The two leading Asian democracies do not share a geographic border, leaving the vast potential of the relationship largely unrealised, and really came on each other's radar screens after their bilateral Strategic and Global Partnership was established in December 2006, mandating an annual summit between the prime ministers of both countries.
While summits in 2007 and 2008 in each other's capitals and a structure of multiple channels of dialogue have worked as the change drivers in this tentative relationship, New Delhi was not sure that Hatoyama, soon after completing a rocky 100 days in office, would be able to visit India this year.
Officials in the Indian government appeared pleased and relieved at the visit, because there was uncertainty about how the relationship would progress with the change of government in Japan. Little is actually known about Hatoyama's and the Democratic Party of Japan's perspectives on Japan's relations with India in an Asian neighbourhood where both China and India will figure prominently in the years to come.
In an article he wrote in the New York Times on August 27, 2009, three days before Japan's elections, Hatoyama spoke of the east Asian region embodying the potential of an East Asian Community as Japan's 'basic sphere of being' and perceived the country as caught between the United States as the world's dominant power and China, which is seeking to become dominant. There was no reference to India either as an economic partner or in the context of building 'new structures for international co-operation', leaving the Indian government tentative on the way forward.
However, Hatoyama's current visit he arrived in Mumbai over the weekend, in Delhi on Monday night, and begins his official visit from Tuesday -- for a summit with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh is likely to build on the basic infrastructure and pave the way for an enhancement of the bilateral relationship, with defence ties (particularly joint patrolling of key marine passages), counter-terrorism, energy security, nuclear issues and measures against global warming, a free trade agreement and raising the economic profile of ties high on the agenda.
Civil nuclear cooperation as a means to enhance energy security will also feature prominently in the talks after Japan, the only country to have faced an atomic assault, agreed in 2008 as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to allow India to resume nuclear commerce. Universal nuclear disarmament, to which both countries are committed, will also be discussed.
The Japan-India Maritime Security Dialogue was launched in October 2009 in India, with its primary objective being to jointly patrol sea-lanes and co-ordinate efforts to ensure safety of navigation in waterways crucial to both countries, which are heavily dependent on fuel imports particularly from the Arabian peninsula. India and Japan also closely cooperate in the areas of peace-keeping, peace-building and disaster relief.
Negotiations on a Defence Action Plan, conceived during Singh's visit to Tokyo last year, are at an advanced stage and the DAP is likely to be signed during Hatoyama's visit.
According to R Panda of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, Hatoyama's visit, coming soon after Indian Defence Minister A K Antony's visit to Japan in November, reinforces the message that his "foreign policy is Asia-centric." Given the growing convergence between India and Japan on security and strategic issues, Antony's visit reinforced enhanced defence cooperation possibilities, including active co-ordination of efforts by both navies in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and similar maritime security challenges along important waterways like the Indian Ocean.
Recognising their mutual interest in the safety of sea-lanes, India and Japan have decided to extend co-operation in the field of maritime security, especially in the area of combating piracy off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden and to enhance co-operation in the fight against terrorism. They have agreed to enhance defence co-operation, including joint military exercises, bilateral and regional co-operation in peacekeeping, disaster relief and the ASEAN Regional Forum.
These developments suggest that there is a growth trajectory in defence co-operation between the two countries, complemented by the burgeoning economic relationship providing robustness to the partnership.
Hatoyama himself is no stranger to India, having visited the country as the leader of opposition in the Lower House of the Japanese Diet, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister. Both countries have denied that enhanced cooperation among them is aimed at curbing growing Chinese influence in the region, but Hatoyama's hurriedly arranged visit to New Delhi indicates that he wants to keep the two major democracies actively engaged.
