India-Japan pact, a key strategic step

The Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) that India and Japan signed last week is an important milestone in India’s efforts to shore up its security. The agreement not only boosts India-Japan bilateral ties but also further concretises the Indo-Pacific co-operative security architecture.

The India-Japan pact will increase interoperability between the armed forces of the two countries. It will allow their militaries to access each other’s bases for repair and replenishment of supplies. In effect, this will mean that Japan can have access to strategic Indian ports, including its military facilities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI).

The ANI is located at the mouth of the Strait of Malacca, through which much of the world’s oil, including that headed to Japan and China, traverse. Under the ACSA, Japan could access Indian bases in the ANI should a threat emerge to its trade conducted via the Malacca Straits, for instance, or should India and Japan co-operate in dealing with a threat posed by hostile power. Conversely, India could use Japan’s base at Djibouti.

The India-Japan ACSA should not be seen in isolation. Like this pact, India has signed logistical agreements with other countries, including the US, Australia, Singapore, France and South Korea. With the ACSA with Japan, India has signed military logistics agreements with all the ‘Quad countries’; it will facilitate greater military co-operation among them.

How India, the US, Japan and Australia choose to take forward this co-operation in the coming weeks and months, especially in the context of rising tension between India and China, remains to be seen. Relations of all four countries vis-à-vis China have frayed seriously in recent months. They have been reticent about coming out in the open about their shared perception of a threat from China. Will that change, should armed conflict erupt along the LAC?

The military logistical pacts with Japan and other naval powers have extended India’s naval reach far beyond India’s waters into the Pacific Ocean. It signals India’s growing ambitions as a global power. However, for these ambitions to be realised, India must back the signing of logistics pacts by beefing up and mordernising its maritime and naval infrastructural capacity.

With China’s reach into the Indian Ocean growing rapidly near sea lanes of communication vital for India’s trade and at critical choke points, whether through its building of warships, the Belt and Road Initiative or base arrangements with Indian Ocean states, India has a lot of catching up to do. India’s logistical pacts provide a foundation. The hard work of building on these pacts deserve attention.