Years before the term Indo-Pacific officially entered diplomatic lexicon, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe had spoken about India and Japan’s responsibility to maintain the merging of Indian and Pacific Ocean to ensure regional freedom and prosperity.
Abe, the longest prime minister in Japan, made a prescient statement while giving a speech at the Indian parliament in August 2007, during his first term of office at the office. The speech featured many ideas and concepts that he described to expand relations with India in the second and longer assignments as prime ministers.”The Pacific and Indian sea now carry a dynamic clutch as a sea of freedom and prosperity. ‘Wider Asia’ which separates geographical boundaries now begins to take different forms. Both of our countries have the ability – and responsibility – to ensure that it extends further and to maintain and enrich this ocean to become the clearest sea of transparency, “he said.
“This is a message that I want to give directly today to one billion people in India,” he added, in a speech that quoted the thoughts of the two spiritual leaders Swami Vivekananda and Prince Mughal Dara Shikoh.Abe, who was shot dead by a former Navy personnel when making an election campaign speech on Friday, was widely seen as the main architect of a quadrilateral or quad security dialogue, which united Australia, India, Japan and the US and is now felt as a leading block in Indo- Pacific.
“Japanese diplomacy now promotes various concepts in a number of different areas so that an area called ‘arc of freedom and prosperity’ will be formed along the outer edge of the Eurasian continent … by Japan and India gather in this way, ‘Asian is broader’ It will evolve into a large network that covers the whole Pacific Ocean, combining the United States and Australia, “he said in the same speech.”Open and transparent, this network will allow people, goods, capital, and knowledge to flow freely,” he added.
Although Quad darkened after Australia walked away from the grouping, then revived in November 2017 and then quickly increased to the peak level in less than four years. In a statement that abolished Abe’s death, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the 67-year-old leader’s efforts played an important role in “uniting our countries to realize free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific”.
Indian-Japanese relations with “special strategic and global partnership” in December 2006 to increase all-round cooperation and contribute to greater regional peace and stability.Extraordinary security reform during his second term of office, including the law to expand the role of Japanese martial arts forces, finally opened the way for the signing of the Acquisition and Cross Service Agreement (ACSA) with India in September 2020, where the defense forces of both parties could reciprocal accessing logistics facilities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who first knew Abe during a visit to Japan in 2007 as Chairman of the Gujarat Minister, wrote in a blog on Friday that the two leaders worked together for “Strategic Partnership Transformation that had never happened before”.”From the most narrow bilateral economic relations, Abe san helps turn it into a broad and comprehensive relationship, which not only includes every national business field, but it becomes very important for our two countries and security in the region,” Modi wrote in the blog titled “My Friend, Abe San”.
“For him, this is one of the most consequence relationships for people in our two countries and the world. He was firm in pursuing a civil nuclear agreement with India – the most difficult for his country – and determining in offering the most generous requirements for high -speed trains in India, “Modi added.Abe’s contribution to strengthen bilateral bonds was recognized by the Padma Vibhushan award, the second highest civilian award in India, for him last year.