Japan and China in India’s Foreign Policy

Abstract

In chapter fourteen, Arpita Mathur observes that India’s relations with Japan have grown warmer in recent years. She explains: “To hedge against a more powerful and assertive China, Japan and India have drawn closer to each other.” However, Arpita Mathur notes that China is not “the exclusive driver behind the augmented India–Japan relationship.” Indeed, functional needs, interdependence, and expanding arenas of possible mutual gains have come together to enhance their bilateral ties. She also cautions that given India’s strategic culture of maintaining an autonomous and non-aligned posture in international affairs, “it has no desire to be sucked into an anti-China coalition.” Arpita Mathur elaborates: “India’s foreign policies towards Japan and China would be guided not by alliance politics but its own foreign policy considerations, especially economic development, protection of national security and interest, quest for energy security, and maintaining and enhancing its weight in regional and global affairs.” Nevertheless, New Delhi is worried by Beijing’s lack of transparency, military build-up, close ties with Pakistan, and China’s growing maritime ambitions in the Indian Ocean region . She reminds the reader that the power transition in Asia is also about India’s rise and its quest for partners, including Japan. Arpita Mathur concludes: “However, India’s ‘multi-alignment’ with all great powers and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in East Asia will be less threatening and offensive to China if it augments an equilibrium among powers (rather than against China) which will underpin regional stability—a condition necessary for India’s peaceful rise in the twenty-first century.”