Indian and Japanese leaders meet today
Indian and Japanese leaders meet today in New Delhi to discuss their countries’ partnership in the Indo-Pacific.
This will be the first meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The countries join the US and Australia as members of the Quad alliance, buffering against what they view as an expansionary China. However, India’s dependence on Russian military hardware and oil goes against the West’s calls to isolate Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Just this week, New Delhi purchased discounted fuel from Moscow.
Despite the rest of the Quad’s discontent with such purchases, in the interest of regional strategic partnership, expect India and Japan to reach an agreement on a supply chain resilience initiative. Launched last April, the initiative intends to reduce dependency on China and minimize risks to supply chains. For the moment, concerns over regional stability dominate, and the two will look to deepen bilateral trade and defense ties to balance against a dominant China in the Indo-Pacific.
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