India, Japan and ASEAN

The first principle

India's future lies as much to its east as to its west, because the economic centre of the world has moved to East Asia and so has the main challenge to a rules based order. Japan and the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) want what India wants: growth through open trade, no single dominant power in Asia, and disputes settled by law rather than force. India brings size, a navy and a market; Japan brings capital and technology; ASEAN brings the region's diplomatic centre. Everything in this note follows from that overlap of interests.

The core

Japan: from distant friend to closest Asian partner

• Steps of the partnership. Ties were raised to a Global Partnership in 2000, a Strategic and Global Partnership in 2006, and a Special Strategic and Global Partnership in September 2014, with annual summits since 2006. A 2+2 dialogue of foreign and defence ministers began in 2019, a mechanism India has only with its closest partners.
• Trade and investment. The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) came into force in 2011. Japan set a target of 3.5 trillion yen of public and private investment over five years in 2014, then 5 trillion yen over five years in March 2022, and in August 2025 the two governments set a goal of 10 trillion yen of private investment from Japan over the next decade.
• Development partner. Japan is the largest bilateral donor of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to India, and India has been the largest recipient of Japanese ODA for most years since the early 2000s. Loans through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) built much of the Delhi Metro and fund the Mumbai Ahmedabad High Speed Rail, which uses Shinkansen technology.
• Nuclear trust. The civil nuclear agreement signed in November 2016 was the first Japan concluded with a country outside the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, which shows the political trust behind the relationship.
• Defence and security. Japan joined the Malabar naval exercise as a permanent member in 2015, the navies hold the Japan India Maritime Exercise (JIMEX), and an Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA) signed in September 2020 lets each force draw fuel, supplies and services from the other.

ASEAN: from Look East to Act East

• The Look East Policy (1991 to 1992). After the Cold War and the 1991 balance of payments crisis, India turned to the fast growing economies of Southeast Asia for trade and investment. It became a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992, a full dialogue partner and member of the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1996, and a summit level partner in 2002.
• Deepening. India was a founding member of the East Asia Summit in 2005, the partnership became strategic in 2012, and in November 2022 it was raised to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The ASEAN India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) was signed in 2009 and came into force in 2010, followed by agreements on services and investment.
• The Act East Policy (2014). Announced at the ASEAN India and East Asia summits in Myanmar in November 2014, it widened the aim from economics to strategy, built on Commerce, Culture and Connectivity with security added, and it extends beyond ASEAN to Japan, Korea, Australia and the Pacific islands. It also gives India's northeast a role as the gateway to Southeast Asia.

Dimensions

Why India Japan ties matter for Asia and the world

• Balance of power. Both countries face an assertive China, Japan in the East China Sea and India on the Line of Actual Control, and together with the United States and Australia they form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's speech to India's Parliament in 2007 on the "confluence of the two seas" gave the Indo Pacific idea its early form.
• Rules based order. Two large democracies that support freedom of navigation and the peaceful settlement of disputes give weight to those rules across Asia.
• Economics and technology. Japan's capital, Indian talent and a large Indian market fit together. With Australia, the two launched the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) in 2021 to reduce dependence on any single country for critical inputs, and they now cooperate on semiconductors, critical minerals and clean energy.
• Development of third regions. The Act East Forum (2017) channels Japanese projects into roads, bridges and power in India's northeast, and the two have worked on projects in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Africa as an alternative to debt heavy infrastructure.

Strategy and the South China Sea

• India's position. India supports freedom of navigation and overflight and unimpeded lawful commerce under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982, and peaceful settlement of disputes. It wants any code of conduct between China and ASEAN to be consistent with UNCLOS and not to harm the rights of third parties.
• Stake. A large share of India's trade with East Asia passes through the South China Sea, and ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has explored for oil off Vietnam. In a joint statement with the Philippines in June 2023, India called for adherence to the 2016 arbitral award in the case the Philippines brought against China.

