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December 2016 Edition of Power Politics is updated.  Happy Diwali to all our subscribers and Distributors       December 2016 Edition of Power Politics is updated.   Happy Diwali to all our subscribers and Distributors       
Issue:December' 2016

INDO-JAPANESE TIES

Is China worried ?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe China needs to worry a lot after PM Modi's Japan visit last month. The visit helped in giving a further fillip to the already robust Special Strategic and Global Partnership between them.
main highlight of the 11th Japan- India Annual Summit in Tokyo was that Asia's number two and number three economies respectively signed the longnegotiated nuclear deal that was being constantly tossed between diplomatic high tables located in New Delhi and Tokyo for last six years. China
No prizes in guessing that the main highlight of the 11th Japan- India Annual Summit in Tokyo was that Asia's number two and number three economies respectively signed the longnegotiated nuclear deal that was being constantly tossed between diplomatic high tables located in New Delhi and Tokyo for last six years.
China cannot lose sight of the importance of this deal which stems from the fact that it is the first kind of civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that Japan has signed with a non-NPT state and that too after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 11 March, 2011. Though the two sides signed a separate document which says that the Japanese will annul their nuclear deal with New Delhi if India were to conduct a fresh nuclear test (which India hasn't done since 1998), Indian diplomats don't attach much significance to this document.
They say that a "termination clause" has been roped in with all the twelve countries India has signed a nuclear deal with, Japan included. In any case, this separate sheet has no legal sanctity and it has been drafted in view of the Japanese sensitivities as Japan is the first and the only nation in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack. China must not delude itself into thinking that the words "South China Sea" or SCS did not find a mention even once in the India- Japan Joint Statement. Actually, it reflects a new paradigm shift in the approach of India as well as the international community vis a vis the SCS issue. The new approach is to go hammer and tongs on the UNCLOS verdict in the Philippine-China dispute over the SCS issue. The reason for that is it is an open secret in international diplomatic circles that China has completely won over the new Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte who has toed China's line and has vowed to throw out all foreign troops (read Americans) from the country despite the fact that the US and Philippine have a decade-old military treaty.
India and Japan are going to further deepen their strategic partnership. The signing of the nuclear deal by the two sides is the biggest indication that their strategic partnership has just begun.
As for PM Modi, he won't shy away from taking hard policy decisions in furthering the India- Japan strategic partnership. More and more robust military cooperation is on the cards between India and Japan