The official visit of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to India highlights a strengthening “Special Strategic and Global Partnership”. Rooted in shared democratic values and India's “Act East” policy, both nations seek regional stability amidst shifting geopolitical currents. Since 2000, successive Japanese leaders have actively deepened ties with India. Under Takaichi, Japan is adopting a more proactive security stance, increasing defence spending, and reforming export regulations. While China remains a major economic partner for both, its growing assertiveness has driven Tokyo and New Delhi to diversify strategies, positioning India as the top recipient of Japan’s Overseas Development Assistance. Bilateral cooperation spans civil nuclear energy, 2+2 strategic dialogues, and high-tech sectors like AI, critical minerals, and supply chain resilience.
As Prime minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan is making her first official visit to India, contours and dimensions of India- Japan relations need critical evaluation. India’s manifestation of its upward trajectory in the contemporary global order and acting as a rising and competitive power on its own right, and with special emphasis on ‘Act East’ policy, India and Japan are acutely aware of the need for forging economic, cultural, strategic and security cooperation between the two countries for ensuring balance, order, stability and equilibrium. Both the countries and its leaders at the helm, Narendra Modi and Sanae Takaichi recognize that India-Japan cooperation and the process of enduring and sustainable engagement have to be firmly rooted in shared values in multiple ways including in economic, security and strategic terms. In view of the immense opportunities and geo-strategic compulsions and alignments between India and Japan, one hopes that the same momentum would be carried forward in 2026 and beyond toward a new paradigm of mutual win- win proposition.
Contemporary Context
In contemporary times, from the time of Yoshiro Mori as Prime minister in August 2000, subsequent Japanese prime ministers in the recent past including Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe, Naoto Kan, Taro Aso, Fumio Kishida, Shigeru Ishiba, have shown real enthusiasm and have made tangible efforts for the improvement of relationship with India.
After the mutual warmth in the 1950s, India and Japan drifted apart during the Cold War due to differing national foreign policy priorities of both countries. In the meeting in Delhi in 12 December 2015 between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, both leaders pledged to realize the full potential of India - Japan Strategic and Global Partnership for continuing progress and prosperity for their respective people and for advancing peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the world including ‘Free, Open Indo-Pacific’. Elevating the relationship to a Special Strategic and Global Partnership, they called their meeting the dawn of a new era in India - Japan relations. In recent times, Prime ministers of two countries, Narendra Modi and Sanae Takaichi while meeting in South Africa on the sidelines of the G20 summit in November 22-23, 2025, have also agreed to build complementary skills and resources to build a strong partnership for promoting economic and social development, capacity-building and infrastructure development, human resource exchange, innovation and knowledge circulation.
Japan as a ‘normal’ country
Over the years, India’s power, political and academic elite have increasingly looked to Japan as it steered Japan towards a new proactive role and as Japan has looked at India as a hard power of ‘assertiveness’, soft power of ‘attraction’ and cultural super power of ‘inducement’ in Asia and around the world. New generation of leaders in Tokyo believed that Japan should shed its defensive posture about its imperial past and become a “normal” power in the aftermath of post-Cold War in the 1990. From Abe to Noda to Abe II, Kishida, Ishiba and now Takaichi, each of the Prime ministers have pressed ahead with Junichiro Koizumi’s agenda of unshackling Japan from its post Second World War political limitations and constitutional inhibitions in taking new, visible security responsibilities in Asia and beyond. In Sanae Takaichi’s case, she has fiercely proclaimed that ‘Japan is back’ with a renewed national agenda tinged with hard nationalism, defence normalisation through revisions to the 2022 National Security Strategy and in increasing defence spending to 2 percent of GDP and in scrapping the existing regulations that limited Japan’s defence equipment exports.
China factor
The rise of China in geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-strategic terms in recent decades has compelled Japan to re-evaluate its own long-term options in Asia that many expect would inevitably become Japan-centric for maximizing Japanese core national interests. As Japan, much like the United States, hedges its bets against the rise of China including its assertiveness and muscular diplomacy on matters related to Taiwan, South China Sea and Senkaku/Diaoyu island, Belt and Road Initiative and in the larger Indo-Pacific region, political and security cooperation with India has become highly imperative of Japan’s new grand strategic calculus. However, Japan’s new emphasis on a “global and strategic partnership” with India by no means implies that the two want to ally against China in military terns. In an age of rapid economic integration in Asia in the age of globalization, China is already the largest trading partner of Japan with a strong footprint. For strategic diversification, Japan is set to acquire an enhanced economic status with India in the coming years going beyond MFN (Most Favoured Nation) status and Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. The focus of both New Delhi and Tokyo is on widening the window of choices, flexibility, commonality and opportunity in their conduct of foreign and security policies in Asia rather than seek sole policy fixation and sheer containment of China that would provide no tangible benefits to any party either in the short term or the medium term.
