NEW DELHI: As Japan enters a new chapter with Suga Yoshihide taking over as Prime Minister from Shinzo Abe, India will have to shift its focus template to its closest strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific.
Releasing a Japan-India document by FICCI on Friday evening, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar He said Japan is the only country with which India holds an annual summit and ‘2 + 2’ meeting at the highest levels of government. The two countries are now working together on global and regional issues, deepening defense and security cooperation, and shaping the new policy of the Indo-Pacific.
However, on a note of caution, he said, India should take a “more ambitious approach to Japanese business.”
This has become much more important as Suga’s government takes shape. For too long, Shinzo Abe and his personal friendship with the prime minister have done the heavy lifting of the India-Japan relationship. Modi.
That could change. If India has to keep up the pace and depth of the relationship with Japan, in many ways the onus will fall on New Delhi, to think more boldly.
Jaishankar said that today India and Japan were key to the rebalancing of Asia, due to the “fluidity” of the Pacific and Indian oceans. “Now we are working together in third countries. We have started working in Sri Lanka ”. India and Japan are now cooperating in Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“We want to work with Japan in Russia’s Far East and in the Pacific island countries,” he said.
Suga has come to power as a unique factionless politician, unusual in Japan’s factional politics. To some extent, he is a consensus candidate, largely supported by all factions, although, due to his close association with Abe, he is the closest in ideology and politics to the Abe faction.
But his government includes key men from different factions as Suga tries to build a kind of “unity” government.
Japan’s foreign and defense policies under Suga may remain largely the same: Toshemitsu Motegi will remain foreign minister and Abe’s younger brother Nobuo Kishi has the crucial defense portfolio, which means continuity for the Japan’s international partners such as the United States and India. Enthusiastic observers from Japan say Abe has not really come out and that he will maintain his influence in both portfolios.
However, Suga may take a slightly more moderate approach to China, something that will be watched closely in New Delhi and Washington. The first leader to back Suga was Toshihiro Nikai, who is now the Secretary General of the LDP. He has a more benign view of both China and the CCP. Also, as sources see it, Suga hails from Yokohama, with a strong population of Chinese merchants, who are also influential. So while your defense policies may be led by a Chinese hawk, you can moderate them in other areas.
Suga has not been involved in foreign policy, as Abe did. Indeed, as analysts see it, it will approach foreign policy through the domestic prism. For India, therefore, it will be important to respond to the drivers of Suga’s domestic politics.
These include a couple of things: regulatory and administrative reforms, controlling Covid, revitalizing the economy. His first tweet as Japan’s 99th prime minister said: “I will go ahead with deregulation and end ministry sectionalism, vested interests and the practice of blindly following past precedents.”
Suga has brought in powerful leaders like Kishida, Ishiba, and Taro Aso; Taro Kono has been given responsibility for one of Suga’s key interests: regulatory reform, while Takuya Hirai will be responsible for creating a national digital agency, another Suga priority. .
What is important to India in this galaxy of factional interests is that New Delhi will need to open more doors in Japan; This involves working with Japanese companies that respond to different political factions, to keep India as a valuable investment for Japan. These leaders Will Abe was greater than the life force in Japanese politics, and practically a free space for India. That will no longer work.
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