- India and Japan have been in talks on expanded bilateral defense cooperation
- Both Asian powers have endured an uneasy relationship with China
- Japan has long regarded India as a powerful counterweight to Beijing’s strategic rise
- Yet trade between China and Japan dwarfs trade between Tokyo and India
Editor’s note: Geoff Hiscock is a former Asia business editor of CNN.com and the author of “Earth Wars: The Battle for Global Resources,” published by Wiley.
(CNN) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s intended presence as chief guest of honor at India’s Republic Day parade in New Delhi on Sunday symbolizes the significance India places on an ever-closer relationship with Japan in their mutual quest to counter the economic and strategic might of China.
Abe, whose Defense Minister, Itsunori Onodera, was in India earlier this month for talks on expanded bilateral defense cooperation, will see some of India’s latest military hardware on display in the traditional parade, including its nuclear-capable long-range missiles, the Agni 4 and Agni 5.
India successfully tested a 4,000-km range Agni 4 on January 20 from its Wheeler Island launch site in the Bay of Bengal.
Republic Day is the most high-profile event on the Indian political calendar, and the government makes a point of inviting leaders from countries with whom it seeks to cultivate closer ties. Chief guests in recent years have included the presidents of Indonesia and South Korea, for example.
Last month, India and Japan held their first bilateral naval exercise in Indian waters off the coast of Chennai, following on from a similar exercise in Japanese waters in June 2012. The two sides have also taken part in the multilateral “Malabar” naval exercises in recent years, joining US, Australian and Singaporean ships.
Territorial disputes
Japan and India, the second and third-biggest economies in Asia behind China, both have an uneasy relationship with Beijing. Tensions between Japan and China are running high over territorial disputes in the East China Sea centered on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, and over the controversial December 26 visit by Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine, the Tokyo site regarded by China, North Korea and South Korea as a symbol of Japan’s imperial military past and honors war criminals.
India and China fought a brief border war in 1962 and had a serious military standoff last April when India alleged that Chinese troops crossed into Indian-held territory near Ladakh in the Himalayan mountain range. China denied any incursion. There were further incidents in July near Ladakh and in August in Arunachal Pradesh, the northeastern Indian state where China also has laid claim to territory. Since then,
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