Japan draws India closer amid intensifying power politics

In this context, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to India in March 2022 assumes added importance beyond the bilateral agreements that were concluded, which included 5 trillion yen in Japanese investment in India and the India-Japan Clean Energy Partnership. Japan has played a key role as a facilitator of this process by supporting India's membership in regional forums, such as the East Asia Summit, and investing in infrastructure connecting India and East Asia, particularly in India's northeast and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Japan was one of the first countries to broaden the strategic geography of Asia, which drew India deeper into the regional architecture. Japan has also sought to push India to embrace, to some degree, its commitment to free trade. While India maintains an aversion to re-joining RCEP amid concerns that this would accelerate China's penetration of the Indian market, its protectionist sentiment has somewhat softened as illustrated by its recent conclusion of trade agreements with the United Arab Emirates in February and Australia in April 2022. Japan and India have historically maintained self-imposed restraints in the conduct of their foreign policies fuelled by their ideological proclivities - namely, Japan's pacifist constitution and India's longstanding commitment to non-alignment and its more recent manifestation of 'strategic autonomy'. As Japan prepares to host the Quad summit in May 2022 and India occupies a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council and prepares to hold the G20 presidency for the first time, both countries are uniquely positioned to participate in and shape key debates on issues of global governance.