In Japan's 'China plus one' policy, how India could become the 'better choice'

Key points

• Sujan R.
• Chinoy, Director General of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) and a former Ambassador of India to Japan, has called for stronger India-Japan ties, suggesting that the bilateral relationship had got a boost from factors such as India’s emergence as an economic power and China’s rising economic-military might and geopolitical assertion.
• Chinoy was speaking during the session ‘Bilateral Boost: India-Japan in an Uncertain World Order’ at the third edition of the India Today Indo-Japan Conclave held in New Delhi on May 22. Read Full Story Chinoy said that in the initial decades after India’s independence, Tokyo looked at New Delhi through the eyes of its own alliances and partnerships with the West, and “that put certain limits to the kind of engagement we could have otherwise achieved because of our historical relations”.
• What then propelled the bilateral relations?
• Chinoy noted that it was India’s...