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| India, Japan to firm up strategic ties next week | |
| 2011-12-25 | |
| India and Japan will firm up strategic ties during their summit meeting next week with a $4.5-billion grant for an ambitious infrastructure project, announcing Tokyo's participation in next year's India-U.S. naval exercises and holding talks on moving ahead with India-Japan-U.S. trilateral cooperation. Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yushihiko Noda will review the first-ever India-Japan-U.S. trilateral which drew up an agenda "aimed at adding value to the existing bilateral relationships" for the next meeting in Tokyo next year, said government sources. This strategic proximity will be reflected in Japan's participation in the next India-U.S. Malabar series of joint naval exercises off the Indian coast in April next year. Japan had participated in the 2007 and 2009 editions of Malabar exercises but could not do so this year because of the tsunami. Talks will also be held on a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation accord. Although Japan will shortly sign similar pacts with Russia, Jordan, Vietnam and South Korea, prospects of an accord with India, a non Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory, sailing through the Japanese Diet are dim. South Block feels there would be no problem in Japanese companies supplying components to French and U.S. civil nuclear companies despite the absence of an India-Japan civil nuclear agreement. "Our understanding is that an agreement is required for a comprehensive partnership. But individual items can be sold by Japanese companies [which have a near monopoly on reactor vessels and its parts] to companies such as Areva under a licence from the government," said sources. Rare earths Discussion on rare earths will be held for the second summit meeting in a row. The decks have been cleared with the removal of Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) from the Japanese End Users List in August this year. The Prime Ministers are likely to discuss this sensitive subject that entails a joint venture between IREL and Toyota Tsusho for a plant in Orissa. India stopped exporting rare earths seven years ago to stop depletion of mineral resources at a time when international prices were weak.
India and Japan have already decided to complete the Delhi Freight Corridor (West), the main transportation artery along the DMIC, by the end of 2016. At a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday, the country's top industrialists had highlighted this problem of infrastructure bottlenecks which Japan has agreed to address. The Japanese financing commitment will come on top of the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), which at one stage was to be slashed due to Japan's focus on reconstruction after the tsunami and the nuclear reactor meltdown. While Japan reduced the ODA for several other countries, it took a strategic decision of pegging India's ODA at previous year's level, said officials. The number of Japanese companies operating in India has risen from 725 last year to 850, a fraction of 10,000 Japanese companies operating in China. But South Block is satisfied with this steady progress and hopes governmental support from both sides would encourage more Japanese companies to look at India for long-term investment. The India-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement went into effect from August 1 this year and officials say it is too early to analyse the trends. | |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #4 That strategic partnership can prove to be extremely dangerous to the Chinese if they don’t heel their lapdog North Korea, and if the Chinese keep pushing on things like the maritime Exclusive Economic Zone and the Spratly Islands. The Japanese have an extremely modern submarine fleet that is only restricted in size due to Japanese internal politics, and they retire their subs and scrap them after 20 years of service. But that is going to change for the existing fleet, since the Japanese have decide to expand their submarine fleet to around 24 from the 16 they presently, simply by not retiring their older subs. They are building 1 to 1 ½ subs a year and so in 5 years, they will have a 20 sub fleet at that build rate. If they were to boost the production to 2 to 2 ½ subs a year, they could have the full 24 ships in 5 years, and those oldest of those subs will still have at least a decade of usable life. And if the Japanese were to also provide ‘inter-operability training’ to the Indian Navy through a lease program on some of those old subs, the Chinese could be facing a modern 24 submarine fleet on their eastern maritime border and another 5-8 modern subs on their western maritime border in less than 6 years. In much the same way, the Japanese could rapidly expand and improve the Indian Army’s capabilities by providing counter-terrorism equipment and training to the Indian police. If the Japanese were to transfer 15,000 of their Howa Type 89 assault rifles, 250 of their Type 96 wheeled APCs, and 100 of their Fuji-Bell 204B-2 helicopters to the Indian police over a three year period, they would be in effect creating a full blown infantry division for internal security for India. That would free up a IA division from those duties, and the Indian police would be orders of magnitude more effective due to the equipment transfers. These transfers would be possible since the weapons and equipment are going to the local police forces and not the military in India, and the Japanese have modified their weapons export regime to permit such transfers. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2011-12-25 16:07 |
| #3 I will hand it to the Japanese, that when they see a problem coming down the road at them, they usually do not dilly-dally. At the first sign of a rare earths cut off, they went to the four corners to insure their supply. And a military alliance between India and Japan should give the Chinese pause, because the two strongly complement each other strategically. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-12-25 15:35 |
| #2 How do you say "congratulations" in Chinese? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-12-25 13:40 |
| #1 What failed in 1944, succeeded in 2011. Banzai! |
| Posted by: borgboy 2011-12-25 13:35 |