By Prof. Swaran Singh
The summit is witness to how much can Modi and Kishida harmonise their positions to achieve better outcomes from their hosting of G7 and G20 summits for both their nations
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in New Delhi on Monday for his 27-hour visit for an annual summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Given their rapidly growing proximity during the last two decades, the two leaders as expected witnessed signing of multiple MoUs and agreements, enunciate a few new initiatives, explored some novel avenues to further strengthen their partnerships and, most of all, further fine-tune their regional and global perspectives.
At the top of their priorities were building better synergies for their respective hosting of the Group of Seven (G7) and Groups of Twenty (G20) summits in May and September in Hiroshima and New Delhi respectively. Both India and Japan currently hold these presidencies of G7 and G20 that have the similar mandate of managing global macroeconomic challenges. Indeed, global governance is expected to gradually shift from G7 to G20 which provides better representation and promising effective outcomes. However, given major powers geopolitical contestations has put hurdles in this transition and two leaders will need to explore how to rekindle that agreed evolution from G7 to G20?
Amongst various great power geopolitical contestations, the Ukraine war has come to be the most recent trigger to bring this transition from G7 to G20 to a virtual grind with no easy resolution in sight for bridging their growing divergence. The Ukraine war has seen G7 drifting away, becoming a platform for major powers anti-Russia platform. At least few of the G7 members have become singularly focused on condemning Russia instead of addressing various economic challenges of the post-pandemic world. In spite of India’s good relations with the G7 this myopic politics on using all forums to condemn Russia has cost G20 its opportunity to address the real challenges of post-pandemic global redemption.
As has been the case of Ukraine war debates at most United Nations organs, this has seen Russia, and even China, vetoing final statements of recent G20 Finance and Foreign Ministers meetings. The same divide now threatens to seal the fate of India’s G20 summit producing an agreed final communique. In this backdrop, as host of the coming G7 summit, Prime Minister Kishida can best appreciate India’s worries about this constant distracting of G20 meetings from its core agenda. But can Prime Minister Kishida provide any relief, or set in the tone for bridging that gulf between G20 and G7? Can this summit set the stage for Prime Minister Modi’s coming US visit rekindling hope of a consensus as India hosts 2023 G20 summit in September?
Reading between the lines
The answer to the above-mentioned questions lies in reading between the fine lines of this growing divide between G20 and G7 and in Japan’s ability to manoeuvre its position in India’s favour. To begin with, this snap dash by Japanese prime minister has triggered a few insinuations that must be first scrutinised. First is question that if Prime Minister Kishida had visited New Delhi last March for his first bilateral summit — which was incidentally also the first post-pandemic in-person India-Japan summit — with Prime Minister Modi, wasn’t it now latter’s turn to undertake a reciprocal visit to Tokyo?
This brings to light the air of informality that undergirds India-Japan interactions. It is important to note that since their last summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister Modi had visited Tokyo twice: for the Quad summit in last May and at former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s funeral last September. Both times Prime Minister Modi had held bilateral sit-ins with Prime Minister Kishida. Now, Prime Minister Modi is again due to visit Japan this May as special guest for the 49th G7 summit being held at Hiroshima.
Second, apart from these three visits of Prime Modi to Japan, Prime Minister Kishida remains committed to replicating the spirit of fabled Modi-Abe friendship. Understandably, he would not wish to see any protocols coming in the way of holding the India-Japan annual summit in time. This is especially so when Prime Minister Kishida is all set to take Japan’s defence expenditure not just beyond its self-imposed limit of 1 per cent of its GDP but to the new NATO limit of 2 per cent of GDP that promises to make Japan a major military power in the Indo-Pacific which has seen India and Japan converging so effectively together.
Speculations also allude to this being a compensation visit. This is because, earlier this month, Japan’s Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa had missed attending the G20 Foreign Ministers meet. Sceptics point to Hayashi arriving New Delhi but the very next day of G20 Foreign Ministers meet to participate in the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting instead. This was explained by Japan in terms of their convention that all cabinet ministers must be present to face the Japanese Diet’s budget committee meeting. But this can also be read as Japan’s effort to avoid associating itself with aggressive anti-Russia line taken by the United State and its close allies at the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting.
After all, Japan does stand at variance from some of these G7 members. For instance, when last May, the G7 had decided to ban imports of Russia crude oil and American multinational ExxonMobil — which held 35 per cent stake in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 project — had walked out of that project, Japan owned the other 30 per cent and India owning 20 per cent had decided to stay on with the project. This may be one example of Japan’s variance from US-led sanctions campaign and condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine yet makes India posture on Ukraine closer to that of Japan compared to few other G7 members.
Ukraine today, Asia tomorrow
The most glaring difference is that both Japan and India not just share disputed borders with rising China but have experienced violent stand-offs with China as well. All other G7 members seem closer to Russia and more focused on the European security situation. The important lesson for Japan and India has been that coming years will see the United States and its European allies entangled in the Ukraine war and later in the reconstruction of Ukraine and European security architecture. Japan meanwhile continues to wait to become a ‘normal’ nation.
The Ukraine war has seen Prime Minister Kishida build his campaign on ‘Ukraine today and East Asia tomorrow’ which was reinforced last August by an accelerated pace of Sino-American brinkmanship during former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. This saw China unleashing its largest-ever military exercise in Taiwan Strait. This is bound to make Japan look for alternative partners. And, for India’s ideal strategic position in the Indian Ocean and for being the world’s largest democracy, Kishida sees India as the aptest and an also most acceptable partner for asserting Japan’s strategic autonomy through its major Indo-Pacific initiatives.
Referring to China’s aggressive military posturing in East China and South China Seas and Taiwan Strait in his Shangri La Dialogue speech last June, Prime Minister Kishida had promised to lay out his Free and Open Indo-Pacific for Peace plan by next spring. He is expected to announce this plan in New Delhi today which may see him underline the centrality of the India-Japan partnership and to India’s increasingly significant role in the Indo-Pacific region. This initiative could entail Japan and India working together to further improve maritime warning and surveillance capabilities and developing ports and other infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific littoral. India is already part of the recently launched Indo-Pacific Economic Forum and Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Initiative.
But this does not mean that two prime ministers will find it easy to bridge this gap between G20 and G7. There remain palpable differences when it comes to the Ukraine war. Japan continues to push for more sanctions against Russia while India has refused to condemn Russia; follows a stance of proactive neutrality and seeks to prevent the G20 from becoming a forum for major powers’ geopolitics. The summit is witness to how much can Modi and Kishida harmonise their positions to achieve better outcomes from their hosting of G7 and G20 summits for both their nations.
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Originally published: FirstPost, March 21, 2023.
Posted in SIS Blog with the authorization of the author.
Swaran Singh is visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Calgary, Alberta, and professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India