No ‘sayonara’ for Japan in Indo-Pacific geopolitics Premium

The Kishida visit to India has reinforced the centrality of Japan in the emerging geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific

The visit by the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, to India, in March 2023, during which he engaged with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, on global and bilateral issues, focused on cooperation between the G-7 and the G-20 (Japan and India hold their presidencies, respectively). Besides this, Mr. Kishida also unveiled “Japan’s New Plan for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) and exchanged views about deepening the “Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership”.

Japan’s FOIP clearly shows that Japan wants to reinforce the idea that it has been the main champion of the FOIP concept, and Mr. Kishida’s speech underlined that given the current geopolitical landscape with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, growing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, East China Sea, the Indian Line of Actual Control and the Taiwan Straits, there is a need to give a fresh push and momentum to this concept. The New Plan for the FOIP lays stress on the need to uphold the rules-based order and respect each other’s territorial sovereignty, with Mr. Kishida warning that “at a time when the international community is at a historical turning point, I would like to clarify the concept of FOIP once again to propose a guiding perspective to be shared by the international community which, if left unchecked, could drift towards division and confrontation”.

Japan’s new policy focuses on the numerous challenges facing the Indo-Pacific such as the Ukraine war, food security, and cyber space in addition to issues such as ensuring the freedom of the seas, and connectivity among others.

Another challenge which has been highlighted is the lack of a united stand on “what the international order should be” — the differing position of countries on the Russia-Ukraine war has brought this issue to the fore. But there is a firm belief that the FOIP will be able to work with and embrace diverse voices and create an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration rather than division and confrontation. For attaining this atmosphere of cooperation, ‘rule-making through dialogue’ should be encouraged. The fact that Japan under the FOIP should work alongside other like-minded countries in the region has been mentioned, with India being billed as an ‘indispensable’ partner.

There is a realisation that Japan needs to do much more in the region, and towards this, ‘four pillars of cooperation’ under the new FOIP have been outlined: principles for peace and rules for prosperity; addressing challenges in an Indo-Pacific way; multi-layered connectivity; and extending efforts for security and safe use of the “sea” to the “air”.

In the first pillar, it has been pointed out that vulnerable countries usually suffer the most if there is an erosion in the rule of law. Therefore, Japan wants to engage in economic development programmes such as promoting the implementation of the G-20 Principles for “Quality Infrastructure Investment”.

Under the second pillar, Mr. Kishida talked about “expansion of cooperation for the FOIP by incorporating realistic and practical projects in a wide range of areas, such as climate change, food security, global health and cybersecurity”. Japan has been working for long on connectivity projects bilaterally with many countries in the Indo-Pacific region.