India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba shake hands during a joint press conference in Tokyo Friday. Modi is on a diplomatic visit to Japan. Photo by Taklashi Aoyama/EPA
Aug. 29 (UPI) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba agreed Friday to boost trade and cooperation between their two countries in the next decade.
The agreement included Japan agreeing to a $68 billion investment in India, along with a plan to increase mutual personnel exchanges between the two nations to 500,000 within five years, including 50,000 “skilled personnel and potential talents from India to Japan.”
“The two prime ministers came to a common understanding that the India-Japan partnership stands at an important juncture and that it is imperative to develop a mutually complementary relationship by building upon our accomplishments and to leverage our respective strengths as well as excellent ties to pursue security and prosperity for the next generations,” the leaders wrote in a joint statement.
The joint statement further expressed “serious concern” by both prime ministers about Chinese military activities in the East China Sea and the South China Sea as they announced a Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation, which they said “elevates our defense and security ties to the next level, taking into account the contemporary geopolitical realities and security configurations in the region.”
They said they will expand drills between the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Indian Armed Forces. It was the first update since it was created in 2008.
“Japan and India are both responsible for maintaining and strengthening a free and open international order based on the rule of law,” Ishiba said at a joint press conference.
“India and Japan are fully committed to a free, open, peaceful, prosperous and rules-based Indo-Pacific. Our concerns over terrorism and cybersecurity are similar. Our mutual interests are linked to defense and maritime security. We have decided that cooperation in the sector of defense industry and innovation will be further strengthened,” Modi said.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump imposed a 50% tariff on goods imported from India in retaliation for India continuing to buy oil from Russia.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, responding to a question about the 50% tariff on India, said, “Both the prime ministers exchanged views on the global situation, the impact that some of these moves have had, and how that essentially creates the ground and the logic for closer cooperation between India and Japan,” the Times of India reported.
China will host Indian Modi for a regional security summit this weekend.
Modi will travel to China for his first visit in seven years, as India and China have feuded in the past over a border dispute in the Himalayas.
