{"id":52368,"date":"2026-07-03T06:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T06:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/52368\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T06:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T06:33:08","slug":"japan-and-india-deepen-defense-ties-ink-13-billion-in-deals-as-takaichi-pushes-foip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/52368\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan and India Deepen Defense Ties, Ink $13 Billion in Deals as Takaichi Pushes FOIP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on July 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The two leaders issued a joint statement covering stronger maritime security cooperation, including expanded joint exercises between Japan&#8217;s Self-Defense Forces and the Indian Navy, as well as cooperation on ship maintenance and overhaul.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Both sides also reaffirmed the importance of Takaichi&#8217;s evolved vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP).<\/p>\n<p>\u00a52 Trillion in Private Sector Deals\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At a joint press conference at Hyderabad House following the talks, Takaichi announced roughly 120 cooperation agreements between Japanese and Indian companies, including investment worth about \u00a52 trillion ($13.3 billion), saying she wanted to &#8220;open up the future of Japan and India through public-private collaboration.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She also expressed support for India&#8217;s bid to join the International Energy Agency, and instructed that the Japan-India 2+2 foreign and defense ministerial security dialogue be convened before the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Takaichi said India and Japan are now among the world&#8217;s largest economies, calling a free, prosperous, and rules-based Indo-Pacific their shared priority. She added that as the region&#8217;s largest democratic and market economies, the two countries&#8217; new initiatives would &#8220;pave the way for peace, stability, and progress across the entire region.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Modi, for his part, said the two countries were entering a &#8220;new chapter&#8221; in their Special Strategic and Global Partnership as two of the world&#8217;s five largest economies took on greater responsibility for regional stability. He also pointed to the signing of the two nations&#8217; first co-development project in the defense sector as evidence of that deepening cooperation.<\/p>\n<p>Economic Security Declaration Targets Coercive Practices\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The two sides separately issued a joint declaration on economic security, pledging to advance cooperation across priority sectors including semiconductors, critical minerals, and clean energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With China clearly in mind, the declaration expressed concern over economic coercion and non-market policies and practices, including arbitrary export restrictions and price manipulation.<\/p>\n<p>A further joint statement on artificial intelligence positioned Japan and India as &#8220;strategic R&amp;D partners in the field of AI.&#8221; Takaichi invited Modi to visit Japan next year, and Modi accepted.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/featured.japan-forward.com\/japan2earth\/\" target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"gtag(&#039;event&#039;, &#039;click&#039;, {&#039;event_category&#039;: &#039;banner&#039;,&#039;event_label&#039;: &#039;japan2earth-in-article&#039;});\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783060388_176_japan-2-earth-masthead-v2.jpg\" alt=\"Japan 2 Earth Masthead Banner\" height=\"50%\" onload=\"gtag('event', 'impression', {'event_category': 'banner','event_label': 'japan2earth-in-article'});\"\/><\/a><br \/>\nA Core Pillar for FOIP<\/p>\n<p>The economic security declaration&#8217;s language on arbitrary export restrictions and price manipulation is clearly aimed at China. The agreement should now be steadily translated into concrete action.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>China continues to attempt to change the status quo by force in the East and South China Seas and is expanding its influence in the Indian Ocean as well.<\/p>\n<p>India is a core pillar for realizing FOIP. With the world&#8217;s largest population, its economy continues to grow steadily, and its nominal GDP is set to overtake Japan&#8217;s to become the world&#8217;s fourth-largest.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For Japan, which depends on the Middle East for oil, securing the sea lanes that stretch across the Indian Ocean is also critically important.<\/p>\n<p>Modi also proposed the MAHASAGAR Initiative, a maritime security and economic cooperation framework that extends its geographic scope beyond the Indian Ocean region to the Pacific, sharing the same underlying philosophy as FOIP.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The two initiatives should be developed in tandem to help maintain a free and open maritime order based on the rule of law and to support peace and stability in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Making the Quad Work<\/p>\n<p>To that end, it is essential that the Quad\u2014the framework bringing together Japan, the US, Australia, and India\u2014function fully as a key vehicle for advancing FOIP.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That said, India maintains friendly relations with Russia and is also a member of the BRICS framework, which is led in part by China and Russia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While India pursues a multi-alignment diplomacy, it remains highly wary of China, with which it has an unresolved border dispute. Notably, Modi has also recently held talks with President Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Takaichi should now seek to convene a Quad leaders&#8217; summit\u2014a format that has not met since September 2024\u2014to further solidify unity among Japan, the US, Australia, and India.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/featured.japan-forward.com\/japan2earth\/\" target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"gtag(&#039;event&#039;, &#039;click&#039;, {&#039;event_category&#039;: &#039;banner&#039;,&#039;event_label&#039;: &#039;japan2earth-in-article&#039;});\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783060388_176_japan-2-earth-masthead-v2.jpg\" alt=\"Japan 2 Earth Masthead Banner\" height=\"50%\" onload=\"gtag('event', 'impression', {'event_category': 'banner','event_label': 'japan2earth-in-article'});\"\/><\/a><br \/>\nRELATED:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/japan-forward.com\/new-chapter-in-india-japan-partnership-powered-by-mid-sized-companies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">New Chapter in India-Japan Partnership Powered by Mid-Sized Companies<\/a><\/p>\n<p>(Read the related article in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sankei.com\/article\/20260703-CXENQVWEFBIC3HK2CGY4O2N2A4\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Japanese<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Author: The Sankei Shimbun<\/p>\n<p>\t\tContinue Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on July 2.\u00a0 The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,14908,1180,8,32787,8804,33,16,11440,358],"class_list":["post-52368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-china","tag-foip","tag-indo-pacific","tag-japan","tag-japan-india-relations","tag-narendra-modi","tag-nihon","tag-politics-security","tag-quad","tag-sanae-takaichi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}