AMBIGUITY REMAINS

    As much as trade discussions and future bilateral economic agreements and ventures between Japan and India have gone a long way to improving economic dialogue between the two nations, New Delhi was left wanting to know more about India's place in Hatoyama's proposed East Asian community.

    Political analysts have pointed out that the fact that India, as the world's second most populous nation, with genuine prospects of becoming the third largest economy globally in a decade, received no mention in the election manifesto of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and fear that Hatoyama's recent visit was a goodwill gesture rather than a concerted move towards including India in his designs for a powerful and autonomous East Asian community.

    Over the years, the unrealized potential of India-Japan relations has been the staple of much discourse on the subject and the debates are intensifying.

    "Not much is also known about Prime Minister Hatoyama's and the DPJ's perspectives on Japan's relations with India in an Asian neighborhood where both China and India will figure prominently in the years to come. And what has been known so far does not quite point to the possibility of a re-orientation of Japan's policy towards India at the political and economic levels," said C.P. Ravindranathan, a former Indian envoy and honorary professor at Xavier's Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship (XIME) in Bangalore, India.

    Annual summits and a structure of multiple channels of dialogue were to be the change drivers in this inchoate partnership, but it seems, at least for now, Japan-India relations are predominantly prioritizing trade and commerce.

    "However, with the change of government in Japan, and a party in power for the first time at that, there is some uncertainty as to how India-Japan relations will fare in the immediate future," Ravindranathan said in an interview with a local media of India.

    What New Delhi really expected from Hatoyama on his recent visit was for him to unequivocally proclaim Japan's political will to partner with India, a clear stance inspired by a larger vision of Asia wherein a Japan-India relationship will serve to promote both nation's economic interests and security in a multi-polar world, political commentators indicated.

    The two nations failed in their attempt to raise their bilateral strategic profile as differences in opinion over India's civil nuclear operations and India's hope for support from Japan, could not be resolved -- an issue that could negatively impact future diplomatic tie between the two nations.

    Hatoyama said Japan would not be supplying India with nuclear reactors and other material for India's civilian nuclear sector any time soon, thereby limiting India's options to quickly develop its atomic power segment and generate the electricity it needs to fuel its developmental needs.

    "We discussed civil nuclear cooperation. This would become a very important agenda in the future," said Hatoyama, indicating that Tokyo has problems with New Delhi's refusal to sign either the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

    "I expressed the hope that along with the U.S. and China, India will sign and ratify the (CTBT) treaty," Hatoyama said.

    According to sources close to the matter, weighing heavily on India's appeal to Japan for civil nuclear cooperation, was the issue of Japan's sanctioning and additional punitive punishments administered to India following the country's test explosions of five nuclear weapons in May 1998. The tests were heavily condemned by the United Nations, the United States, as well as Japan.

    Tokyo and New Delhi have reached out to each other in a positive move towards readdressing their existing relationship and although the direction of this relationship remains, as yet, somewhat unclear, to the chagrin of a number of ministry official and political analysts in India, Hatoyama's visit to India has opened up future, increased trade prospects for both countries and paved the way for improved, more frequent diplomatic dialogue to ensue as India's presence on Japan's economic radar grows ever bigger.