, such as the security of sea-lanes, joint naval exercises to combat piracy and disaster management. This outlined the level of Indo-Japanese security engagement. In 2000 itself, the Indian Navy sent warships, tankers and submarines to Japan, along with South Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam for bilateral exercises and as gestures of goodwill.

India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes’s January 2001 Tokyo visit helped in strengthening the bilateral cooperation further, as it was the first time for both sides to hold formal talks at the defence ministerial level. In July 2001, the first meetings of the Japan-India Security Dialogue and the Japan-India Military-Military Consultation were held. In the following December, Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Vajpayee signed the India-Japan Joint Declaration, in which both sides pledged to cooperate in supporting the war on terror, countering the proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery, ensuring the safety and security of maritime traffic, and reaffirmed their intention to foster defence exchange. In April 2005, a subsequent meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Koizumi produced the joint statement “Japan-India Partnership in a New Asian Era: Strategic Orientation of Japan-India Global Partnership”, as well as an Action Plan called the “Eight-fold Initiative for Strengthening Japan-India Global Partnership”. The action plan gave particular emphasis on the enhancement of bilateral security dialogue and cooperation by a) further developing dialogues and exchanges, including through full utilization of existing consultation forums; b) strengthening service-to-service exchanges between defence establishments of the two countries; c) working to ensure the safety and security of maritime traffic through joint exercises against piracy and the annual Japan Coast Guard-Indian Coast Guard talks; and d) building up cooperation between the Maritime Self Defence Force (MSDF) and the Indian Navy in recognition of the importance of maritime security.

The prospect of bilateral security cooperation was enhanced further in May 2006 with the announcement of a joint statement by Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Japanese Minister of State for Defence Fukushiro Nukaga. The new statement once again underlined the necessity of bilateral defence cooperation, even in areas like disaster relief, international terrorism, technical cooperation, and peace keeping operations. The ‘Joint Statement Towards Japan-India Strategic and Global Partnership’ issued following December 2006 meeting between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Shinzo Abe, reiterated the two states’ firm commitment to strengthen defence cooperation as part of their overall endeavors towards political, defence and security cooperation.

During the meeting of both the Prime Ministers in August 2007, the Joint Statement on the Road map for New Dimensions to the Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan was adopted. This agreement confirmed that both sides shared ‘common interests in such fields as maintaining the safety and security of sea lanes in the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean regions and fighting against transnational crimes, terrorism, piracy and proliferation of the WMD,” and stated that they would study the future course of their security cooperation and seek to deepen and broaden strategic dialogue through various channels, including at the foreign ministerial level of the strategic dialogue. The statement further indicated that both the states would steadily and qualitatively improve their security cooperation, including through vice ministerial level defence policy dialogue and the sharing of experience in international peace cooperation activities and counter terrorism, and promote cooperation between their Coast Guards.

Thus, India and Japan built up security cooperation efforts at the political level, forming the groundwork for dramatic advances in cooperative activities in the defence sector. Japan’s security cooperation with India made considerable headway in 2007, with the inaugural Japan-India Defence Policy Dialogue at the vice-ministerial level (April 11), the first Japan-India-US maritime exercise off the Boso Peninsula of Japan (April 16), a meeting between Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony and his Japanese counterpart Yuriko Koike. Then during September 4 to 9, 2007, for the first time, the Japanese MSDF participated in the multilateral maritime exercise ‘Malabar 07-2’, conducted in the Bay of Bengal.

In October 2008, while bringing bilateral relationship to a new height, India and Japan inked a unique declaration on security cooperation that involves joint defence exercises, policing of the Indian Ocean and military-to-military exchanges on counter-terrorism. This agreement came close in the heels of the civilian nuclear deal that India and the US signed sparking talks of a new security order in the region with Australia joining in to complete quadrilateral framework.

In the Joint Statement issued on November 10, 2009, following Defence Minister A.K. Antony’s Tokyo visit, both the states reiterated their commitment towards strengthening their joint anti-piracy cooperation in the Gulf of Aden. They decided to extend cooperation in the fields of maritime security as well as in combating terrorism. The idea of negotiating on a Defence Action Plan (DAP) was also conceived during that time.

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During Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony’s November 2009 visit to Tokyo, both the states agreed to strengthen the relationship in areas like joint military exercises, bilateral and regional cooperation in peacekeeping, disaster relief and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Both Antony and his Japanese counterpart Toshimi Kitazawa reviewed the existing bilateral defence interactions and explored ways to enhance them further. Antony also emphasized on the necessity of conducting joint exercises between the two armed forces and exchange of students in their respective defence training institutions. During the meeting, issues like bilateral Defence Policy Dialogue, comprehensive security dialogue (CSD), military-to-military talks too were discussed. All these measures supposedly gave a ‘facelift to the existing bilateral defence cooperation’. Recently, the visits of Indian Chief of Naval staff and the Chief of Army staff visits to Japan (in August 2008 and August 2009 respectively), conducting of joint ‘Malabar 09’ exercises in the eastern side of Okinawa (April 2009), the inauguration of the India-Japan Maritime Security Dialogue (October 2009), the holding of the Second Navy-to-Navy Staff talks (October 2009) have clearly demonstrated the mutual commitment between India and Japan in strengthening their cooperation in the defence field.

Amidst a lot of apprehensions over Indo-Japan relations under the newly elected government led by opposition Democratic Party Japan (DPJ), Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama visited India from December 27-29, 2009. During his visit, both the states unveiled a joint action plan on advanced security cooperation. The goal of this plan is to advance security cooperation, based on a declaration signed in October 2008. It includes a newly established ‘2 plus 2’ dialogue framework at the senior official level of external affairs and defence ministries; an annual strategic dialogue at the foreign minister level; regular consultations among security advisers; etc. Overall, this visit seemed to be aimed at providing a political reaffirmation to the Indo-Japan strategic partnership.

Some analysts argue that Hatoyama’s eagerness to mend fence with China and downplaying bilateral security alliance with the US might adversely affect Japan’s relationship with India. There are other hawkish elements in either country who perceive this policy stance as a hedging strategy to contain China’s rise. Strong ties between Japan and China, India and Japan and India and China will be in tune with Hatoyama’s Asia oriented foreign policy and in the interest of establishing a peaceful Asian order. The East Asian Community (EAC) initiative floated by Hatoyama may be seen from this perspective. His proposal for the establishment of an EAC and his desire to work with China can actually provide both India and Japan an opportunity to strengthen their bilateral relationship on much firmer grounds rather than on the mere pretext of ‘balance of power’ equation. If Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuta Okada’s envision of opening up of the EAC membership to India along with China, South Korea, ASEAN, Australia, New Zealand and Japan itself becomes a reality, it will provide further impetus to India-Japan relations as well. In the years ahead, it will be imperative for both the states to continue pursuing cooperation regarding their common strategic interests-counterterrorism, maritime security, disaster relief, etc., in a manner that is to their mutual benefit, while taking into account India’s need to follow its own national strategies.

Pranmita Baruah is Research Assistant in the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

http://globalpolitician.com/26267-japan-india