{"id":5106,"date":"2019-12-06T19:23:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T13:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5106"},"modified":"2019-12-06T19:23:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T13:53:12","slug":"india-japan-strategic-cooperation-in-defense-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/india-japan-strategic-cooperation-in-defense-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"India-Japan strategic cooperation in defense sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: International relations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India and Japan concluded their maiden \u20182+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting\u2019 in New Delhi.<br \/>\n\u2022 Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar have had wide-ranging discussions \u2014 on bilateral and multilateral cooperation and also on regional and international security \u2014 with their Japanese counterparts.<br \/>\n\u2022 The clear aim has been to look closely at the prospects for further deepening bilateral security and defence cooperation between the two nations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>From India\u2019s perspective:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For India, this is the only other 2+2 dialogue apart from that with the US, which started in September 2018.<br \/>\n\u2022 This clearly shows the importance that New Delhi assigns to the relationship with Japan, which definitely has been a long-standing one, going back to pre-Independence days.<br \/>\n\u2022 The current direction seeks to give the relationship a strategic edge.<br \/>\n\u2022 Japan\u2019s contribution to India\u2019s economic development has been steady, it\u2019s been particularly strong in the heavy industry and infrastructure sectors.<br \/>\n\u2022 Japan opens up its defence sector, as envisaged in the 2018 National Defence Programme Guidelines (NDPG), there could be definite areas of cooperation in this sector too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cooperation in Defence sector:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India\u2019s participation in the just concluded maiden defence and security exhibition in Tokyo, where it was one of the few nations to have a booth, is an indicator of the increasing focus on this sector.<br \/>\n\u2022 Also, the recent past has seen bilateral military exercises \u2014 the \u2018Dharma Guardian-2019\u2019 (between the Indian Army and Japanese Ground Self Defence Forces), the \u2018SHINYUU Maitri-2019\u2019 (between Japanese Air Self Defence Force and the Indian Air Force) \u2014 and also the trilateral Malabar exercise by India, Japan and the US.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Strategic cooperation beyond these exercises:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The discussions on amphibious Shinmawya US-2 Aircraft, for instance, have been going on for quite a few years but there no signs of a deal yet.<br \/>\n\u2022 Reports indicate that Japan has agreed to undertake a third of the aircraft\u2019s manufacture and this could be an important step towards boosting the \u2018Make in India\u2019 initiative.<br \/>\n\u2022 Clearly, with the Japanese industry opening up to equipment manufacturing, factoring a bilateral cooperation using their precision and time-bound completion and India\u2019s competence in design, engineering and supply chain, it could be a win-win situation.<br \/>\n\u2022 India and Japan can cooperate to build up armoured vehicles manufacturing, Mitsubishi which already is into manufacturing such vehicles.<br \/>\n\u2022 They could also jointly work with Indian companies that have already applied for the FICV (Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicle) and the new FRCV (Future Ready Combat Vehicle) programmes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cyber security potential:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Artificial intelligence (AI) and chip manufacturing could set the trend for cooperation in cyber security and possibly the whole gamut of equipment modernising, and these could be made a part of the battle management system.<br \/>\n\u2022 Japanese companies are known for their superior chip-manufacturing capabilities and the next generation of AI-induced chips could be developed by the two nations and deployed.<br \/>\n\u2022 Even enabling 5G secured connectivity could be an area to dwell on.<br \/>\n\u2022 The India-Japan defence and strategic tie-up will have to be two-way, unlike the India-US one which has remained buyer-seller based with most equipment coming to India through the US foreign military sales (FMS) route.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way ahead:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The lesson for the India-Japan defence relationship in its evolution and the scope for two-way traffic is phenomenal and has to be worked on.<br \/>\n\u2022 Japan\u2019s focus and budgets for the next 10 years for equipping in the context of increasing regional threats is an opportunity for many Indian companies, including the public sector, to work out a mutually-beneficial relationship.<br \/>\n\u2022 The earlier announced $12 billion \u2018Japan-India Make-in-India Special Finance Facility\u2019 fund is a very good step to boost confidence.<br \/>\n\u2022 The next round of 2+2 should have a roadmap for the initial areas of cooperation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It now remains to be seen what more tangibles can be achieved during Shinzo Abe\u2019s visit.<br \/>\n\u2022 Besides continuing the military exercises, the Japanese NDPG and India\u2019s increasing focus on building the defence manufacturing ecosystem with thrust on \u2018Make in India\u2019 offer the best scope for improving bilateral cooperation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: International relations Context: India and Japan concluded their maiden \u20182+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5107,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106\/revisions\/5107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}