Yoshiro visit: Efforts likely to repair ties

By P. S. Suryanarayana

TOKYO, AUG. 11. The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Yoshiro Mori, may play a statesman of the Group of Seven (G-7) major industrialised countries as he seeks to reverse the current regressive trend in Tokyo's ties with India. The expectation is that he will perhaps make a definitive statement or at least some significant announcement during his sojourn in Bangalore in the first phase of his prospective visit to India in about 10 days' time, according to officials and diplomats here.

The outlines of any such possible statement are not yet clear, the available indication being that it is still receiving finishing touches. However, it will set the stage for Mr. Mori's political talks with his Indian counterpart, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, in New Delhi thereafter. Mr. Mori will need to walk the proverbial tight rope in seeking to repair the ties that suffered a near-grievous setback in the context of Tokyo's imposition of retributive economic sanctions on India for its nuclear arms testing. So, the Japanese leader is likely to focus attention on Tokyo's positive diplomacy in regard to the larger issues of the global digital divide and the Information Technology (IT) revolution, according to diplomats.

Mr. Mori very recently played host to the leaders of the G-8 (the G-7 plus Russia) and pushed the IT issue as his agenda. The aims set out in the Okinawa Charter on the Global Information Society and the G-8's move to establish a Digital Opportunities Task Force (dot force) will encourage him to woo India at this stage.

In one sense, however, officials tend to believe that Tokyo's ties with New Delhi have already been normalised in recent months, given that the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, and the Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, visited Japan during this period even as it also reciprocated.

Yet, the Japanese side, which does not therefore need to speak the language of a detente with India, is not downplaying the challenges of striking a new political entente with New Delhi.

By the time Mr. Mori reaches New Delhi for talks with Mr. Vajpayee, he would have already met the Pakistani leaders in Islamabad, where issues relating to Kashmir and nuclear non- proliferation might well have been touched upon. Given India's sensitivities and Japan's diplomatic compulsions of the economic and political kind, a possible option before Mr. Mori has come into focus in diplomatic and media circles here.

It is considered quite unlikely that either India or Pakistan will make a decisive move towards signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) before Mr. Mori's imminent visit to the subcontinent.

The argument, therefore, is that he may, while not lifting the existing sanctions on India and Pakistan, offer additional funds for their ongoing Japan-aided projects, especially if the two countries are to reaffirm pledges of adherence to their own separate promises of moratorium on further nuclear-arms-testing and also indicate the possibility of building a respective national consensus to sign the CTBT in course of time.

In this scenario, Mr. Mori can seek to augment Japanese funds for the existing Japan-assisted schemes without scrapping the aid embargo in regard to absolutely new projects. Japan's official development aid to India, suspended since the subcontinental nuclear detonations, was of the order of $1 billion in the fiscal year before the imposition of sanctions. But the acceptability to India of any such proposal may depend on whether it will view the Japanese move as creative diplomacy or a plain but inadequate gesture.

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Section  : International
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