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Japan-India ties under China's
shadow
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - When Japanese President
Junichiro Koizumi visits India next month, China -
their common neighbor - will be watching closely
to see what transpires. Tokyo has been sending out
feelers signaling interest in a closer
relationship with New Delhi, an interest that some
say is motivated by its concerns regarding
Beijing.
Except for the acute frostiness that
gripped their bilateral relations in 1998
after India's nuclear tests conducted in
Pokhran, relations between India and Japan have
been generally good. India is the single largest
recipient of Overseas Development Assistance from
Japan. However, the interaction remains well below
its potential.
Proponents of India's
"look east policy" have been lamenting that Delhi
has tended to focus on its near east and is
not looking far enough, ie focusing its lenses
on such countries as Japan and South Korea. Indeed, it
has failed to take steps to tap the immense
potential in India-Japan relations.
In the economic
arena, for instance, engagement has been way
below its potential. Mukul Asher, a professor at
the National University of Singapore, writes:
"Merchandise trade between the two [India and
Japan] has been relatively stagnant since 1997-98
at around US$4 [billion] to 4.5 billion ... In services
trade also, perceptions are that India-Japan trade
has not been buoyant, though bilateral country
data for services trade are not available ...
There are 265 firms from Japan which have invested
in India, with total FDI [foreign direct
investment] stock of only $2 billion. This is in
sharp contrast to Japan's FDI stock of $50 billion
in Southeast Asia, and $40 billion in China."
Analysts have pointed out that the Indian
and Japanese economies are complementary, not
competitive, and that bodes well for enhanced
engagement. There has been a perceptible increase
in the number of Japanese business leaders
expressing an interest in India. India's
significant achievements in information
technology, the steady pace at which its economy
is growing and predictions that its population and
hence market would outpace that of China by 2050
are among several reasons for the growing interest
to do business here.
Besides, there is the
China factor too. A recent editorial in Asahi
Shimbun articulates Japanese concern over doing
business with China. "Investment in China also
entails considerable political risk. Growing
discontent in lagging rural areas about the huge
economic gap with thriving urban areas and corrupt
local governments is spawning riots by farmers
across the nation. Many Japanese executives worry
about rising tension between China and Taiwan in
the wake of the enactment of an anti-secession law
authorizing the possible use of force against the
island. Tokyo's strained relations with Beijing
are another factor." India is slowly being
considered an alternative to China for business
collaboration.
While it is in the economic
arena that enhanced India-Japan engagement is
likely to be more visible in the coming years, it
is strategic cooperation between these two
countries that could most radically transform
their bilateral relationship.
India and
Japan have several shared strategic concerns, the
one posed by China being the most important.
Although India's relations with China seem to be
improving, the decades-long dispute over their
border, which they went to war over in 1962,
persists. Besides this, China's military, nuclear
and missile cooperation with Pakistan - Beijing's
"all-weather friend" - is a matter of grave
concern to India. India perceives the expansion
of Chinese influence in its neighborhood as an
attempt by Beijing to encircle India and constrict
its efforts to play a larger global role.
J Mohan Malik, professor of security
studies at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security
Studies in Honolulu, writes that since India and
China "are engaged in a battle for supremacy in
overlapping areas of influence and are determined
to emerge as major powers on the world stage"
their relations, for all the positive rhetoric one
hears these days, will remain "competitive, if not
conflictual".
Japan's political relations with
China have been troubled, notwithstanding their
considerable economic engagement. Issues and memories left over from World
War II cast a long shadow on the way the
peoples of the two countries view each other. Both
countries lay claim to the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands,
a group of eight small, uninhibited islands. The
quarrel, it would seem, is not so much over the
territory - the largest of these islands is just
five square kilometers in area - as it is over the waters
around them that are rich in marine life and the
seabed beneath that could contain minerals
and/or oil deposits. Japan is also said to be
troubled with China's aggressive military
modernization, its muscle-flexing with its
neighbors and the heightened hostility in its
approach to Taiwan.
