Sino File | Of Asia’s big 3, India and Japan can be friends. Why not China?
- The Japanese leader Shinzo Abe’s meetings with India’s Narendra Modi and China’s Xi Jinping were just days apart, but the mood was very different
The recent string of diplomatic encounters between China, Japan and India underscores the complex and often contradictory relationship shared by Asia’s three largest powers.
It was the 12th time Abe and Modi had met since the Indian prime minister first visited Japan as leader in 2014. In fact, Japanese and Indian prime ministers have held summit talks almost annually since 2005. But the same cannot be said for Abe and Xi. Abe’s official state visit to China and his summit with Xi on October 26 was the first such encounter between the two estranged neighbours since 2011.
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While Modi’s Japan visit sought to consolidate what New Delhi called “India’s one and only Special Strategic and Global Partnership”, Abe’s China trip marked only the beginning of a gradual thaw in Sino-Japanese ties since Tokyo in 2012 “nationalised” disputed islands in the East China Sea. Nevertheless, in both meetings, leaders said they were keen for more exchanges and cooperation on issues of mutual concern.
Economically speaking, there is great potential for cooperation between the trio, because their economies are basically complementary by nature.
In a globalised world, Japan, a developed industrial power, China, an emerging economy, and India, the world’s largest underdeveloped economy, can each play their respective roles in production and supply. Just as China followed Japan’s export-oriented development model over the past few decades, so too is India mimicking China’s.