Japan-India cooperation: peculiarities of ensuring national interests

The purpose of the research is to study the features of Japanese-Indian cooperation at the present stage. Indian industrial policy and the model of economic development, which have undergone significant changes since the country gained independence, have actually adopted the implementation of the “Flying Geese” paradigm (theory), which was developed in the 1930s. by the Japanese Scientist K. Akamatsu. India was one of the first countries to sign a peace treaty with Japan after World War II. Since the beginning of the XXI century. Japanese-Indian economic cooperation is officially becoming a special strategic and global one, which indicates, first of all, on the part of India, a “movement” towards the diversification of economic partners. Despite the low volumes of mutual trade, the countries’ cooperation in the field of infrastructure projects, which are discussed in detail in the study, is more fruitful. It is also noteworthy that since 1958, Japan has been providing official development assistance to India under the Second Five-Year Plan.; This assistance is still being provided, and covers a number of projects in the field of infrastructure development, agriculture, horticulture, irrigation, electricity, rail and other communications. An analysis of Japanese-Indian cooperation shows that India’s interests are mainly focused on solving domestic problems and are concentrated in the field of infrastructure projects combined with ensuring geopolitical objectives; Japanese foreign economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region are achieved through the use of “soft power” tools. The most significant aspect of Japan-India cooperation is Japan’s admission to the construction of infrastructure projects along India’s eastern border with China. In addition, Japan is the only country that India has allowed to launch and complete a mountain road maintenance capacity development project in the Northeast of the country. These privileges granted to the Japanese side are part of the development of India’s military-strategic and technical potential. The study used materials from Indologists published both in the Soviet period and in the 21st century. The information base was statistics and analytics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of India, the Indian Council for Investment Promotion, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, etc. In the course of the research, the authors used methods of comparison and retrospection, induction and deduction.