India-Japan ties need a big leap in Indo-Pacific

The building blocks for strong strategic ties are firmly in place. They now need a quantum leap forward

- Happymon Jacob

If you keep out the US, which is on a long geopolitical vacation from the Indo-Pacific, Japan is India’s most consequential strategic partner in the region. Japan may not have significant military power, but it possesses the strategic intent and political will to shape the Indo-Pacific.

India has the military power and strategic intent, but one could argue that it needs more political will and economic power to shape the region. That is why India and Japan are such compelling and natural Indo-Pacific partners. The New Delhi-Tokyo strategic partnership, carefully nurtured in the midst of geopolitical headwinds and domestic political changes in Tokyo, now needs a quantum leap.

So, what is so special about the partnership? Three sets of factors drive the strategic convergence that defines it. First, the two countries’ strategic convergence is shaped, in a big way, by the interplay of US-China relations, China's regional assertiveness, and the degree to which the US prioritises the region. These ever-changing dynamics of great power politics in the Indo-Pacific have led Tokyo and New Delhi to recognise their mutual interest in influencing regional power dynamics, considering the centrality of the region to their security. There is little doubt that what happens in the Indo-Pacific has a defining impact on both Japan and India. In that sense, their engagement in the Indo-Pacific through initiatives such as Quad, Malabar, and MILAN aims to shape the region's geopolitics. Trilateral cooperation among India, Japan, and third countries in South Asia and Africa also reflects the intent to stabilise the region and create an alternative to various China-led projects.