Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently concluded a 3-day state visit to Japan. The visit appears to have spurred existing talks regarding civil nuclear cooperation, and has resulted in the agreement to establish a ministerial-level economic dialogue between the two nations.
While improving the bilateral relationship between India and Japan should prove mutually beneficial in of itself, such rapprochement also engenders a counter-balance strategy to China’s rise within the regional context. This is a particularly timely event as both of these countries begin to rethink their respective security roles in what some analysts refer to as the Asian Century.
Rajaram Panda, Senior Fellow at India’s Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA), makes a compelling case for furthering Indo-Japanese cooperation in an editorial recently published in the Economic Times:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-debate/Indo-Japanese-ties-can-keep-China-in-check/articleshow/6832916.cms