Modi’s India and Japan: nested strategic partnerships

The three pillars of India’s foreign policy strategy under an overarching preference for ‘strategic autonomy’ are security, economic development, and status. Japan plays a significant part with respect to all three. We employ an analytical framework that assesses how Narendra Modi, in line with a trend set in motion by his predecessors, has attempted to build the India–Japan partnership through a set of nested strategic partnerships: bilateral (India–Japan), trilateral (India–Japan–United States) and quadrilateral (India–Japan–United States–Australia). We examine the extent to which Modi has contributed to the strengthening of each of these partnerships with respect to institutionalisation, security, economic interaction and status. Our findings show the degree of continuity or change wrought by Modi in each case and the reasons for this. We conclude that Modi’s transformative impact has been limited, though he has been able to take two of the three strategic partnerships forward to a significant extent.