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New Delhi, Dec. 4: India and Japan plan to ink a pact on sharing defence secrets that will facilitate New Delhi's purchase of cutting-edge amphibious aircraft from Tokyo while signifying a tightening strategic embrace that is worrying China.
The pact will be discussed, and may be signed, during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's three-day India visit from December 11, senior officials said.
Japan has agreements sharing technology specific to a particular piece of military equipment with a few countries. But it only has an overarching agreement on sharing military secrets with the US - that pact was signed in 2007.
India is keen on purchasing armed versions of the ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious aircraft from Japan for its navy to defend not just the country's waters but to also help secure sea lanes critical for New Delhi's trade - and increasingly a zone of tension over disputes involving China.
The defence secrets pact is critical to bind the countries to a commitment that they will not share any technology obtained from the other nation with a third country.
"We need to maintain our naval presence in the region," Lalima Verma, professor in Japanese studies at JNU, said. "Japan has the top technology in amphibious aircraft. That apart, we need to bolster our friendships in the region."
Abe, who during his visit will also travel to Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi with the Prime Minister, has made ties with India a priority.
A nuclear pact India and Japan have been trying to stitch together will figure prominently during Modi's discussions with Abe. Many components of nuclear reactors India is purchasing from the US and France are manufactured in Japan - and New Delhi can't use the reactors till it also has a deal with Tokyo.
India also remains Japan's top destination for overseas development aid, and the Modi government is wooing the world's third-largest economy for investments - in railways, industry and even defence.
But it is the simmering tensions in the Asia Pacific region over China's growing assertiveness, and the increasingly public partnership between India, Japan and the US to balance Beijing's influence that represent the most significant context for Abe's trip, officials and experts said.
China is locked in territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei over the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
For India, the tensions represent a threat because 70 per cent of the country's maritime trade passes through the region, and also an opportunity as countries like Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines - heavily dependent on China for trade - try to diversify partners.
Abe's visit comes two months after India, Japan and the US held a first-ever meeting of their foreign ministers, in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September, with a focus on the Asia Pacific tensions.
In October, Japan joined India and the US in their traditionally bilateral "Malabar" naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal. Japan has joined these exercises in the past when they were held off its coast, but never when hosted by India.
Japan defence pact hope from Abe trip
The pact will be discussed, and may be signed, during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's three-day India visit from December 11, senior officials said.
Japan has agreements sharing technology specific to a particular piece of military equipment with a few countries. But it only has an overarching agreement on sharing military secrets with the US - that pact was signed in 2007.
India is keen on purchasing armed versions of the ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious aircraft from Japan for its navy to defend not just the country's waters but to also help secure sea lanes critical for New Delhi's trade - and increasingly a zone of tension over disputes involving China.
The defence secrets pact is critical to bind the countries to a commitment that they will not share any technology obtained from the other nation with a third country.
"We need to maintain our naval presence in the region," Lalima Verma, professor in Japanese studies at JNU, said. "Japan has the top technology in amphibious aircraft. That apart, we need to bolster our friendships in the region."
Abe, who during his visit will also travel to Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi with the Prime Minister, has made ties with India a priority.
A nuclear pact India and Japan have been trying to stitch together will figure prominently during Modi's discussions with Abe. Many components of nuclear reactors India is purchasing from the US and France are manufactured in Japan - and New Delhi can't use the reactors till it also has a deal with Tokyo.
India also remains Japan's top destination for overseas development aid, and the Modi government is wooing the world's third-largest economy for investments - in railways, industry and even defence.
But it is the simmering tensions in the Asia Pacific region over China's growing assertiveness, and the increasingly public partnership between India, Japan and the US to balance Beijing's influence that represent the most significant context for Abe's trip, officials and experts said.
China is locked in territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei over the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
For India, the tensions represent a threat because 70 per cent of the country's maritime trade passes through the region, and also an opportunity as countries like Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines - heavily dependent on China for trade - try to diversify partners.
Abe's visit comes two months after India, Japan and the US held a first-ever meeting of their foreign ministers, in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September, with a focus on the Asia Pacific tensions.
In October, Japan joined India and the US in their traditionally bilateral "Malabar" naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal. Japan has joined these exercises in the past when they were held off its coast, but never when hosted by India.
Japan defence pact hope from Abe trip