While China will remain a key economic partner for Japan, Tokyo under Sanae Takaichi is inclined to invest and diversify into other important economic relationships for a possible multi-polar Asia. As a consequence, India has overtaken China as the largest recipient of Japan’s Overseas Development Assistance (ODA). Japan’s prime ministers since 2000 have highlighted the need for engaging and courting India aggressively and its emerging and burgeoning economy with all its might in the fast-changing power game and equation in the Indo-Pacific. Modi-Takaichi summit has the potential to build upon the ‘Joint Vision of the Next Decade ‘agreed upon in 2025 with a target to secure 10 trillion yen in private investments in India as well as in harnessing in the fields of skill mobility and developments by recruiting 500,000 skilled Indian professionals to Japan over five years.
Synergy in Civil Nuclear Energy Sector
In the last seventy-five years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Japan in 1952, key leaders from both the countries have injected the notion of shared and complementary political values into the bilateral discourse in sync with both India and Japan emerging as two major working and resilient democracies in the world. With a firm commitment to openness, meaningful and constructive engagement such as the successful culmination of the 2008 Indo-US nuclear deal that was used as an ideal template, it enhanced New Delhi’s standing in the global nuclear order and with Japan providing a helping hand to harness India tap nuclear energy in the former’s civilian sector. In the areas of Civil Nuclear Energy, Non-proliferation and Export Control, during Prime minister Modi’s visit to Japan in September 2014 and Abe’s return visit to Delhi in 2015, both sides have affirmed the importance of civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries and welcomed the significant progress in negotiations on the Agreement for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy and nuclear safety. While Prime Minister Abe commended India's efforts in the field of non-proliferation including the affirmation that goods and technologies transferred from Japan would not be used for delivery systems for WMD, Prime Minister Modi appreciated the decision of the Government of Japan to remove six of India's space and defence-related entities from Japan's Foreign End User List. They looked forward to enhanced trade and collaboration in high technology. Both sides also affirmed their commitment to work together for India to become a full member in the four international export control regimes: Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, Wassenaar Arrangement and Australia Group, with the aim of strengthening the international non-proliferation efforts.
Furthermore, during PM Modi’s subsequent visits to Japan between 2014 and 2025 and the reciprocal visits by Japanese prime ministers to India, both sides have agreed to enhance connectivity within SAARC (the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) and to work together to strengthen connectivity and networking between SAARC and ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). India and Japan also affirmed the promotion of political dialogue including Japan-India-U.S. trilateral cooperation, and security cooperation such as joint maritime exercises and continuation of 2+2 dialogue, a formal bilateral framework between their foreign and defence ministers. Both sides reaffirmed that Japan and India as partners share common values and strategic interests and have made a strong commitment to develop the Strategic and Global Partnership further for the deepening and in reinforcing of their bilateral relations as well as peace and prosperity of the region and the world.
Future Directions
India and Japan have shared interests in core focus areas such as bilateral ICT cooperation, critical minerals, AI infrastructure, supply chain resilience, cyber security, semi-conductor mission, Malabar and Tarang Shakti defence exercises, digital infrastructure, smart city development, etc. In view of immense economic opportunities and geo-strategic compulsions, emphasis on multilateralism, one hopes that under Japan’s current Prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s stewardship and that of India’s Prime minister Narendra Modi, the same positive momentum would be carried forward in 2026 and beyond toward a new vista of mutual benefit and productive relationship on a win-win basis.
However, leaders in both countries would have to keep in mind that despite strong convergence, the future of India-Japan relations faces critical geopolitical hurdles. Navigating the “China factor” requires a delicate balancing act; neither New Delhi nor Tokyo desires a direct military confrontation with Beijing due to deep economic integration, yet they must robustly counter Chinese territorial assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. Furthermore, managing Japan’s transition into a “normal” military power with relaxed defence export rules will demand precise strategic synchronisation. Lastly, as global supply chains fragment, translating diplomatic agreements into tangible outcomes—such as securing 10 trillion yen in private investments and seamlessly integrating 500,000 skilled Indian professionals into Japan—will test the bureaucratic and economic agility of both nations in a rapidly shifting global order.
Prof. Dr Mohammed Badrul Alam is Formerly Director of Research, Professor and Head, Retd; Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi.
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