Finance
S. Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs, stated on Thursday that Japan needs to acknowledge how quickly India is changing and that it is now a completely different country.
Speaking at the inaugural Raisina Roundtable in Tokyo, which is an important step in improving track 2 contacts between the two nations, the minister claimed that India has changed, becoming a more reliable and effective partner.
“I think it’s important that Japan today appreciates the pace of change in India. This is a country today which is building 28 kilometers of highway every day, which is creating eight new airports every year, which is establishing one-and-a-half to two metros every year…”
He further said that in the last 10 years, India has built two new colleges every day and has doubled its technical and medical institutions and that “this transformation of India makes us a more effective and credible partner”.
“Whether it is the ease of doing business, infrastructure development, ease of living, digital delivery, startup, and innovation culture… India is clearly a very different country today. This is important for the Japanese to recognise,” the minister said, adding that India is increasingly turning to like-minded partners who gather together for a particular purpose.
Agreeing that the most universal expression of the global order is still the United Nations, Dr Jaishankar said that its reform is of paramount importance, and India and Japan seek to make the UN structures more contemporary.
“This is clearly an uphill task but one in which we must persevere as two powers that are so central to multipolarity in Asia. It is also in our common interest that the overall balance remains in favour of freedom, openness, transparency, and a rules-based order,” the minister said.
Stating that the world is now more volatile, uncertain, unpredictable, and open-ended, Jaishankar said that it is a “prospect that India and Japan have to confront, both from the National perspectives as well as from the point of view of their own relationship”.
In addition, the minister made a request for Japanese collaboration on development aid to the Global South.
He went on to say that India’s development efforts now encompass 78 countries on several continents since it is a prominent voice of the Global South and is “particularly conscious of this responsibility.”
Following the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi last month, the first Raisina Roundtable@Tokyo focused on how Japan and India, who have a unique strategic and global partnership, plan to address the issues facing the global order.
From March 6–8, Jaishankar will be in Japan for three days as part of the 16th India–Japan Foreign Ministers Strategic Dialogue, which will be hosted by Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa.
It is anticipated that the two ministers would converse about matters of mutual, regional, and worldwide significance and share perspectives on collaborating for a free, open, inclusive, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
The last ten years have seen considerable development of the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership in areas including digital and defense technologies, semiconductor supply chains, sustainable energy, high-speed rail, industrial competitiveness, and connectivity.
Source: IANS