In practice

Connectivity and security with Southeast Asia

• Kaladan Multi Modal Transit Transport Project. It links Kolkata by sea to Sittwe port in Myanmar, then by river and road to Mizoram, giving the northeast a route that avoids the narrow Siliguri corridor. Sittwe port began operating in 2023, while the road section has been slowed by conflict in Myanmar.
• India Myanmar Thailand Trilateral Highway. It runs from Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand and is meant to be extended to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, but it has faced long delays.
• BrahMos to the Philippines. In January 2022 the Philippines signed a contract for shore based BrahMos anti ship missiles, India's largest defence export deal at the time, and the first systems were delivered in April 2024.
• Partner by partner. Vietnam is a Comprehensive Strategic Partner since 2016 and has received Indian defence lines of credit; Indonesia, a Comprehensive Strategic Partner since 2018, cooperates on the port of Sabang near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Singapore, India's leading source of foreign investment, became a Comprehensive Strategic Partner in September 2024 with a focus on semiconductors.

Why India left the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

• The decision. India walked out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations in November 2019, after seven years of talks; the other fifteen countries signed in 2020. The Prime Minister said the agreement did not address India's outstanding issues and concerns.
• The reasons. India's trade deficit with China, which RCEP would have widened; no automatic safeguard against sudden import surges; weak rules of origin that allowed goods to be routed through partners; little opening for Indian services and professionals; and the risk to dairy, farm and small industry.
• The lesson from AITIGA. India's deficit with ASEAN grew after 2010 while its exports gained less, so India pressed for a review of AITIGA, which began in 2023, to update rules of origin and remove barriers to Indian goods.

The Indian diaspora in Southeast Asia

Indian communities in Malaysia, Singapore and Myanmar go back to colonial labour migration and older trade, and Tamil is an official language of Singapore. They run businesses, sit in governments and keep alive temples, festivals and languages that give India a cultural presence in the region; their role is covered in the note on the Indian diaspora.

Issues and way forward

• Slow delivery. Kaladan, the Trilateral Highway and the high speed rail have all run years late, which hurts India's credibility against faster Chinese projects. Dedicated project units, better land acquisition and joint work with Japan in third countries can speed them up.
• Trade imbalance. India gains less from trade agreements than its partners because of weak manufacturing and non tariff barriers abroad. A modern AITIGA, production linked incentives and use of Japan's capital to move supply chains to India address the cause rather than the symptom.
• Myanmar's instability. Conflict since 2021 threatens the land route to Southeast Asia, so India must engage all actors while protecting its projects and border.
• ASEAN unity. ASEAN members differ on China, and India must respect ASEAN centrality, as the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo Pacific (2019) asks, rather than push members to take sides.

Common confusions

• Look East and Act East. Look East was mainly economic and focused on Southeast Asia; Act East adds security and connectivity and covers the whole Indo Pacific.
• Japan's CEPA and RCEP. India has a bilateral CEPA with Japan, in force since 2011; RCEP is a separate regional agreement that India did not join, although Japan did.
• ASEAN and the East Asia Summit. ASEAN is a group of Southeast Asian states (eleven since Timor Leste joined in October 2025); the East Asia Summit is a wider ASEAN led forum that includes India, Japan, China and the United States.
• Freedom of navigation and taking sides. India's support for UNCLOS is a position on law, not on who owns which island; India takes no position on the sovereignty claims themselves.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: Special Strategic and Global Partnership, 2+2 dialogue, Japanese ODA, high speed rail, civil nuclear agreement, Act East Forum, SCRI, Quad, Look East, Act East, Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, AITIGA review, RCEP exit, Kaladan, freedom of navigation.
• Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: "In August 2025 India and Japan set a goal of 10 trillion yen of Japanese private investment in India over a decade, double the 2022 target, which shows how far the partnership has moved from aid to shared growth."
  • Introduction with a quote: "Shinzo Abe called the Indian and Pacific Oceans a 'confluence of the two seas' in India's Parliament in 2007, an idea that grew into today's Indo Pacific."
  • Conclusion: "A partnership of Japan's capital and technology with India's scale and talent offers Asia a model of growth that does not depend on any single power."
  • Conclusion: "Act East will be judged not by summits but by delivery, by finished roads to Myanmar, a balanced trade agreement with ASEAN and a navy present in the seas that carry India's trade."