Ottawa, July 11 (IANS) The recent visit of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was intended to convey that India is indispensable to Japan's Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision, particularly at a time when US President Donald Trump has signalled his apparent distaste for both the FOIP and the Quad, a report has stated.
It noted that Takaichi's revised FOIP reflects this approach by placing greater emphasis on economics while also integrating maritime security, connectivity, and industrial value chains linking the Bay of Bengal with India's Northeast. As a result, the report said, security cooperation extends beyond naval collaboration to a hybrid strategy capable of competing with China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Indian Ocean.
“Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s visit to India can be seen as a shift from diplomatic optics to tangible security building, but it also signifies something else. They’ve moved markedly closer together but also slightly farther away from Trump and the United States. Takaichi arrived in New Delhi with a narrow list of things to do: tap India as a key partner in Japan’s economic security strategy as supply chains fragment and US commitment looks shaky,” according to a report in Canada-based Geopolitical Monitor.
“Second, she moved on a declaration of economic security, a joint statement on energy resilience, anchored in projects on critical minerals, semiconductors, upstream oil and gas, and green fuels such as large-scale green ammonia production in India. Seen in light of the 2025 Japan-India Joint Vision for the Next Decade, it also hedges against China-centred supply chains,” it added.
The report noted that one of the most significant outcomes of the visit was the growing focus on industry, with semiconductors and critical minerals emerging as key pillars of bilateral cooperation. As Japan seeks to reduce its dependence on China, it said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is positioning India as a democratic, large-scale manufacturing alternative for the United States and other global markets.
The signing of nearly 120 private-sector MoUs reflects the increasing economic necessity driving the partnership between India and Japan.
Highlighting energy as another key area of cooperation, the report further said, "With Trump scrambling to contain his own damage caused by the interruption of oil supply from the Strait of Hormuz, energy resilience became a major issue, as it was with other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partners. As West Asia is now keenly aware of maritime chokepoints, Japan’s POWERR Asia (Partnership on Wide Energy and Resources Resilience Asia) initiative and India’s interest in biogas show that Japan looks to India not just as a spot for additional consumers but as a base for energy diversification."
The partnership, it said, enables New Delhi to gain access to Japanese technology through renewable energy while reducing India’s dependence on Western-supplied energy.
"The real test of their movement away from the unpredictable nature of their US partner in Trump is how this new Japan–India-led framework of decarbonisation and diversification can offer something more tangible, something far more credible than Chinese state-led capital infrastructure financing that dominates Southeast Asia and part of the Indo-Pacific," the report noted.
--IANS
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