Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 13
Sending a two-way diplomatic hint, India has indicated that it will continue to simultaneously engage militarily with Japan and China. On Monday, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag will be in Japan on a four-day visit even as a high-level Chinese military delegation will be in India to hold talks.
General Suhag’s visit comes seven months after Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar visited Japan and spoke about broad-basing military ties and said both countries want to make the area of defence equipment and technology a key pillar of bilateral defence relations. Last month, Japanese warships joined Indian and US warships for ‘submarine hunting’ exercise in the Bay of Bengal.
During the time when the India-US-Japan exercise was on in the Bay of Bengal, a team of the Indian Army was exercising with their Chinese counterparts in Kunming China.
China, has not appreciated the recent military overtures between New Delhi and Tokyo. In August, Lu Yaodong, Director of the China’s state-run Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote an article, “Indo-Japanese military cooperation dangerous for Asia”, arguing India and Japan have been getting closer faster as they are eyeing China collectively.
Part of China’s fear could be historic due to Japanese imperial forces having attacked China in the 1930s, while India’s concerns are largely of maintaining equity in waters of the South China Sea and also the Indian Ocean, said a senior functionary in India.
Beijing often asks “outside powers” — read that as India US and Japan — to stay out of the South China Sea dispute. A large volume of India’s east going trade passes through these waters.
A 26-member Chinese delegation led by General Fan Changlong, who is Vice-Chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission, will be in India from November 15 to 17.
This is being seen as the highest-level People’s Liberation Army delegation to visit India. The visit could set the agenda for border talks.