A yen for change

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori was in India from August 21 to 25. Any assessment of the significance or prospects of Indo-Japanese relations should be made within the ambit of Japan’s world vision. Japan has had to redefine the terms of reference of its foreign and strategic policies at the end of the Cold War, specially in the context of the detente between the USA and the Russian Federation, the substantive expansion of US-China relations, and the success of the Chinese experiment in economic liberalisation.

India’s priority in Japanese foreign policy is determined by these factors. We are not Japan’s primary area of political, strategic or security attention. We have, perhaps, a higher priority in the Japanese scheme of things in selective areas of technology and exports and to a lesser extent as a market for investment. We must also remember that Japan continues to distinguish between South-East Asia and South-West Asia. The former unidimensional focus on South East Asia is gradually undergoing change because of India’s economic reforms.

Japan increasingly acknowledges the potentialities of Indo-Japanese economic relations for mutual benefit. But this acknowledgement does not transcend Japan’s basic assessment that the relations can achieve their full potential only if India falls in line with the broader strategic economic and technological orientations of the advanced democracies of the world that constitute the Group of 7, though cosmetically Russia is also an additional member of the group.

This was the first visit by a Japanese prime minister to India after a gap of nearly a decade. It is also the first visit after India’s nuclear weapons tests of 1998. Notwithstanding the fact that Japan remains profoundly critical of the nuclear weaponisation of the subcontinent, Mori’s coming to India perhaps signals the fact that Japan is willing to deal with India on a more practical basis, acknowledging the realities of India’s security concerns, political motivations and evolving technological capacities. His visit indicates Japan’s inclination to get down from the high political horse of its condemnatory political stance against India during the first year or so after the Shakti series of tests at Pokharan in May 1998.

The decisions taken and agreements reached during Mori’s visit must necessarily be seen in the context of some substantive aspects of Indo-Japanese relations. Japan used to be the largest donor of aid to India during the decade of the 90s of the last century, averaging half a billion dollars per annum. This assistance was totally choked off in retaliation to India’s nuclear weapon tests. The end of the Cold War and India’s improved ties with the US created a positive atmosphere for Indo-Japanese relations. Since 1992, about 215 Japanese companies are operating in India. Most of them are trading companies with the total volume of trade between the two countries estimated at Rs 18,000 crore.

In comparative terms, Indo-Japanese commercial relations remain a marginal phenomenon in the overall bilateral trade activities of both countries, Japan accounting for about six per cent of India’s external trade and India for only 0.05 per cent of Japan’s external trade. Direct investment from Japan, the important example of Maruti underpinned by Suzuki, and Toyota, Honda, and Mitsubishi commencing their operations in India, the total value of investment from Japan is only around Rs 2,500 crore — less than one-third of total Japanese projects of investment in India, the approved value of which is Rs 9,000 crore.

The emerging picture is of both India and Japan being convinced about the potential for more substantive bilateral relations, in the technological and economic fields. But Japan still has some political conditionalities and economic inhibitions about India and the efficiency and speed of economic reforms. India feels that Japan is not fully responsive to India’s desire for enhanced multi-faceted bilateral cooperation.

During his visit to Bangalore, Mori suggested institutionalised cooperation in the Information Technology Sector between India and Japan. In Delhi, he stressed the importance of technological cooperation. While direct Japanese aid would remain suspended till India signs CTBT, there are reports that Japan may remove some of the restrictions on assistance and flows of investment and technology to some of the projects in the pipeline, the Delhi metro railway project and the Simhadri power project in Andhra Pradesh.

Overall, Japan seems to realise that economic and technological sanctions are not going to make India compromise on its security interests and that India remains an attractive economic partner, not to be neglected for impracticable political considerations. India, on the other hand, has shown its continuing interest in economic partnership with Japan. The primacy of a mutuality of interest in a strong economic relationship is not denied, but this must be underpinned by a mutuality of political and security interests.

Japan continues to insist that India must sign the CTBT and accept international regimes on non-proliferation. Mori chaired the G-8 summit at Okinewa in July. The Okinewa statement on regional issues said: ‘‘The level of tensions between India and Pakistan remains a cause of international concern. We call on the two countries to resume dialogue as soon as possible in the spirit of Lahore in order to realise sustainable peace in the region. We call on both India and Pakistan to join international efforts to strengthen the non-proliferation and disarmament regime. While welcoming those positive statements and steps that have been made, we reiterate our call for them to carry out fully the concrete measures set out in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172, including the signing and ratifying of CTBT.’’ There is a basic difference between Indian and Japanese approaches to arms control, disarmament and international security.

There are, however, possibilities of security and strategic cooperation in some spheres, like countering international terrorism, narco-terrorism, safeguarding shipping routes from the Straits of Hormuz to the Straits of Malacca through the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean where piracy is a continuing threat. There are possibilities of cooperation between India and Japanese navies in this matter. India and Japan can develop a bilateral security relationship within the broader framework of the Asian Regional Forum, the strategic and security arm of the ASEAN, in which India has been an active and regular participant over the last five years.

Though Mori and Vajpayee did not announce any grand strategies and sign any major bilateral agreements, his visit signifies a positive shift in Japan’s policies towards India in the right direction. The message from Japan seems to be its acknowledgement that Indo-Japanese relations should not be predicated on or subject to the single issue of non-proliferation.

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