The Indo-Pacific in Japan's strategy towards India

ABSTRACT

The partnership between Japan and India has steadily deepened since the formation of the second Abe administration. This article, through the analysis of Japan's India strategy, seeks to address how the Indo-Pacific idea has developed and what functions this policy idea has played in the development of Japan's India strategy. This article argues that the Indo-Pacific idea functioned as a linchpin to define goals the two countries would pursue and promote practical collaboration in various policy areas from the economy to security. Moreover, it worked as a normative weapon to diffuse specific values in dealing with maritime security and infrastructure development.

KEYWORDS:

• Shinzo Abe
• Narendra Modi
• policy idea
• Confluence of the Two Seas
• Free and Open Indo-Pacific

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the reviewers of Contemporary Politics for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Hidetaka Yoshimatsu, Professor of Politics and International Relations at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University & Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is the author of Comparing Institution-Building in East Asia: Power Politics, Governance, and Critical Junctures (Palgrave Macmillan 2014) and The Political Economy of Regionalism in East Asia: Integrative Explanation for Dynamics and Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan 2008).

Notes

1.  The concept of ‘focal point’ was originally introduced by Schelling. It is referred to as the ‘point for each person's expectation of what the other expects him to expect to be expected to do’ (Schelling, 1960, p. 57).

2.  The concept of ‘normative weapons’ derives from Blyth's ‘ideas as weapons’ and Béland's ‘ideas as discursive weapons’ (Béland, 2009; Blyth, 2001).

3.  The value amplification is defined as ‘the identification, idealization, and elevation of one or more values presumed basic to prospective constituents but which have not inspired collective action for any number of reasons’ (Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986, p. 469).

4.  Abe was unable to deliver this policy speech because he was forced to go back to Tokyo due to a hostage incident involving the Japanese in Algeria.