New Delhi: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is all set to embark on a two-day visit to New Delhi on March 20-21. His visit assumes significance as Japan took over the G7 Presidency in 2023, while India in December 2022, assumed the G20 Presidency.
Kishida’s visit is expected to help synchronize Japan-India ties and possibly have the G7 presidency play a strategic role in ensuring that the set goals of India’s G20 Presidency are achieved. Both the leaders will discuss bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest and will also discuss their priorities for their respective Presidencies of the G7 and G20.
During his visit, Kishida is scheduled to visit the Bodhi tree at Delhi’s Buddha Jayanti park on Monday, March 20. Most importantly, the Japanese PM is slated to unveil a free and open Indo-Pacific plan for peace with a special focus on the global south and bolster Indo-Pacific strategy with India. The free and open Indo-Pacific is aimed at countering Chinese growing influence and assertiveness across the region.
India and Japan are members of the Quad grouping and are committed to an open and free Indo-Pacific. It is pertinent to note that Japan has shown interest in cooperating with India on issues related to the sustainable development of the Northeast region, especially in the health, connectivity, and tourism sectors. The Australian Prime Minister’s visit saw an in-depth discussion on Indo-Pacific and Quad issues.
During the weekly media briefing on Thursday, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, “We look forward to the visit of the Honourable Prime Minister of Japan”. He further said, “As you know, Japan is a very important partner. We have annual summits with them. This is part of that. They are also partners in plurilateral and multilateral constructs. So, we look forward to rich discussions. We look forward to exchanging views”.
He said that it’s pretty soon to prejudge on what will be the talking points and what will be the outcomes of the meeting between the leaders of India and Japan. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi arrived in New Delhi on March 3 to attend the 8th Raisina Dialogue.
Prime Minister Modi visited Japan last year to pay his respects to the late former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe during his state funeral at the state funeral at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. During his visit, PM Modi expressed confidence that under Japanese PM Kishida’s leadership, India-Japan relations will deepen further, and scale to greater heights. “I firmly believe that we will be able to play an appropriate role in finding solutions to the problems of the world”, Modi said.The