At a summit in Washington earlier this month, foreign ministers from ¡°the Quad¡± nations of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. agreed to work together to ensure a stable supply of critical minerals and released the following : ¡°We are committed to a region where all countries are free from coercion and strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.¡±
The Quad diplomats were, of course, referring to China¡¯s growing economic and military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region and its gray-zone threats in the South China and East China seas. But ¡°coercion¡± is also an accurate description of U.S. President Donald Trump¡¯s aggressive trade policies in the region and insistence, as with NATO in Europe, that the nations of the Indo-Pacific increase their military spending and take more responsibility for their own defense.
In this environment, bilateral India-Japan relations are more important than ever. Located on two ends of the Indo-Pacific region, India and Japan are pivotal to shaping a stable and viable counterweight to Chinese ambitions and the volatility of Trump¡¯s second term. Both countries possess a strategic heft that makes them invaluable to any Indo-Pacific strategy and have a record of success in regional coalition building and strategic autonomy to advance their own shared interests, whether in the Indo-Pacific or Southeast Asia.
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