INDIA and Japan have for long shared a strong bond of friendship and cooperation. The warmth and understanding were reflected, and further strengthened, during the recent visit of Japanese PM Fumio Kishida to India.
On the occasion, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of Japan stated, “Exchange between Japan and India is said to have begun in the 6th century when Buddhism was introduced to Japan. Indian culture, filtered through Buddhism, has had a great impact on Japanese culture, and this is the source of the Japanese people’s sense of closeness to India.”
The times of Abe
Kishida’s predecessor Shinzo Abe had struck a special bond with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his assassination on July 8 last year had left PM Modi greatly disturbed.
“I first met him in 2007, during my visit to Japan as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Right from that first meeting, our friendship went beyond the trappings of office and the shackles of official protocol,” the PM had written while paying tributes to his friend. The moving tribute was aptly titled, “My Friend, Abe San”.
In an interview to media early March, Australia’s former prime minister M Tony Abbott had termed PM Modi and Shinzo Abe as “fathers” of the Quad (quadrilateral Security Dialogue comprising India, Japan, the US, and Australia). In the statement, widely used by major media houses, Abbott said Quad is almost a unique product and the “world should be immensely grateful to both of them”.
War and peace
In between, ties soured, especially during the British Raj. In 1949, after the Second World War, India gifted an elephant to the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. “This brought a ray of light into the lives of the Japanese people who had still not recovered from defeat in the war,” MOFA Japan remembered.
On April 28, 1952, India and Japan signed a peace treaty and established diplomatic relations. This was among the first peace treaties signed by Japan after the Second World War.
India’s iron ore helped Japan a great deal in recovering from the devastation of the war. Following the then Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi’s visit to India in 1957, Japan started providing yen loans to India in 1958, as the first yen loan aid extended by the Japanese Government.
In September 2014, during PM Modi’s summit meeting with Abe, they concurred to upgrade the bilateral relationship to “Special Strategic and Global Partnership.”
Transform partnership
In December 2015, when Abe visited India, the two premiers resolved to transform the Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership into a deep, broad-based and actionoriented partnership, which reflects a broad convergence of their long-term political, economic and strategic goals.
“Japan and India Vision 2025 Special Strategic and Global Partnership Working Together for Peace and Prosperity of the IndoPacific Region and the World”, was thus announced to serve as a guide post for the “new era in Japan-India relations.” And the saga continues.
