The world has been tirelessly battling, since January 2020, the global coronavirus pandemic, which in turn has led to the recurring downfall of the world economies leading to a global financial crisis. The virus has spread like wildfire claiming 200,000 lives and so, there has been immense pressure on the health care services and has led to a major shortage in medical facilities bringing most countries to a standstill. Covid-19 has severely impacted many countries and their geo-economic, strategic and geopolitical associations and interconnections. This Covid-19 impact has led most countries to evaluate their post-Covid situations and partnerships. Recently, Prime Minister Modi, after his conversation with Prime Minister Abe, discussed the situation arising out of the coronavirus outbreak. After the conversation, Modi tweeted “the India-Japan Special Strategic & Global Partnership can help develop new technologies and solutions for the post-Covid world – for our peoples, for the Indo-Pacific region, and for the world”.
Due to the spread of the coronavirus, the health care sector has been badly impacted as several countries face the shortage of medicines and medical equipment’s and this enlarges the scope of mutual cooperation between India and Japan in the healthcare sector. India has been widely supplying Hydroxychloroquine and paracetamol, which are being used as a form of treatment to treat Covid-19, to many countries like the U.S. Also, India has removed the ban on HCQ export and delicensed PCM. India has collaborated with several foreign agencies in the field of research and development initiatives to combat Covid-19.
The Indian Government has been promoting the use of Ayurveda and Yoga-based immunity-boosting procedures and the Ministry of Ayush developed an anti-malarial Ayurvedic drug, Ayush-64 to prevent the symptoms of coronavirus. It has also suggested taking tablets of Guluchyadi and Sudarshanam prepared by Kerala’s Ayurveda methods to help boost immunity leading to a demand for Ayurveda medicines in India. India has, thereby, globally emerged as a pharmaceutical hub amidst the Covid-19 crisis.
Japan too has been actively involved in its mask diplomacy and has been providing protective gear to other countries, China included. Avigan (Favipiravir) is an anti-viral developed by Japan and produced by Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Corp. It has been effective in treating Covid-19 and 20 countries like Turkey, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Iran, Myanmar, and Saudi Arabia have been given Avigan for free. Therefore, in the post-Covid time, India and Japan can work towards the enhancement of the health care sector as the Japanese pharmaceutical market would be of great potential for the Indian pharmaceutical industry as it has a well-established reputation for producing affordable generics. Japan faces the challenge of an aging population, so India can provide nursing facilities and further strengthen Japan’s Asia Health and Well-being Initiative (AHWIN) with India’s healthcare initiative, Ayushman Bharat, which can introduce affordable technology, skill development, traditional medicine like Ayurveda and Yoga and provide best practices in healthcare by applying mutually benefitting approaches.
Prime Minister Modi mentioned that “India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership can help develop new technologies and solutions for the post-Covid world – for our peoples, for the Indo-Pacific region and for the world.” This is possible through digital partnership and technology transfer and can be taken forward by India-Japan’s Digital Partnership (I-JDP) with scope to cooperate in Science and Technology/ICT and “Digital ICT Technologies”. Both the countries have initiated the Japan-India Start-up Initiative and set up the first start-up hub in Bengaluru and have set-up a fund to invest in technology with prime focus on Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), fintech, healthcare, consumer, education, robotics and business-to-business (B2B) software. India has recently developed an electronic platform ‘SAARC Covid-19 Information Exchange Platform (COINEX)’ with the aim to exchange specialised information and health professional tools on Covid-19. This platform would also facilitate various online training resources and e-learning modules. India highlighted its mobile App ‘Aarogya Setu’ for Covid-19 community outreach and intervention. This electronic platform created by India can be shared with Japan and can be a base for future cooperation between them and among the other countries in the wider realm of the Indo-Pacific. India and Japan can work on the creation of a joint AI research centre, which would help benefit at the societal level. They can also create a base for common linkages for a digital corporate partnership with companies like Tata Consultancy Services and these could be the possible future courses of action in the sector of digital partnership.
With the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China closed down its factories bringing the supply chain to a halt and the Japanese companies whose factories were closed down further affected the supply china in Japan as well. This made Japan rethink its manufacturing base and the Japanese Government supported the Japanese firms with an economic stimulus of Yen 220 billion ($2.2 bn) to shift their manufacturing production out of China and Yen 2.35 billion ($0.2 bn) has been given to Japanese firms to move their manufacturing factories to other Southeast Asian countries. India automatically becomes the most favourable country and Japan in the recent past has been pushing India to become a manufacturing hub. If India becomes a manufacturing hub for Japan, then India’s flagship projects like Skill India would benefit immensely and create jobs as well as lead to economic exchange leading to a boost in the GDP through the financial inputs. It will also help benefit India’s Make in India project especially in the defence manufacturing industry.
Inviting private sector production in defence production and permitting them to participate in defence offsets, opening defence exports, enabling technology transfer from DRDO to industry, increasing the FDI cap and finally, unshackling corporate management of Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs) has played a major role in enhancing defence exports. India has set an arms export target of $5 billion and the industry input target by 2026 has been set at $26 billion. India and Japan can work towards the strengthening of the technological capabilities in the future as well as work on industrial infrastructure to support the same in both the countries.
India and Japan have also agreed to collaborate in the railway sector and recently, JICA has signed a Rs 15,295 crore agreement with the Indian Government for major rail infrastructure projects. Both countries feel that there is a major scope for infrastructural improvement in the sub-sectional groups like the civil works, track works, electric works and rolling stock. India has been working towards the improvement of the safety of the Indian railways and Japan, with its world-class railways, has agreed to teach India its best practices in rail safety. India and Japan can cooperate in the sector of creating and technologically upgrading train sets and India can learn and make of these superior train sets under its Make in India initiative. In the fight against Covid-19, Indian Railway’s Hubballi Workshop has developed contactless cubicle for doctors to treat the virus and this model can be shared with Japan so that India could also build the same for Japan.
India and Japan have been working on multiple infrastructure projects like the $100 billion project of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and a Japanese bullet train project to run between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Japan has been also been working on multiple infrastructure development projects in the Northeast and both countries have been collaborating on roadway connectivity, river bridge construction and improving the power infrastructure in many parts of the Northeast region. These infrastructure projects are essential as they will increase the number of jobs and in the post-Covid period, job security would be of prime focus for most people. It will also improve the local connectivity within the Northeast states and pave the way for greater development and easier access to markets and workplaces. Japan’s intention of supporting India’s Northeast is to open up the inter-market connectivity in Southeast Asia and have a two way flow of cultural, infrastructural and economic exchange in the future.
The post-Covid India and Japan relations seems to be directed towards the path of growth and prosperity in sectors such as healthcare, pharmaceutical industry, digital partnership, defence manufacturing industry, railways and infrastructural projects. These will pave way for the development of new technologies and solutions to support and further strengthen their relations, promoting the goal of regional stability, mutual cooperation and free and open sea lanes of communications in the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, Prime Minister Modi’s quote “the India-Japan Special Strategic & Global Partnership can help develop new technologies and solutions for the post-Covid world – for our peoples, for the Indo-Pacific region, and for the world” would genuinely benefit and lead India-Japan relations to greater heights in the post-Covid times.
