With Modi-Abe bromance gone, will India’s ties with Japan remain solid?

In India, Abe is viewed as a leader who has transformed bilateral ties, having initiated the annual summit and shifted Japan’s priority to the Indo-Pacific
His resignation comes at a complex time, with both Japan and India seeing security challenges and feeling the pressure of the deepening US-China rivalry

Japan

Pranay Sharma

Published: 10:18pm, 10 Sep 2020

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Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Thursday agreed their countries would work more closely for peace and security in the Indo-Pacific, a fortnight after Abe said he would step down over health issues.

A day earlier the Indian Armed Forces and the Self-Defence Forces of Japan had signed an agreement that would allow the two countries’ navies to use each other’s ports for basic support and resupplies.

During a 30-minute telephone call between Modi and Abe the leaders reaffirmed the trust and friendship between them and recalled their visits to each other’s countries.

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Modi thanked Abe for his “personal commitment and leadership” in strengthening the relationship between the countries. They also agreed their partnership would play a critical role in “charting the course for the global community in the post-Covid world.”

Abe’s shock announcement comes at a time of security challenges for both India and Japan. India is locked in a tense stand-off with China at their disputed border, while Tokyo has protested against Chinese fishing and naval boats swarming near the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Joint statements from the two sides have often called for an “open, transparent, inclusive rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific with freedom of navigation and overflight”, without mentioning China. But there is no doubt about Beijing being the elephant in the room.

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“There is a consensus that China’s unilateralism is … threatening peace and development throughout the region,” said Sujan R. Chinoy, director general of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, and a former Indian diplomat. “Both India and Japan can make active contribution to preserving the South China Sea as a maritime global commons.”

Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, is widely acknowledged in India as the leader who transformed bilateral ties. He initiated the annual summit between the two countries from 2006, and shifted Japan’s strategic priority from the “Asia-Pacific” to the “Indo-Pacific” to emphasise India’s importance in the region.

He was the first to articulate the quadrilateral dialogue – an informal strategic forum involving Australia, India, Japan and the United States. Most significantly, Abe ignored opposition within Japan to conclude the civil nuclear agreement with India in 2018.

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When Abe, 65, said he would leave office almost a year before his term was up because of a long-standing medical complaint, Modi wrote some kind words wishing him well.

“Pained to hear about your ill health, my dear friend @AbeShinzo. In recent years, with your wise leadership and personal commitment, the India and Japan partnership has become deeper and stronger than ever before,” Modi said on Twitter.

During their telephone conversation on Thursday both leaders expressed confidence that the momentum reached by the India-Japan partnership in the past few years would continue “unabated”. Modi conveyed his intention to work closely with the new government of Japan even as he wished Abe the best for his future.

Narendra Modi sits by the fireplace at Shinzo Abe’s holiday home in 2018. Photo: Twitter

Abe was not the first Japanese leader to embrace India – his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was the first prime minister to visit the country – but he was the first to realise its strategic potential, analysts say.

“Abe anticipated the importance of the strategic convergence of India and Japan in the changing contours of Asia,” said Deepa Wadhwa, a former Indian ambassador to Japan.

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In Abe’s nine years as prime minister, he visited India four times and was the first Japanese leader to be invited as the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations in 2014.

The friendship went both ways. Modi was the first foreign leader to be invited to Abe’s ancestral home, and he also met Abe four times on the sidelines of other multilateral meetings in 2019.

This has led to speculations whether the Indo-Japan bonhomie will end with Abe.

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Wadhwa, the former ambassador, did not believe this to be the case.

She said both Japan and India had bipartisan support for strong bilateral ties. The institutionalised exchanges that Abe worked for – such as the annual summits, the 2+2 at the ministerial level and joint military exercises – all led to mutual benefit.

“For these reasons, I do not see a diminishing of the strategic partnership post-Abe,” Wadhwa said.

Among Japan’s investments in India include a high-speed rail project linking Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Photo: AFP

Former Indian diplomat Chinoy, who also served as India’s ambassador in Japan, agreed that bilateral ties would not be affected by the change in leadership. He said there was unmatched public goodwill and political consensus in India on the partnership. “It is likely to prove to be a defining partnership of the 21st century,” he said.

On the economic side, India has been on the receiving end of Japanese investments. Japan spent a record 522.4 billion yen (US$4.9 billion) in overseas development assistance in 2018-19, including in the high-speed rail between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, a dedicated freight corridor in western India, and industrial corridors between Delhi and Mumbai as well as Chennai and Bangalore – all which will help transform India within the next decade.

On Thursday, Modi and Abe reviewed the status of cooperation on various projects, including the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High -Speed Rail under the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership.

On September 1, the commerce ministers of India, Australia and Japan held a virtual meeting and pledged to launch an initiative to boost supply chains in the Indo-Pacific, in a move widely seen as guarding against China.

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An Indo-Japan summit has not taken place since last year. A meeting in December 2019 was called off after violent protests erupted in the northeastern state of Assam against the Citizen (Amendment) Act.

The summit was rescheduled to April this year, but was again postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak. Thursday’s telephone conversation between Abe and Modi could hardly be described as a summit. The Indian statement described it as a “telephone conversation between the two prime ministers,” even though the read-out from the Japanese side described it as a “summit telephone talk”.

One factor that has led to deepened India-Japan ties is the growing rivalry between the US and China. As US President Donald Trump gears up for the November presidential election, will India-Japan ties change based on the outcome?

“Notwithstanding which administration is elected into the White House, the Indo-Japanese relationship will endure,” Rudra Chaudhuri, director of Carnegie India said. “Indo-Japanese relationship will get stronger, especially as Xi’s China continues to practice hostile unilateralism.”

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