Continuity and Change: India's Relations with Japan

A new dimension in India's relations with Japan appear to have opened up with the visit of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to India in May 1984. In Japan, with Premier Nakasone's re-election for the second term in October 1984, the trend of strengthening relations with India are likely to continue. In fact, the big delegation headed by Nakasone himself, and which also included Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe, which came to pay their last respects to Mrs. Indira Gandhi gives sufficient evidence of Japan's strong desire to cultivate and extend the close relations, started during Mrs. Gandhi's tenure, with the new Rajiv Government as well. Further, Japan also fulfilled the earlier commitment made by Nakasone about sending a high level economic team to consider the areas of economic cooperation with India. The team visited India in the first week of December 1984 and identified broad areas for industrial collaboration and trade expansion. These include energy, telecommunications, electronics and auto ancillaries, which accord well with the high priority given in India's Seventh Five Year Plan to the development of power, transport and communication. It is attempted to discuss in this paper whether the new Government would find it advantageous to continue this trend of closer relations with Japan in the broader context of the foreign policy, which it proposes to pursue.