Revisiting strategy in the Indo-Pacific

In their joint declaration issued on September 14, Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Narendra Modi condemned North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programmes, noting that they posed a “real threat to international peace and security”. It included pointed references to North Korea’s “uranium enrichment facilities” and the “importance of holding accountable all parties that have supported North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes”.

The very next day, North Korea launched a ballistic missile with an estimated range of 3700 km which flew over Japanese territory, much like the missile Pyongyang had tested two weeks earlier. Just a few days before this, North Korea surprised and shocked the world by testing a thermonuclear/boosted fission weapon with a massive capacity of 200 kilotons.

The call for “accountability” of the powers that played a role in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes is important. Over the past three decades, the world has seen the emergence of an “axis of nuclear and missile proliferation” comprising China, North Korea and Pakistan.

China supplied Pakistan with nuclear weapons designs, advanced inverters for uranium enrichment, and plutonium reactors and reprocessing facilities for Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons and possibly boosted fission devices.

Moreover, Pakistan’s Shaheen missiles, with ranges extending from Delhi to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are of Chinese origin.

The Pakistan-North Korea Axis involved such luminaries as Benazir Bhutto, Gen Jehangir Karamat and the redoubtable AQ Khan. North Korea supplied Pakistan intermediate range Nodong missiles renamed as Ghauri by Pakistan in exchange for designs of inverters for uranium enrichment. Aircraft from the PAF owned Shaheen Airlines were reportedly used to transport nuclear and missile equipment between Pakistan and North Korea, with transit halts in China.

The pace of change in relations between India and Japan has been remarkable. Japan imposed rigorous sanctions on India after its nuclear tests.

Things started changing after Abe assumed office for the first time in 2006, and when Japanese politicians realistically recognised the challenges posed by a growingly assertive and jingoistic China.

Things worsened as China assertively laid claim on Japan’s disputed Senkaku Islands, much like it has behaved towards other maritime neighbours such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. Chinese military provocations against Japan over the issue of sovereignty and control of the disputed Senkaku Islands were stepped up. China cooled off temporarily when the Obama administration clarified that its security relationship with Japan extended to defence of the Senkaku Islands.

But with President Trump disowning the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Japan and its Asean partners, and emphasising ‘America First’ policies, there are doubts across the region about the American commitment to safeguard the security interests of its Asia-Pacific partners. Interestingly, barely a fortnight before Abe’s visit to India, six Chinese bombers skirted Japanese airspace and flew between Okinawa and Miyako Island from the East China Sea for the first time, encircling Japan from the south and east.

The India-Japan strategic partnership has to be viewed in the context of all these developments.

With its huge industrial production and high-tech capabilities, Japan realises that India has the potential to be a significant power in the Indo-Pacific region extending across the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

Japan now views India not merely as a South Asian but a regional power. While neither country seeks tensions with China, both realise that a jingoistic China has no intention of giving them any strategic space for influence in the neighbourhood. China deliberately backs anti-Indian leaders across South Asia. It arms and assists Pakistan as the trump card of its policies to ‘contain’ India. With FDI inflows from Mauritius and Singapore coming primarily from third countries, Japan is today the single largest source of FDI in India. FDI inflow from Japan had risen by 80 per cent to $4.7 billion from a year earlier, at the end of 2016-17.

This trend is set to continue. Apart from the massive $17-billion financing of the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train, Japan will be assisting the modernisation and expansion of the conventional railway system and the construction of metro rails in India, together with promoting investment in transport corridors and smart cities. Japan will also assist in the development of our northeastern States bordering China.

Bilateral ties with Japan are set to expand rapidly. New Delhi and Tokyo are committed to complementing each other in economic partnerships across our entire eastern and western neighbourhood, aligning India’s Act East policy with Japan’s Open Indo-Pacific policy. Given the growing realisation worldwide about the economic hazards of participating in Chinese projects like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Hambantota Port, New Delhi and Tokyo are set to develop growing connectivity across the Indian Ocean, to the shores of East Africa. ISRO will be enhancing its capabilities by expanding cooperation with its Japanese counterpart in the fields of earth observation, satellite-based navigation, space sciences and lunar exploration.

People across the entire Indian Ocean region can now seek better terms for infrastructure projects than those offered by China.

These efforts could well be complemented by India and Japan being joined by countries like the US, Australia and Indonesia, in promoting the security of the sea-lanes of the Indian Ocean.

Despite a show of nonchalance, China is now slowly recognising that unilaterally using coercion to enforce its claims on maritime boundaries across the South China Sea are establishing that it is a hegemonic power.

In recent days, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has directly challenged China’s maritime boundary claims by including the North Natuna Sea in Indonesia’s new map, unveiled last month.

This has evoked strong protest from Beijing. India, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam can now join hands with others facing Chinese military pressures on their maritime borders in forums like the East Asia Summit to challenge China’s hegemonic claims. Shinzo Abe’s visit to India has laid the groundwork for getting China to understand that cooperation and not coercion should be the basis of its conduct across the Indo-Pacific region.

There has been speculation recently if Japan will become a nuclear power in the next decade. India exercised its nuclear option when faced with a de facto alliance between two nuclear neighbours, China and Pakistan. Japan today faces similar challenges from its neighbours, China and North Korea.

The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan

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