With a dynamic start-up ecosystem, India has over 100 unicorns where the Japanese capital is already playing an important role. Japan has, in fact proved to be an invaluable partner in India’s journey for development, prosperity and modernization, helping in various sectors from the automobile sector to industrial corridors. Terming the relations between India and Japan as special, strategic and global, Prime Minister Narendra Modi penned an op-ed on this vibrant engagement in the Yomiuri Shimbun, a leading Japanese newspaper, covering a wide range of issues, relationship and concerns. Stressing on the need to re-invigorate and redesign the relationship in a post-COVID era, he said both countries have immense scope to strengthen the engagement across sectors like trade, investment, defence manufacturing, cyber, space, underwater domains and security. PM Modi’s op-ed also said, India has always seen Japan as an indispensable partner in country’s continuing transformation in all directions.
India offers speed, scale, ease of doing business, attractive incentives, courageous reforms and ambitious plans to create unmatched opportunities for one and all. Japanese investments and developmental assistance are spread across India with the iconic Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail project symbolising Japan’s extensive collaboration in building a New India. Notably, Japan is a home to nearly 40,000 members of the Indian diaspora also. It is also worth mentioning that in March 2022 in Delhi, Prime Minister Modi and Japani PM Kishida laid out a roadmap for further deepening and broadening special strategic and global partnership. The PM has hoped that both countries will be contributing towards creating an open, free, inclusive and secure Indo-Pacific region, where everyone respects the territorial integrity of others by following international laws and conventions.
QUAD grouping is one platform from where both the economies are ensuring the same as the agenda items of this dialogue are relevant in terms of regional stability and peace. Through Quad, India and Japan, along with the Australia and US have now formed a new security architecture. And the increase in active discussions and summits lately here has caught global attention, including that of China. The Quad engagement is anchored in the shared values and commitment to the principles of democracy, international law and rules based international order as also a vision for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. Since its first Summit, Quad has been working to implement a positive and constructive agenda with a strong focus on enabling peace, prosperity, and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. The issues discussed in the summit include climate action, decarbonized green shipping network in the Indo-Pacific, making use of clean hydrogen and making it more accessible, pooling capacities to assist Indo-Pacific countries in climate monitoring and information sharing, supporting sustainable and demand driven infrastructure in the region, cooperation on critical and emerging technologies, biotechnology, diversification of semiconductor supply chain, security of critical cyber infrastructure, last mile delivery of essentials, health security, genomic surveillance, clinical trials, and pandemic preparedness among others.
Further, the evident polarisation in the International system in the aftermath of Ukraine-Russia conflict, Western repulsion towards Russia, and even US-China trade tussle, is already putting a lot of unsaid pressure on other economies to pick sides. Amid such a sensitive and changing World order, India and Japan, have been able to position themselves as two aspiring global powers that can bring non-western perspectives to discussions based on dialogue and security.
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