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Signal to China? Modi extends Japan trip by a day

Author: Sachin Parashar
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 26, 2014
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Signal-to-China-Modi-extends-Japan-trip-by-a-day/articleshow/40861869.cms

If anybody thought Japan had fallen off PM Narendra Modi's radar after he decided to postpone his visit in July, Modi is more than making up for it. In a sign that Japan remains one of the countries closest to his heart, Modi on Sunday decided to extend his visit to Japan starting later this week by a day.

TOI has learnt that Modi will now depart for Tokyo on August 30, not August 31 as the government had earlier announced, and will visit one more city apart from Tokyo. The extension of the visit could send a bold signal to China.

The PM was earlier scheduled to depart for Tokyo on August 31 and return on September 3. With the change in schedule, Modi will now spend four nights in Japan, the maximum by any Indian PM on a bilateral visit in recent times. The move by Modi, who likes to keep his schedule very tight during visits abroad, is certain to please his admirers in Japan, a country he was on outstanding terms with even as Gujarat CM.

Modi is also known to share a great personal rapport with his counterpart Shinzo Abe, who regularly draws comparison with Modi for his nationalist leanings.

 Modi, who has been described by some as India's? Shinzo Abe and others as India's Richard Nixon, will do a tough balancing act next month when he hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping, weeks after his meeting with Abe.

While India and Japan look at each other as important partners for ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, in the face of growing Chinese assertiveness, Modi is also looking at exploring new opportunities with Beijing at least in the form of greater economic engagement, as he told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in a telephonic conversation after taking over as PM. Li told Modi then that China wanted a more robust partnership with India.

 It may be recalled that Modi's predecessor Manmohan Singh too had decided to extend his visit to Japan at the last moment in 2013. Coming as it did just after a standoff over Chinese incursion into Ladakh which lasted for weeks, top government officials? did not shy away from admitting that Singh's decision was by design and meant to send a signal to Beijing.

Modi is hoping for, as foreign minister Sushma Swaraj put it earlier, a successful and substantive visit to Tokyo. While the negotiations for a civil nuclear cooperation agreement continue to linger on, the government is hoping to conclude a deal for purchase of US-2 amphibian aircraft from Japan which, under Abe, has just eased its almost 50-year-old self-imposed ban on arms export and transfer of defence technology. As reported by the Japanese media, Tokyo may allow India to manufacture parts of the military aircraft to execute the deal.

    
Japan will also be Modi's most important bilateral visit since taking over as PM. With Gujarat now hailed by Japan as a favourite investment destination, as its ambassador Takeshi Yagi put it recently, Modi has enough goodwill he earned there as the state's CM. He has spoken effusively about his experience of working with Japan and tweeted earlier that he wanted to take relations with Japan to newer heights. Abe continues to maintain that the India-Japan bilateral relationship has more potential that any other similar relationship in the world.
 
 
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