India-Japan ties not against any third country: Expert

Though a Global Times Article stated that the prospec of an India-Japan united front against China is doomed to fail, an expert told senior journalist Aroonim Bhuyan that New Delhi and Tokyo's relationship is not aimed at any third nation.

New Delhi:Even as China's state-affiliated media claimed that New Delhi and Tokyo will find it hard to form a united front against Beijing amid reports of an upcoming bilateral summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe sometime next month, a leading Indian scholar on Japanese studies has said that the India-Japan relationship is not aimed against any third country.

In an article headlined "Hard for India, Japan to form a united front against China" in the influential English daily of China, Global Times, Qing Feng, director of the research department of the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, stated that "if India tries to rope in Japan to suppress China, it is doomed to fail."

Qing's article comes in the light of the border conflict between India and China in Ladakh this year which saw deaths on both sides along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) for the first time in 45 years.

"After the border clash, India has undertaken unilateral and unreasonable acts, trying to make China feel the heat," Qing wrote.

"For example, India banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including TikTok and WeChat amid the border row. India has also tried to rope in Japan and Australia to rein China in. However, this will not help India's economic recovery or development in the post-pandemic era. By trying to hurt China, India will suffer far more in economic terms. India's national strength may not be enough to challenge China's national interests."

However, at the same time, the article stated that China-India and China-Japan relations have not declined as rapidly as China-US relations have.

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"Although New Delhi wants to add pressure on Beijing, solving China-India disputes through negotiations is still a general trend," it stated.

"As for Japan, it may still want to stabilise relations with China considering its economic development in the post-pandemic era. This being the case, New Delhi and Tokyo may not use extreme rhetoric and actions to provoke Beijing."

Qing further wrote that though China has disputes with India and Japan, New Delhi and Tokyo may want to strengthen cooperation and maintain a balance in Asia.

"We would like to see normal cooperation between India and Japan as two important economies in Asia. After all, their success is also conductive to cooperation in the entire Asian region," the article stated.

"But if such cooperation is based on the purpose of jointly exerting pressure on China, then we are firmly opposed to it. Because this will destabilise the Asia-Pacific region."

Though the External Affairs Ministry is yet to confirm the date, media reports suggest that the annual bilateral summit between Modi and Abe is likely to be held virtually in early September.

Japan is one of the two countries with which India holds annual bilateral summits, the other being Russia.

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However, last year's annual bilateral summit, which was scheduled to be held in Guwahati, Assam, had to be postponed due to the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Last month, Japan had come out in support of India following the bloody conflict in Ladakh among Indian and Chinese troops in June.

Speaking in a virtual discussion on "India-Japan relations in the post-Covid era" organised by a think tank here, Japanese Ambassador to India Satoshi Suzuki said that Tokyo strongly opposes any attempt to change the status quo along the LAC with China in Ladakh.

Referring to the latest article in the Global Times, K.V. Kesavan, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank and a leading Indian scholar in the field of Japanese studies, told ETV Bharat that the India-Japan relationship is not targeted against any third country.

The India-Japan relationship was elevated to that of a "Special Strategic and Global Partnership" during Prime Minister Modi's visit to the east Asian nation in 2014.

"We (India and Japan) share a strategic partnership and we will succeed in ensuring peace and maritime security in the region," Kesavan said. "China is playing mischief in the South China Sea and the East China Sea."

Apart from the border tussle with India, China also has territorial disputes with several countries in the South China Sea region.

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In the East China Sea, Beijing has a dispute with Tokyo over the Senkaku Islands – called Diayou Islands by China – and Japan had lodged a strong protest last month after Chinese coastguard vessels entered the waters near the islands.

Stating that China is also in a number of partnerships, like the one with Pakistan, targeting India, Kesavan said that Beijing is trying to build a new regional order.

He also referred to the joint statement issued last month by the defence ministers of the US, Japan and Australia last month that called for a "vigorous trilateral defence cooperation and exchanges that make tangible contributions in support of a free, open, inclusive, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region."

India, along with the US, Japan and Australia, is part of a quad that is seeking to work for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, a region that stretches from the east coast of Japan to the east cost of Africa, in the wake of Beijing's growing influence.

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