Nikkei Asia<\/a> on July 26, 2026 and writtenn by Farwa Aamer, ASPI’s Director of South Asia Iniatitives, and Emma Chanlett-Avery, ASPI’s Director of Political-Security Affairs.\u00a0<\/p>\nPrime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s timely first visit to India for the 16th India-Japan summit last week broadcast a blossoming relationship between the two Asian heavyweights. While the summit advanced cooperation across AI, defense, energy and supply chain security, its broader significance lay in what it revealed about the evolving geopolitical landscape. As Beijing’s economic coercion intensifies and Washington’s strategic consistency wavers, middle powers are increasingly looking to one another to preserve their autonomy and build buffers. Tokyo and Delhi are at the forefront of this trend, developing a relationship that could prove to be among the most consequential in redefining the rules of the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n
India and Japan’s partnership is anchored by a strong foundation. The two countries have long enjoyed a warm relationship, rooted in deep cultural ties, particularly Japan’s embrace of Buddhism that spread from India in the sixth century. In more modern times, the two countries are not dogged by World War II baggage: Japan never occupied India in its expansionist conquest of Asia. Following the conclusion of the war, at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal voted alone to acquit all 25 defendants, which some conservative Japanese consider to be a cornerstone of the India-Japan relationship.<\/p>\n
Read the full op-ed here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikkei Asia The following excerpt comes from an op-ed was published in Nikkei Asia on July 26, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[938,72,38165,18467,217,17002,251,8,500,33,36990,2258],"class_list":["post-58213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-arts","tag-asia","tag-asia-society","tag-blog","tag-business","tag-countries","tag-education","tag-japan","tag-lifestyle","tag-nihon","tag-non-profit","tag-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58213","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=58213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}