To strengthen the global character of their relationship, Japan and India should pursue a Eurasian framework alongside an Indo-Pacific one.
Author: Jagannath Panda, IDSA
No other partnership has witnessed the kind of unprecedented progress that the India–Japan partnership has over the last two decades. The new India–Japan Vision Statement — a product of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tokyo to meet his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe from 28–29 October 2018 — reiterates the two leaders’ commitment to work together in the Indo-Pacific and the world at large.
Countries like Australia and the United States draw a link between India–Japan ties and the evolving Indo-Pacific concept. This articulation of the India–Japan relationship is maritime-centric and focusses on the two countries’ role in the maintenance of a ‘free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific’. To strengthen the global character of India–Japan relations, a Eurasian framework should be pursued in parallel to an Indo-Pacific one.
Economic cooperation in Eurasia is a viable proposition that India and Japan should explore in developing their ‘global’ partnership. Such a partnership must be driven by the two countries’ shared strategic and economic imperatives. Balancing China’s influence in Central Asia and Europe — arising from its Eurasian leg of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) — could be one such strategic motive.
China may hold significant influence in Central Asia, but India–Japan collaboration in the region could tilt the strategic balance and provide Central Asian states with more room to manoeuvre. And while Russia may appear to be supportive of the SREB, it is apprehensive of Beijing dominating the region. Notably, Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union is looking for new partnerships — an opportunity that both Japan and India should capitalise on.
To construct a Eurasia-specific framework, India–Japan cooperation with Russia, Central Asia and Europe will be required. To accomplish this, Tokyo could revisit former prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto’s ‘Eurasian diplomacy’ policy of the 1990s.
