India Japan defence and strategic cooperation
India and Japan share universal values of democracy, open society, human rights, rule of law and market economy and share common interest in promoting peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the world. It is but natural to establish a Strategic and Global Partnership between the two countries.
India and Japan also share common interests in such fields as maintaining the safety and security of sea lanes in the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean regions, and fighting against transnational crimes, terrorism, piracy and proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
On policy level, the annual Strategic Dialogue at the Foreign Minister level was held in March 2007. The Foreign Minister of Japan will visit India for the second Dialogue in 2008 before the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Japan. The two sides will continue to hold regular dialogues between the National Security Advisor of India and the Japanese counterpart, commence bi-annual Foreign Secretary/Vice Minister level dialogue and will also launch an exchange programme of young diplomats in order to promote mutual understanding between the two Foreign Offices. Both countries have been conducting annual Foreign 0ffice Consultations at the Foreign Secretary level. The Security Dialogue between the two countries was set up in 2001 and four round of dialogue has been conducted since then.
On military partnership, India and Japan will require steady and qualitative upgradation of cooperation between the two sides, including inter alia the expansion of the annual calendar of cooperation and exchanges relating to defence and security, Vice Minister/Defence Secretary level regular Defence Policy Dialogue, cooperation in sharing of experience in international peace cooperation activities under the aegis of the United Nations and counter-terrorism, information sharing in important areas of mutual interest, technical exchange, joint exercises and training and talks between the services. High level exchange has been continuing between the defense authorities. From Japan, General Massaki, Chief of Staff (September, 2005), Admiral Saito, Chief of Maritime SDF (February, 2006), General Mori, Chief of Ground SDF (March, 2006), General Yoshida, Chief of Air SDF (April, 2006) and Defence Minister Ms Yuriko Koike (August,2007) visited India. From India, Admiral Prakash, Chief of Naval Staff, visited Japan in October, 2005 and the Defense Minister of India, Mr. Mukherjee, visited Japan in May, 2006.
Japan is sending their military officers for training in Indian Defence institutions like the National Defence College. Japan also invited Indian representatives to participate in the Tokyo Defence Forum. In addition Indian Naval ships were in Japan in mid 2007 for joint exercises. Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force is participating in the multilateral maritime exercise “Malabar 07-2” to be held in September 2007 in the Bay of Bengal.
The Indian and Japanese Coast Guard’s already have a intensified co-operation in maritime safety, maritime security and protection of marine environment through combined exercises, regular meetings of heads of the two Coast Guards and cooperation based on the Memorandum on Cooperation signed between the two Coast Guards. Between the two coast guards combined exercises on anti-piracy, search & rescue etc. have been conducted every year since 2000. Heads of coast guards of both countries have visited each other almost every year. The two coast guards exchanged a Memorandum on Cooperation during the commandant Ishikawa’s visit to India in November, 2006.
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