Abe recognises this paradox. He stressed the need for enhancing “people-to-people contacts” and “awareness” about what India can do for Japan and vice versa.

Abe said he was confident Dr Singh and he would be able to give bilateral ties “a new impetus and take them to a much higher level of strategic global partnership.”

Asked of his impression of Dr Singh, he said: “He’s a man of strong leadership with a very calm mind and deep thought.”

At a time when the emerging geo-political reality in Asia depends much on how the triangular relationship between India, China, and Japan evolves in the years to come, the meeting between Dr Singh and Abe assumes great importance.

The Tokyo summit will take place against the backdrop of the Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India last month and Abe’s own surprise visit to China in October, which broke a prolonged chill in China-Japan relations. Abe’s initiative stunned many who had prophesied that Japan-China relations would worsen if a passionately “nationalist” leader like Abe became prime minister.

Prime ministerial visits between India and Japan have become frequent only since Yoshiro Mori’s visit to India in 2000, when he and Atal Behari Vajpayee signed an agreement to forge a “India-Japan Global Partnership in the 21st Century.” But there was a time, between 1961 and 1984, when no Japanese Prime Minister came to India. There was again a chill in the late 1990s, when Japan imposed sanctions against India in the aftermath of Pokharan nuclear tests. All this has now changed, and is set to change even more rapidly.

... contd.