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India on Thursday welcomed Japan’s decision to ease long-standing curbs on defence exports, signalling a potential opening for deeper military-industrial cooperation between the two countries amid growing strategic flux in the Indo-Pacific.
Responding to Tokyo’s policy shift, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir
Jaiswal said India views the move as an opportunity to expand “practical cooperation” under the bilateral Special Strategic and Global Partnership. He underlined that defence and security ties remain a central pillar of the relationship, with both sides committed to advancing technology and industrial collaboration involving government and private stakeholders.
The policy recalibration by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi marks a significant departure from Japan’s post-war pacifist framework, which had tightly restricted arms exports for decades. Tokyo will now permit the transfer of a wider range of defence equipment, including lethal systems, to a select group of partner countries with existing security arrangements. The shift reflects Japan’s response to a rapidly deteriorating regional security environment.
For India, the timing is notable. Both New Delhi and Tokyo are navigating the challenges posed by an assertive China across the Indo-Pacific. Their cooperation spans bilateral engagements and multilateral platforms such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), where maritime security and rules-based order remain key themes.
Defence ties between India and Japan have expanded steadily over the past decade, anchored in agreements on logistics support, information security, and equipment transfer. Regular exercises such as JIMEX and Dharma Guardian have improved interoperability between the two militaries, particularly in the maritime and air domains. Tokyo has also shown willingness to offer advanced platforms, including the Mogami-class stealth frigates, underscoring a gradual shift towards more substantive engagement.
Japan’s evolving export posture is already visible elsewhere. Its recent transfer of air surveillance radar systems to the Philippines and a major naval deal involving Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Australia indicate Tokyo’s growing readiness to operationalise its defence industry capabilities overseas.
Yet, despite the political convergence, India–Japan defence industrial cooperation has struggled to translate into concrete outcomes. High-profile projects have faltered. Negotiations over the US-2 amphibious aircraft of 2018, once seen as a flagship collaboration, stalled due to differences over cost, technology transfer, and production arrangements. Similarly, Japan’s limited response to India’s submarine programme queries highlighted gaps in alignment on complex, high-end platforms.
Even with an institutional framework in place, including the Joint Working Group on Defence Equipment and Technology Cooperation and the India–Japan Defence Industry Forum, results have been modest. The joint research initiative between Japan’s ATLA and India’s DRDO on unmanned ground vehicles remains at a developmental stage, while the co-development of the Unified Complex Radio Antenna-UNICORN sensor mast is only beginning to show promise.
Structural constraints continue to weigh on the partnership. India’s emphasis on indigenisation, local manufacturing, and technology absorption under initiatives like Make in India often clashes with Japan’s cautious approach to intellectual property protection and export controls. Japanese firms, long accustomed to a protected domestic market, remain wary of large-scale overseas commitments involving deep technology sharing.
Cost competitiveness is another hurdle. Japanese defence systems, developed without the benefit of large export volumes, often struggle to match the pricing expectations of India’s procurement ecosystem.
Even so, Japan’s policy shift opens a fresh window. As warfare evolves, with increasing reliance on drones, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems, both countries share overlapping priorities in emerging technologies. The challenge will be to move beyond declaratory intent and address the regulatory, commercial, and industrial gaps that have so far limited progress.
For India, Japan’s recalibrated defence posture offers both an opportunity and a test: whether the partnership can finally deliver tangible outcomes, or remain a strategically aligned but industrially under-realised relationship.
Ravi Shankar
Dr Ravi Shankar has over two decades of experience in communications, print journalism, electronic media, documentary film making and new media.
He makes regular appearances on national television news channels as a commentator and analyst on current and political affairs. Apart from being an acknowledged Journalist, he has been a passionate newsroom manager bringing a wide range of journalistic experience from past associations with India’s leading media conglomerates (Times of India group and India Today group) and had led global news-gathering operations at world’s biggest multimedia news agency- ANI-Reuters. He has covered Parliament extensively over the past several years. Widely traveled, he has covered several summits as part of media delegation accompanying the Indian President, Vice President, Prime Minister, External Affairs Minister and Finance Minister across Asia, Africa and Europe.
