Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivering her first policy speech since taking office at the Lower House plenary session, October 24.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has stressed that a "free and open Indo-Pacific" is the pillar of her strategic foreign and security policy. However, the Japanese media has failed to emphasize this statement, or its connection to India, either intentionally or out of ignorance, or out of fear or over-consideration for noisy neighbors.
As Takaichi's mentor, the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe predicted, the Indo-Pacific has become the strategic heart of the twenty-first century, marked by shifting power balances, contested maritime spaces, and growing emphasis on economic security. Within this fluid environment, Japan and India have emerged as two pivotal democracies attempting to give structure to the idea of a rules-based regional order.
Both nations have long articulated similar visions in Japan's free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) and India's Indo-Pacific Oceans' Initiative (IPOI). However, the real test lies not in their rhetorical convergence but in the translation of shared principles into sustained and practical cooperation. Their partnership has gradually evolved into one of the most tangible pillars of regional stability. But it also faces challenges of depth and institutional endurance.
Convergence of Vision and Emergence of Mechanisms
At the level of principle, Tokyo and New Delhi see the Indo-Pacific as an interconnected strategic space stretching from Africa's eastern coast to the western Pacific. Both have underscored inclusivity, freedom of navigation, and respect for international law as the normative basis for their engagement.
Japan's FOIP, formulated under the late Prime Minister Abe, was in many ways the first major strategic articulation of this geographical and conceptual unity. India's IPOI, announced in 2019, expanded upon similar values. It divided the Indo-Pacific cooperation into functional pillars such as maritime security, trade connectivity, and disaster management.
Japan leads the connectivity pillar within the IPOI, linking its infrastructure expertise with India's regional diplomatic reach. This alignment provides the normative bridge for a cooperation that is increasingly practical and issue-driven.
Over the past few years, the Japan-India relationship itself has acquired an institutional framework that allows regular and structured coordination. The '2+2' ministerial dialogue between the foreign and defense ministers of both countries has emerged as a crucial mechanism for aligning strategic priorities.
Beyond dialogue, concrete steps are visible in the security domain. In 2024, Japan agreed to export defense communication antenna technology to India, marking the first defense equipment transfer between the two. The two countries also conduct joint military exercises such as "Dharma Guardian" and naval engagements under the "JIMEX" series, which enhance interoperability and maritime situational awareness.
Building Bilateral Economic Security
Economic security cooperation has also become a second and crucial pillar of this partnership. In 2025, the two governments released a joint fact sheet outlining their cooperation in semiconductors, critical minerals, and clean energy. Japan's advanced manufacturing and India's scale of demand make them natural partners in building resilient supply chains.
The Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, jointly undertaken with Australia, reflected this shared effort to reduce overdependence on China-centric production networks. Connectivity projects such as the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail, the Northeast Road Network Improvement Project, and Japanese investment in India's port infrastructure further illustrate the material depth of this engagement.
These mechanisms also extend to multilateral frameworks. Within the Quad, Japan and India coordinate on maritime domain awareness, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies. However, unlike purely alliance-based security cooperation, their partnership retains flexibility. It is neither directed at containment nor exclusion but rather structured around maintaining stability and ensuring a balance of power that benefits regional autonomy.
Challenges, Divergences, and the Road Ahead
Despite this impressive institutional architecture, the Japan-India partnership still continues to grapple with limits that could impede its strategic consolidation. While Japan's FOIP remains deeply aligned with the United States alliance framework, India's strategic culture continues to prize autonomy.
Tokyo's expectation for stronger security convergence may occasionally clash with New Delhi's preference for multi-alignment. Similarly, Japan's constitutional and political constraints on defense exports and collective military action restrict the speed at which security cooperation can deepen. India's own defense industrial ecosystem, though rapidly modernizing, faces structural gaps that prevent immediate reciprocity.
There are also questions of regional perception. The success of the Indo-Pacific narrative depends on its inclusivity. India and Japan must ensure that their cooperation does not appear as an exclusive arrangement of "like-minded" powers but as a facilitator of broader regional capacity-building.
Both countries have been sensitive to ASEAN centrality and Pacific Island priorities. However, translating that sensitivity into financial and logistical commitments will be crucial.
Moreover, much of the bilateral cooperation has so far operated through memoranda, project announcements, and high-level visits. To endure, these frameworks must be embedded in deeper institutional linkages such as joint technology ventures, trilateral maritime patrols, research collaborations, and people-to-people exchange programs that create lasting constituencies of cooperation. If the partnership remains limited to governmental dialogues, its strategic potential may remain under-realized.
Crafting Middle-power Cooperation
For Japan, India provides a democratic counterweight and a strategic bridge to the western Indo-Pacific. And for India, Japan offers not just a technologically sophisticated partner but also an entryway point into the Pacific maritime architecture, which complements Indian Ocean centrality. Together, they can craft a model of middle-power cooperation that demonstrates how economic and security partnerships can reinforce rather than compromise sovereignty.
The challenge ahead is to convert this partnership from one of convergence into one of capability. That means sustained co-investment in critical sectors, shared defense production, joint digital standards, and coordinated maritime presence.
The Indo-Pacific will remain a contested and dynamic theater, but Japan and India, through steady and practical cooperation, can ensure that it also remains open, predictable, and secure.
Hence, the success of their partnership will not be measured by declarations but by the durability of the institutions they are able to build together.
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Author: Professor Pema Gyalpo, PHD
Dr Pema Gyalpo is a Visiting Professor at the Takushoku University Center for Indo-Pacific Strategic Studies.
