Japan pushes for 4-party talks with India, US and Australia

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson leaves Delhi Thursday. (Source: Reuters Photo)

A day after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj that Washington was looking forward to “further cooperation in the broader Indo-Pacific region”, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono told The Nikkei Business Daily that Japan would propose a top-level dialogue with the US, India and Australia.

The idea is aimed at countering China’s aggressive maritime expansion under its Belt and Road Initiative. While there was no official statement from the Ministry of External Affairs, South Block sources told The Indian Express that New Delhi and other partner countries have held discussions at the “working level” on the issue and it is expected to be fleshed out in the lead-up to the ASEAN summit in the Philippines in mid-November. “There is a broad understanding at the official level. Now, the decision has to be taken at the political level,” said a source.

In fact, Swaraj hinted at the possibility of cooperation after meeting Tillerson on Wednesday. She said they agreed that they would work together, and “with other partners”, to promote Indo-Pacific cooperation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to travel to the Philippines in the second week of November to attend the 31st ASEAN and East Asia summit, where he is expected to meet US President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping, among others.

Kono said he had exchanged thoughts on the four-party dialogue with Tillerson and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in August, on the sidelines of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Manila. Kono, Tillerson and Swaraj had a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September, where some of these issues were discussed.

The idea is for leaders of the four nations to promote free trade and defence cooperation across a stretch of ocean from the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean and all the way to Africa. Kono also said he offered the foreign ministers of the UK and France collaborative roles in the partnership. Abe will officially propose the dialogue partnership to Trump during their bilateral meeting on November 6.

“We are in an era when Japan has to exert itself diplomatically by drawing a big strategic picture,” Kono told The Nikkei. In New Delhi, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, while participating in a panel discussion organised by Carnegie India on regional cooperation in the Bay of Bengal between India and Japan, said: “We are interested in working with nations whose broad goals are aligned with us. Japan is one such nation.”

“Beyond bilateral ties, India-Japan relations have a larger value for Asia. Every movie doesn’t need a villain,” he said, responding to a question on whether the partnership is aimed at a “villain”. “I don’t think that projecting competition with China is doing justice to us,” he said, referring to India and Japan working together.

On a broader policy level, he said, “The issue for Indian foreign policy is as you grow, does your sense of responsibility expand commensurately? We (India) can’t always be a follower or an abstainer in international discussions.” This indicated India’s willingness to engage with the “quadrilateral idea”, which was mooted by US officials earlier. Ahead of Tillerson’s visit on October 24, discussions between the two sides on the quadrilateral group — India, US, Japan and Australia — had picked up in preparatory meetings between the two sides, as reported by The Indian Express on October 21.

This tied in well with the focus on “Indo-Pacific” at a policy speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC on Wednesday night, titled “Defining our relationship with India for the next century”. In his speech, Tillerson mentioned “Indo-Pacific” 19 times, clearly making it the centrepiece of his remarks. Japan expects to play a major role in ensuring freedom of navigation in bodies of water that include the South China Sea, in which China has been developing a military presence.