The New Fulcrum of Asia: The Indo-Japan Entente and the Rise of China

A potentially pivotal alignment of India and Japan is forming. This informal military partnership implicitly premised on countering an ever-more-powerful China reflects common apprehensions. Fearing entanglement in China’s quarrels, New Delhi is, nonetheless, cognizant of the enhancement of Indian capabilities that may flow from a tilt toward Tokyo and Washington, even if such realist calculations are still anathema to some opinion groups in both countries. Koizumi and Abe (during both of his times in office) were effective engineers of the Japan–India entente, seeing India as a natural partner. The coalescence of the India–Japan entente is testimony to the failure of Chinese diplomacy and its on-again, –off-again resort to coercive diplomacy. India is in the swing position in the emerging Japan–India–China triangle. Its strategy is to use Beijing’s fear of too-close Indo-Japan friendship to get China to undertake friendlier policies.