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NEW DELHI: Worried about China's reaction, India is developing cold feet on a new outreach dialogue with Japan and the US. Though Beijing hasn't yet registered any official objection to the dialogue, Indian rethink is more in the nature of preempting a Chinese reaction.
In April, India had, at the instance of Japan, announced a new dialogue on "regional and global issues of shared interests" among New Delhi, Tokyo and Washington. The dialogue would cover hot-button issues of South China Sea and other matters in Asia-Pacific, all of which are important for India. The new trilateral talks were announced by former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao in Tokyo. The first "trialogue" was supposed to coincide with the new ministerial-level economic dialogue - also between Japan and India - slated for early October.
The talks are part of a big push by the foreign ministry to counter the growing Chinese influence in India's neighbourhood. The Indo-Japan relationship has acquired greater importance in recent years. India and Japan had signed a rare security agreement in 2008 - an accord that Japan has with only two other countries in the world. Despite Japan's intransigence on many nuclear issues, India is keen to ramp up its relations with Japan.
But some parts in Indian security establishment remain concerned about how the Chinese would view this initiative. Earlier, China had objected to a prospective "quadrilateral" among the US, India, Japan and Australia, which killed that initiative after Washington developed a cold feet. Later, India's defence establishment objected to multi-nation naval exercises like Malabar. This year, the Malabar exercises would have been a US-India-Japan exercise off Japan, but Tokyo had to pull out after the Fukushima disaster. Defence minister A K Antony has suggested that such exercises should be bilateral, and not multi-lateral.
During last week's visit to Beijing by US vice-president Joe Biden, the message from Xi Jinping, the next president of China, was that Beijing and Washington should "continue" their dialogue on Asia-Pacific. China and the US already have a dialogue on South Asia, just as the US and India conduct a dialogue on East Asia.
For India to back away from the trilateral talks at this stage, said senior government sources, would indicate to the region that India is not yet ready to play the big game.
India's growing ties with Japan is watched carefully by other China's neighbours like Vietnam, South Korea etc. All these countries have deep ties with China, yet all of them are part of a massive hedging game that is underway in Asia. A fast-growing China has also displayed the kind of aggression that has unsettled its neighbours. In India's own neighbourhood, China's relationship with Pakistan has become a security threat to New Delhi. No wonder, India's outreach in China's eastern neighbourhood has been crafted to send the message that India is taking a strategic view in the region.
India develops cold feet on talks with Japan, US - The Times of India
In April, India had, at the instance of Japan, announced a new dialogue on "regional and global issues of shared interests" among New Delhi, Tokyo and Washington. The dialogue would cover hot-button issues of South China Sea and other matters in Asia-Pacific, all of which are important for India. The new trilateral talks were announced by former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao in Tokyo. The first "trialogue" was supposed to coincide with the new ministerial-level economic dialogue - also between Japan and India - slated for early October.
The talks are part of a big push by the foreign ministry to counter the growing Chinese influence in India's neighbourhood. The Indo-Japan relationship has acquired greater importance in recent years. India and Japan had signed a rare security agreement in 2008 - an accord that Japan has with only two other countries in the world. Despite Japan's intransigence on many nuclear issues, India is keen to ramp up its relations with Japan.
But some parts in Indian security establishment remain concerned about how the Chinese would view this initiative. Earlier, China had objected to a prospective "quadrilateral" among the US, India, Japan and Australia, which killed that initiative after Washington developed a cold feet. Later, India's defence establishment objected to multi-nation naval exercises like Malabar. This year, the Malabar exercises would have been a US-India-Japan exercise off Japan, but Tokyo had to pull out after the Fukushima disaster. Defence minister A K Antony has suggested that such exercises should be bilateral, and not multi-lateral.
During last week's visit to Beijing by US vice-president Joe Biden, the message from Xi Jinping, the next president of China, was that Beijing and Washington should "continue" their dialogue on Asia-Pacific. China and the US already have a dialogue on South Asia, just as the US and India conduct a dialogue on East Asia.
For India to back away from the trilateral talks at this stage, said senior government sources, would indicate to the region that India is not yet ready to play the big game.
India's growing ties with Japan is watched carefully by other China's neighbours like Vietnam, South Korea etc. All these countries have deep ties with China, yet all of them are part of a massive hedging game that is underway in Asia. A fast-growing China has also displayed the kind of aggression that has unsettled its neighbours. In India's own neighbourhood, China's relationship with Pakistan has become a security threat to New Delhi. No wonder, India's outreach in China's eastern neighbourhood has been crafted to send the message that India is taking a strategic view in the region.
India develops cold feet on talks with Japan, US - The Times of India
