A new book examines how concerns over China are bringing India and Japan closer

The spectre of conflict and strategic competition has begun to haunt the Indo-Pacific in earnest. In the South China Sea, Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam and Indonesia have nervously watched increasing Chinese incursions into their territorial waters. Further north, the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands have emerged as a significant regional fault line with Chinese vessels making their presence felt, much to the discomfiture of Japan. As the full scale of China’s economic and military power is brought to bear on the region, India and Japan have grown ever closer in an attempt to balance the scales of power. This relationship, while undoubtedly forged in crisis and in the desire to unite against a common competitor, has grown beyond a simple deterrent and now encompasses a confluence of interests across a range of economic, multilateral and security matters.

As has become a truism to assert in strategic circles, China’s meteoric rise to economic and military power has few parallels in history. India and Japan, China’s neighbours and one-time supporters of its meteoric rise, have watched China’s power grow with increasing disquiet. With Japan, the deterioration in relations with China comes from three primary sources: China’s growing security interests, Japan’s alliance with the US...

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