India And Japan: Co-anchoring Indo-pacific

By Author: CGI
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India and Japan must combine their complementary strengths to shape a free, open and multi-polar Indo-Pacific in which no single power can dominate the region. During Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s re-cent visit to New Delhi, India and Japan signalled a shift from paral-lel national strategies toward a more integrated Indo-Pacific approach, says Amb. (Retd.) Sanjay Kumar Verma.

In the early years of this century, the Indo-Pacific was largely framed by powers beyond the region. Today, as strategic competition deepens, its long-term stability will depend less on external guarantees and more on whether regional states themselves are prepared to preserve a favourable balance of power.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent visit to New Delhi underscored that shift. More than reaffirming an already strong bilateral relationship, the visit pointed to a broader geopolitical reality: the Indo-Pacific is gradually acquiring an Asian centre of gravity. Regional powers are no longer expected only to preserve the existing order; they are increasingly expected to shape it.

The proposed India-Japan-Philippines ...
... track 1.5 consultations are a telling example. They suggest that the strategic conversation is widening beyond familiar summitry and alliance logic and moving toward a more distinctly regional form of agency.

Japan is India’s natural strategic partner in this endeavour. It combines technological leadership, economic strength and policy consistency with a long-standing commitment to a rules-based regional order. Together, India and Japan have the opportunity to move the Indo-Pacific beyond an aspirational idea and toward a durable strategic framework.

India-Japan Summit
The outcomes of the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit lent concrete substance to that opportunity. The two sides agreed to deepen cooperation in critical technologies, economic security, clean energy, pharmaceuticals and defence co-development, while reaffirming their shared commitment to a rules-based regional order. Strategically, however, the summit’s significance lies less in the list of sectors than in the implicit framing. By treating these domains as interlocking components of regional resilience rather than discrete bilateral projects, New Delhi and Tokyo signalled a shift from parallel national strategies toward a more integrated Indo-Pacific approach.

The strategic landscape has changed profoundly since the Indo-Pacific first entered the diplomatic vocabulary. Competition now extends far beyond military capabilities. Supply chains have become geopolitical assets, while rivalry over semiconductors, critical minerals and advanced technologies has intensified. Economic coercion, cyber vulnerabilities, grey-zone tactics and sustained maritime pressure have become recurring features of regional competition, not isolated exceptions.

Economic Security
Economic security deserves equal priority. Strategic competition increasingly unfolds through supply chains, technology standards and access to critical resources rather than conventional military confrontation alone. The disruptions witnessed during the pandemic, together with intensifying competition over semiconductors, artificial intelligence and critical minerals, have shown that economic resilience is now inseparable from national security. Cooperation between India and Japan in these sectors should therefore be seen not merely as commercial engagement, but as an investment in the strategic autonomy of the wider Indo-Pacific.

ASEAN Centrality
No vision for the Indo-Pacific can succeed without ASEAN at its centre. ASEAN remains indispensable not because it can resolve every regional dispute, but because it provides the legitimacy and institutional balance on which a durable regional order depends. Its members naturally differ in their strategic priorities and relationships with major powers. That diversity is a source of resilience rather than weakness, provided regional initiatives reinforce ASEAN’s centrality instead of bypassing it.

That is where India and Japan assume wider significance. India brings geography, scale, strategic autonomy and an unusual ability to bridge different political constituencies across the Indo-Pacific. Japan contributes technological leadership, financial strength and decades of strategic consistency. Together, they offer something the region increasingly requires: a partnership that is neither directed toward domination nor constrained by formal alliance structures, but dedicated to preserving strategic balance and expanding the choices available to other states.

The Indo-Pacific has moved beyond being a geographical construct or a diplomatic slogan. It is now the principal arena in which the future balance of power in Asia will be shaped. The question is no longer whether the concept has taken hold; it clearly has. The more consequential question is whether regional powers possess the political will and strategic imagination to sustain it.

Increasingly, the answer will depend on the region itself. External powers will remain important to regional security, but they can no longer be expected to carry the entire burden of maintaining the regional order. That responsibility must increasingly be shared by those with the greatest stake in its preservation.

India and Japan are well placed to lead that effort, not by seeking dominance, but by strengthening the institutions, partnerships and resilience that make dominance by any single power less likely. If the Indo-Pacific is to remain free, open, inclusive and genuinely multipolar, it will be because countries within the region decided to invest in a rules-based order before coercion became its defining principle. In that endeavour, India is an indispensable pivot, and together with Japan, one of the principal architects of the Indo-Pacific’s future.

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