Delhi-Tokyo ties face the future
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s visit to India this week comes in a time of growing uncertainty over the US approach towards China and the Indo-Pacific. While the first Donald Trump administration adopted a confrontational policy towards Beijing and invested in building regional coalitions to contain its rise, Trump 2.0 has favoured transactional one-on-one engagement over coalition-building. The Pentagon’s decision to revert the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) to its original name, Pacific Command (PACOM), the 2025 National Security Strategy’s narrow conception of core US interests in the Indo-Pacific, and the recent Trump-Xi summit have all fuelled concerns about Washington’s reliability as a long-term partner for Asian countries wary of China. Against this backdrop, summit-level talks between PM Narendra Modi and PM Takaichi, less than a year after the former’s visit to Japan, further boost the deep-rooted Delhi-Tokyo partnership. Japan’s advanced technological capabilities, investment capacity, and growing military power make it uniquely placed to complement India’s rise.
Both countries share concerns about China’s assertiveness. India has an unresolved border, while Japan has maritime and territorial disputes. Technology is another important pillar of bilateral cooperation. Both countries seek to reduce dependence on Chinese technologies and rare earths. Japan brings capital, advanced manufacturing, and semiconductor expertise, while India offers scale, software talent and a vast market. A coordinated India-Japan strategy can help shape the value chains of the future.
The Indo-Pacific continues to be central to India’s economic and security strategy. Whether Washington’s recalibration turns out to be tactical or strategic, India must do its part by accelerating its military and technological modernisation while deepening strategic partnerships across the region. A closer partnership with Japan advances both objectives. Preserving a stable, rules-based Indo-Pacific and a favourable balance of power requires India and Japan to emerge as stronger strategic actors.
- 1Foreign affairs, diplomacy and treaty-making fall in the Union List under Entries 10 to 14 of the Seventh Schedule, and Article 253 empowers Parliament to legislate to implement international agreements even on State subjects. Summit diplomacy of the Modi-Takaichi kind is an executive function under Article 73, which extends the Union executive's power to all matters on which Parliament can legislate, requiring no prior parliamentary ratification of treaties.
- 2India and Japan upgraded ties to a Special Strategic and Global Partnership in 2014 and hold annual summits plus a 2+2 foreign and defence ministerial dialogue. Both are members of the Quad alongside the United States and Australia, a grouping that originated in the 2004 tsunami core group and was revived in 2017. The editorial's anxiety about American reliability under Trump 2.0 makes such middle-power coalitions central to Indo-Pacific stability.
- 3The legal architecture of the relationship includes the India-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement of 2011, the civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed in 2016, notable because India is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement of 2020 for mutual military logistics. Japan's own rearmament is constrained by Article 9 of its post-war Constitution, which renounces war, making its growing defence role legally significant.
- 4Japan is among India's largest sources of foreign direct investment and official development assistance, funding the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project, which uses Shinkansen technology and is estimated at over Rs 1 lakh crore with concessional yen loans. In 2022, Japan announced a target of 5 trillion yen in investment and financing in India over five years, and both governments are cooperating on semiconductors and critical minerals to de-risk supply chains from China.