India-Japan Defence Ties: Is China Driving the Strategic Reset?

India and Japan are moving beyond strategic partnership towards a more consequential defence relationship — and China is an important part of the story.

Japanese Defence Minister Koizumi’s August 2026 visit to India, his first since taking office, produced a significant step forward with the signing of a Memorandum of Arrangement on Maritime Security Cooperation.

The agreement expands cooperation across maritime domain awareness, search and rescue, HADR, protection of sea lanes, military exercises and Special Forces exchanges. It also opens the door to deeper defence R&D cooperation between India’s DRDO and Japan’s ATLA, while the two countries are exploring possibilities for joint naval shipbuilding and design.

The timing is significant. Japan has begun easing its longstanding restrictions on defence exports, while India is pushing aggressively for greater domestic defence manufacturing. Japan brings advanced technology, capital and an established industrial base; India brings scale, production capacity and strategic geography.

The UNICORN integrated communications antenna system, the first defence equipment transfer project between the two countries, could be an important beginning. The proposed cooperation around Japan’s Mogami-class frigates could take the relationship further — from buying and selling equipment to actually building together.

But the strategic backdrop cannot be ignored.

For India, China remains a major security challenge along the LAC. For Japan, Chinese activity around the Senkaku Islands and the East China Sea has become a persistent concern. Both countries also have an interest in reducing vulnerabilities created by dependence on China for critical minerals, components and supply chains.

The evolution of the relationship owes much to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose strategic vision helped push India-Japan ties beyond their traditionally economic focus.

In this edition of Defence Mantra, Nitin A. Gokhale examines how far this partnership can go — and whether India and Japan are finally moving from talking, to training, to sharing information, to building together.