Asia's Natural-Born Allies
NEW DELHI – At a time when China’s economic, diplomatic, and military rise casts the shadow of a power disequilibrium over Asia, the just-concluded visit of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to India cemented a fast-growing relationship between two natural allies. Now the task for Japan and India is to add concrete strategic content to their ties.
Asia’s emerging balance of power will be determined principally by events in East Asia and the Indian Ocean. Japan and India thus have an important role to play in preserving stability and helping to safeguard vital sea-lanes in the wider Indo-Pacific region – a region defined not only by the confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but also by its significance for world trade and energy supplies.
Asia’s booming economies are coastal, so maritime democracies like Japan and India must work together to help build a stable, liberal, rules-based order in Asia. As Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at the East Asia Summit (EAS) meeting in Bali last month, Asia’s continued rise is not automatically assured, and is “dependent on the evolution of a cooperative architecture.”
The total cost of the project is Rs 380 crore, of which the Oil India Development Board sanctioned a Rs 81-crore loan on minimum interest to the AGCL. The pipeline, approximately 193km long and 16-inch in diameter, will help OIL sell 1 million standard