Updated: August 29, 2020 7:39:24 am
Shinzo Abe’s leadership has transformed Japan’s relationship with India. (Express photo: Renuka Puri)
Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe announced on Friday that he would resign how a chronic disease has resurfaced. Abe, 65, was due to be in office until September 2021. He will remain in office until his party elects a successor and will remain a deputy.
Abe’s leadership has transformed Japan’s relationship with India.
Abe’s lineage
Abe comes from a political family. His grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was PM (1957-60), then his father Shintaro Abe was Minister of Foreign Affairs (1982-86). Monday, Abe became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister for consecutive days in office, beating the record of Eisaku Sato, his great-uncle, who served 2,798 days during 1964-72. Abe had become the country’s prime minister in 2006, but resigned in 2007 due to illness. His current term began in 2012.
Explained | Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigns: this was his term and what happens after
Abe in India
In his first season in 2006-07, Abe visited India and addressed Parliament. During his second term, he visited India three times (January 2014, December 2015, September 2017), the most visits of any Japanese prime minister.
He was the first Japanese Prime Minister to be a main guest at the 2014 Republic Day parade. This reflected his commitment to a relationship with India: he was being greeted by a government that would face elections in May 2014. As leader from Japan, he was courted both by the UPA under Dr. Manmohan Singh and the NDA under Narendra Modi.
Transformation into ties
While the foundations of the “Japan-India Global Partnership” were laid in 2001 and annual bilateral summits were agreed in 2005, Abe has accelerated the pace of relations since 2012.
In August 2007, when Abe visited India for the first time as Prime Minister, he delivered the now famous “Confluence of the Two Seas” speech, laying the foundation for his concept of the Indo-Pacific. This concept has become mainstream and one of the main pillars of the ties between India and Japan.
During his second term, Abe helped build the relationship further.
Having visited Japan several times as Gujarat CM, Modi as PM chose Japan for his first bilateral visit outside the neighborhood, in September 2014. Modi and Abe agreed to upgrade the bilateral relationship to “Global Strategic Special Partnership”. The relationship grew and spanned issues from civilian nuclear power to maritime safety, bullet trains to quality infrastructure, Act East policy and Indo-Pacific strategy.
On Friday, after Abe announced his decision to resign, Modi tweeted: “Hurt to hear about your poor health my dear friend @AbeShinzo. In recent years, with your wise leadership and personal commitment, the India-Japan partnership has grown deeper and stronger than ever. I wish and pray for her speedy recovery. “
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When Modi went to Japan in 2014, the Indo-Japan nuclear deal was still uncertain, and Tokyo was sensitive to a pact with a non-member country of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. The Abe government convinced anti-nuclear hawks in Japan to sign the deal in 2016. The deal was key to India’s deals with American and French nuclear firms, which were owned or owned by Japanese firms or had stakes in them.
Defense and Indo-Pacific
Although the security agreement had been in force since 2008, under Abe the two parties decided to have a Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense (2 + 2), and are negotiating the Acquisition and Cross Services Agreement, a kind of pact of military logistical support. In November 2019, the first Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense was held in New Delhi. A pact for the transfer of defense equipment and technology was also signed in 2015, a rare deal for postwar Japan.
During Abe’s tenure, India and Japan grew closer on Indo-Pacific architecture. Abe had explained his vision of the Confluence of the Two Seas in his 2007 speech when the Quad was formed. It soon collapsed, but in October 2017, as Chinese aggression grew in the Pacific, Indian Ocean and India’s borders at Doklam, it was Abe’s Japan that really came up with the idea of reviving the Quad. In November 2017, it was revived when Indian, Japanese, Australian and American officials gathered in Manila on the sidelines of the East Asia summit.
Separations between India and China
Since 2013, Indian and Chinese soldiers have had four publicly known border clashes: April 2013, September 2014, June-August 2017 and the current one since May 2020. Abe’s Japan has supported India in each of them . During the Doklam crisis and the current standoff, Japan has made statements against China for changing the status quo.
Infrastructure
During Abe’s visit in 2015, India decided to introduce the Shinkansen (bullet train) system, which will start in 2022. Under Abe’s leadership, India and Japan also formed the Act East Forum and are involved in projects in the Northeast, under the China supervision. . The two countries also planned joint projects in the Maldives and Sri Lanka, among others, to counter the influence of Beijing.
also read | Who is taking office now that Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has resigned?
Whats Next
Abe has been a valuable G-7 leader for India, focused on strategic, economic and political results, and was not distracted by internal Indian developments, to the convenience of New Delhi.
Having hosted Modi at his ancestral home in Yamanashi, the first such reception to be extended to a foreign leader, Abe was entertained on a tour in Ahmedabad. However, his planned visit to India last December in Guwahati was canceled due to protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
New Delhi will now await Abe’s successor, who, as a South Block official put it, “will have big shoes to fill.”
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