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08 October 2024 – The Hindu

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How can the relationship between Philippines, Japan, and India be improved:

Philippines and India’s strategic alliances:

  • Manila now demonstrates a determination to expand and deepen its security and economic alliances with like-minded parties in the face of Beijing’s increasing refusal to act and behave as a neighbour that is responsible.
  • The Philippines has remained unwavering in defending its sovereignty and sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea against China’s revisionist interests in the Indo-Pacific (IP) Region, thanks to the leadership of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
  • As a result, Manila’s recognition of New Delhi and Tokyo as significant allies opens up new possibilities for the three democracies to pursue comprehensive strategic cooperation.
  • Significant progress has been made in the bilateral relationship between the Philippines and India, as Manila is now more open to including New Delhi in its geopolitical calculations.
  • The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that the Coast Guards of the Philippines and India recently signed will enable them to enhance their intelligence sharing, interoperability, and marine domain awareness. Additionally, India has offered to grant the Philippine Coast Guard a soft credit with extended terms in exchange for seven helicopters that are produced domestically. This follows the country of Southeast Asia receiving the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile later this year.
  • As a result, the increased involvement of Japan and India in Southeast Asia aligns with the desire of resident nations such as the Philippines to decrease their vulnerability to China’s growing economic influence and increasing power projection capabilities.
  • Southeast Asian nations’ hedging tactics depend heavily on developing strong relationships with favourable regional powers, particularly in light of the growing competition between the United States and China.
  • Japan and India are Southeast Asia’s top two choices for the Indo-Pacific strategic partners, according to the State of Southeast Asia Survey of 2023. As such, the current Indo-Pacific structural conditions offer Japan and India a chance to put their shared vision into practice.

Special Strategic and Global Partnership between Japan and India:

  • is best characterised by the strong bonds they have in common. Tokyo and New Delhi regularly participate in a variety of security-related venues, from multilateral organisations like the G20 and the Quad to regular bilateral military drills and 2+2 discussions.
  • Both nations perceive an increasingly assertive and disruptive China as a threat. Beyond defence collaboration, a third country cooperation model in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond has been initiated by Tokyo and New Delhi.
  • An illustration of a third-country collaboration model is the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC).
  • The AAGC was established in 2017 as a result of cooperative efforts by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his former Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe to create networks for economic growth and development throughout Asia and Africa.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic’s economic effects and geopolitical unrest ultimately caused the initiative to slow significantly, but both nations have lately looked into other third country cooperation models for the region.
  • These include the developing trilateral alliances between Bangladesh, Japan, and India as well as a framework that is comparable between Japan, India, and Sri Lanka.

Way Forward:

  • At a time when resident countries are searching for alternative sources of development and security in the polarising dynamics of the U.S.-China power competition, New Delhi should think about expanding its third country developmental model with Tokyo into the subregion of the larger Indo-Pacific. This is because India is significantly strengthening and broadening its ties with Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines.

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