India won’t let Chinese shadow darken Koizumi visit

In his recent visit to Jakarta, Koizumi had to tender an apology for Japan’s imperial past and kow-tow to Chinese President Hu Jintao following the massive anti-Japan protests in Beijing and other cities in China. While the new assertiveness of Japan under Koizumi has generated anxieties in Beijing, New Delhi believes that Tokyo cannot be held down 60 years after the end of the World War II.

Even when anti-Japan passions were at their peak in the mid 1940s, Jawaharlal Nehru refused to join the world chorus on punishing Japan’s people for war crimes. Instead, he reached out to Japan at its moment of greatest vulnerability.

Yet, the positive sentiments in the 1950s could never be translated into genuine partnership. India now recognises that a rare moment is at hand for rethinking its relations with Japan. And it is confident that the current tensions between China and Japan will not come in the way.

At a time when India’s relations with China have acquired unprecedented momentum and the prospects for a new partnership with the US are looking up, New Delhi would naturally want to end the anachronism of an underdeveloped political engagement with Tokyo. Strategic cooperation with Japan becomes a natural extension of the expanding Indian military partnership with the United States in Asia.

Meanwhile, the fact that China has replaced the US as the biggest export market for Japan speaks volumes about the growing economic interdependence between Beijing and Tokyo. Both are bound to overcome the present political dissonance generated by divisive nationalism. India has no reason to let the current Sino-Japanese quarrel come in the way of long-awaited breakthrough in its own ties with Japan.

New Delhi cannot ignore that Japan is already a player in its western neighbourhood. It is actively involved in the post-war reconstruction in Afghanistan, and has sent troops for the first time into a combat zone in Iraq. Japan’s naval profile in the Arabian Sea has risen since the US ousted the Taliban regime at the end of 2001 and occupied Iraq in 2003. Last week, Koizumi ordered the extension of Japan’s naval presence in the region for another six months.

Japanese naval ships traversing the Pacific and Arabian seas have often called at Indian ports. The two coast guards have worked to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean sea-lanes. Earlier this year, they worked together with the US and Australia in providing relief for tsunami-affected nations. Sections of the Japanese establishment are also interested in the development of the hydrocarbon and economic potential of the Andaman Islands.

All these point to two big ideas that could bring India and Japan into a strategic partnership — energy security and maritime cooperation. As the two biggest importers of petroleum products in the world, India and Japan have a natural interest in working together in developing traditional as well as alternative sources of energy. Equally important, their navies can work together in protecting the sea-lanes of commerce.

At their meetings this week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Koizumi will have their task cut out in injecting some content into the talk on lending a strategic orientation to Indo-Japanese ties.