Both
India and Japan are worried about the
China-Pakistan-North Korea cooperation in the
nuclear- and missile-technology field. It is this
shared concern that is drawing Beijing and Delhi
closer. Malik argues: "The growing entente
cordiale
between Japan and India
is based on the understanding that united they
contain China and divided they are contained by
China and its allies [North Korea and Pakistan]."
Another area where Japan believes it
can enhance its security through increased ties
with India is that of maritime cooperation. Japan
is anxious to ensure the protection of sea
lanes through which tankers carrying oil
pass. India's growing naval presence in the Indian
Ocean is an asset that Japan would like to benefit
from. Growing piracy, especially in the Bay of
Bengal and the Malacca Strait - 80% of Japan's oil
passes through the strait and 20% of the ships
that pass through are owned by Japanese companies
- is a matter of concern for Japan. In 1999,
India's navy and coast guard recovered off the
Indian coast at Goa a Japanese merchant ship
hijacked in the Malacca Strait. The rescue gave
bilateral maritime cooperation a boost.
While both countries recognize that
cooperation would enhance their capacity to
counter common threats, they are aware too that
such cooperation could prove counterproductive if
it is seen as an anti-China alliance. Sources in
India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)
maintain that India and Japan see each other as
"valuable allies" but that both are wary of
provoking China needlessly. India is keen to
settle the longstanding border dispute with China
and it is not going to allow anything else to come
in its way, an official in the MEA told Asia Times
Online.
Indeed, in Japan too there are
sections that are wary of Tokyo aligning too
closely with India. Robyn Lim, professor of
international politics at Nanzan University in
Nagoya, for instance, has been arguing that "the
risks of alignment with India outweigh the
advantages". He warns that India's naval ambitions
in the Indian Ocean could threaten Japan's sea
routes: "India, if it were able to plant its foot
on Japan's jugular in the Indian Ocean, would be
tempted to apply pressure." Reacting to
suggestions that an alliance among Japan, India
and Vietnam "might seem a logical response to
China's ambitions in the South China Sea" Lim
argues that India cannot protect Vietnam against
China but its presence in Vietnam (if Hanoi were
to give Delhi access to a naval base) would raise
tensions with China and Japan would get drawn into
the conflict. "Why would Japan wish to allow India
to drag it into Vietnam's mostly self-inflicted
problems with Beijing?" he asks.
Last year, the Japanese ambassador to India,
Yasukoni Enoki, called for an India-Japan-China axis.
While the idea was given some thought by India's
foreign-policy mandarins, most thinking on the idea seems
to have been about why Japan made this suggestion
and how serious it was about the proposal and its
feasibility. Given India's unease with China and
the mutual suspicion, the India-Japan-China axis
idea made little headway. Besides, even Japan did
not pursue the idea with any vigor.
Both
India and Japan seem to be going through a phase
of not knowing how to define their relationship.
They are keen that their relationship isn't seen
by China as directed against it. MEA officials,
for instance, insist that "enhanced cooperation
with any country is not about countering another
power but about increasing [India's] options and
strengthening our hands in dealing with common
concerns". India, Japan, Vietnam and other
countries that have problems with China are not
seeking to encircle China by cooperating with
each other but signaling that on some issues they
would coordinate their approach, he clarifies. At
the same time, both countries admit that they need
to send out a clear signal to China that
"muscle-flexing and attempts to undermine their
interests will be countered and that its hegemonic
ambitions will be contained".
This ambivalence came out clearly in the
observations of former Japanese defense minister Shigeru
Ishiba at the Asian Security Conference in New
Delhi earlier this year. He spoke of the need
for greater circumspection vis-a-vis China.
"Greater vigilance is required. We must remain attentive
to the modernization of military by China. China
is developing what is called a blue-water navy and is
trying to improve the performance of submarines in
the Pacific," Ishiba pointed out, but cautiously
added that "vigilance with regard to China doesn't
mean that Japan regards China as a threat".
India and Japan are currently coordinating
efforts to further their campaign for permanent
seats in the United Nations Security Council. They
can expect China to chip at their ambitions,
perhaps divide them in their pursuit of big power
status. So while India and Japan are still trying
to figure out what they want their relationship to
be, China could well nip those relations in the
bud.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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