Newly independent India had a sense of its own destiny to lead Asia. Its fascination for state socialism, however, saw India’s relative decline amidst the Asian economic boom. Its alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War put it at odds with much of Asia, including China.

Since the end of the Cold War, both Japan and India have struggled to elevate their power positions in Asia. Japan’s emphasis has been on lending political muscle to its well-known economic strengths. India’s in turn was on acquiring an economic foundation to match its strategic ambitions.

The foreign policies of both nations have undergone considerable changes in the last few years. Thanks to the efforts of Abe’s predecessors, especially Junichiro Koizumi, Japan has begun to liberate itself from many of the self-imposed restrictions of the past.

These prohibitions amounted to eight no’s in Japan’s foreign policy during the Cold War: no dispatch of the armed forces abroad, no collective self-defence arrangements, no power projection ability, no more than 1 per cent of the GNP for defence spending, no nuclear weapons, no sharing of military technology, no exporting of arms, no military use of space.

In post-Cold War Japan, all these taboos, except the one on nuclear weapons, have been either modified or are up for change. Even the difficult question of nuclear weapons is being openly discussed after the North Korean atomic tests last year.

The recent changes in Indian foreign policy have been no less dramatic. If the relationship with the US has grabbed the most attention, the positive evolution in India’s relationships with all the great powers, including China, has been impressive. And it is on the verge of being accepted as a de facto nuclear weapon power.

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