Tokyo: India and Japan have decided to boost their defence cooperation by including more combat exercises, exchanges, and collaboration in military and dual-use technologies, all the while keeping an eye on China. Both the countries will also work towards including anti-submarine warfare training in their expanding military-to-military ties at a time when Chinese submarines have begun regularly venturing into the Indian Ocean region.
The decision was made during a meeting where Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who previously also held the defence portfolio, met with Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera during the bilateral annual defence ministerial dialogue in Tokyo. Jaitley welcomed Japan's proposal to field its state-of-art military assets, including the P-1 maritime patrol aircraft with potent anti-submarine warfare capabilities, for the Malabar exercise next year. Both nations will also enhance their cooperation on counter-terrorism, which will include a joint field exercise between the armies of the two countries in 2018.
India and Japan also decided to begin technical discussions for joint research on unmanned ground vehicles and robotics, as also carry forward the talks on Japanese US-2i amphibious aircraft. A joint statement read, “The ministers exchanged views and ideas with the aim to further strengthen defence and security cooperation under the framework of the 'Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership'”.
