India, Japan agree to bolster defence ties

NEW DELHI: India and Japan agreed to bolster security ties including maritime cooperation on Thursday after their defence ministers met in New Delhi.

India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi held talks and signed a memorandum on maritime security cooperation, according to a joint statement.

Both countries are members of the so-called Quad security alliance along with the United States and Australia, a group seen as a counterweight to China’s expanding presence in the Indian Ocean and wider Asia-Pacific region.

“The two ministers affirmed their commitment… to further deepen defence cooperation to realise a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the joint statement said.

“Such cooperation is vital not only to Japan and India, but also to the region and the international community.”

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New Delhi has been keen for Tokyo’s greater involvement with its capital and technology to aid India’s push towards building a domestic military hardware industry.

The ministers said the two countries should explore joint development in naval shipbuilding and design, combining Tokyo’s technological expertise with New Delhi’s production capabilities under its “Make in India” initiative.

Koizumi’s visit comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi in July, when they agreed to work more closely on critical minerals – a sector dominated by China.

After that meeting, Takaichi had warned that Japan and India were facing challenges including “weaponisation of the economy and non-market policies and practices”.

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China’s foreign ministry, in comments following Modi’s meeting with Takaichi, said that international cooperation “should not target or harm the interests of third parties, let alone serve as a pretext for forming exclusive cliques or stoking confrontation”.