OPINION | Why developments in East Asia should matter to India

Japan's PM Takaichi is at the vanguard of the country's assertiveness in relation to China

As tensions over Taiwan’s defence escalate, China and Japan are both setting a new normal as to how far signalling over the future of the region can go. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has taken to the podium to make clear her stance that a conflict over Taiwan will be deemed a national security crisis for Tokyo. She has further backed her words with some action, in that her cabinet’s Defence Minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, has announced the deployment of medium-range Surface-to-Air Missiles at the Yonaguni base post-inspection.

China ramps up pressure

In retaliation, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ramped up pressure on both Japan and Taiwan. To begin with, official statements repeatedly call Takaichi out for interference in a “domestic” issue, and her actions for being the fuel “Taiwanese separatists” need to declare “independence.” Beijing has also escalated its whimpers to both the US and the United Nations, while also conducting heavy-duty naval and aerial patrols in the Taiwan Strait to keep the islands’ defences in check.

Tokyo’s shift from strategic ambiguity to diplomatic clarity on the Taiwan issue may not just have been motivated by a sudden awakening toward the ‘China Challenge’.

Changing dynamics in the Indo-Pacific

Variables such as the uncertainty of American security guarantees under Donald Trump’s Presidency, and the need for domestic justifications to enhance defence spending and modernise the Japanese armed forces, have well played their parts.

As a consequence, East Asia’s dynamics today are such that China is facing a willing, upcoming rival in Japan, while Washington is doubling down on its recession from regional security conversations. These stances can change with the changes in government, but trends point to consistency in two aspects – that the US’s preferred domain of competition will now be economic and technological, while other regional powers such as Japan, India, Australia, and ASEAN will focus on building their own military strengths.

Why it should matter for India

Such a dynamic, originating in East Asia but having manifold cross-regional repercussions, is essential for India to acknowledge and navigate, for three reasons.

The first, is intuitive. A Taiwan contingency, or a prolonged confrontation between China and Japan, would threaten sea lanes, chokepoints, and supply chains that are central to India’s trade and economic growth. With US security guarantees looking less predictable and Japan visibly hardening its posture, India cannot assume external guardianship of

these commons. It must therefore plan for de-risking or for self-reliance in maritime security, crisis response, and access to critical technologies.

In practice, this may mean investing in naval, air, and ISR capabilities tailored to the Western Pacific-Eastern Indian Ocean continuum, not just the Indian Ocean rim. It will also require building resilient technology and supply-chain partnerships with Japan, Taiwan (or Taiwanese foundries abroad), and like-minded South East Asian economies so that any cross-Strait shock does not structurally damage India’s growth model.

It's now a world of overlapping crises with multiple triggers

Broadly this also aligns with the state of the world today, where overlapping crises created by multiple triggers are the norm, even as a handful of central stressors (like the US-China competition) dominate geoeconomics or geopolitics.

Secondly, as Washington gears toward economic and technological competition with China and becomes ambivalent on hard-security guarantees, middle powers are being pushed to take on greater responsibilities vis-à-vis military security and norm entrepreneurship. This creates both room and obligation for India to act as a system-shaping power, and not a bystander.

New Delhi should deepen its strategic partnerships

Hence, for New Delhi’s grand strategy, the goal should be to use the US’s shift in preferences to lock in deeper strategic partnerships, socialise its own preferences on norms and rules, and demonstrate leadership to both the Global South and US-allied Asia, rather than letting a new security order form without Indian fingerprints.

In this light, China’s sharpened rivalry with Japan should reinforce India-Japan convergence. This can start New Delhi off with a stronger platform (bilaterally, in the Quad, and with ASEAN) to co-design deterrence and crisis-management arrangements that are less US-dependent and more reflective of regional priorities.

The third reason is that the emergent dynamics will be a significant stress test for India’s multi- or “issues-based-” alignment stance. A China-Japan rivalry over Taiwan, combined with a transactional or inward-looking US, will harden expectations from India along multiple directions. The West will press for clearer alignment, China will test red lines along the LAC and the Indian Ocean, and the Global South will hopefully look to New Delhi for cues on war, sanctions, and economic governance. In such a setting, India’s preference for strategic autonomy becomes harder to operationalise, as fence-sitting may entail reputational costs, while overt alignment risks retaliation and the loss of manoeuvring space.

That makes this East Asian dynamic a crucible for India’s long-term identity in world politics – whether it can actually function as a pivotal, agenda-setting actor in a fragmented, multipolar order – or is reduced to a crisis-driven hedger between blocs whose rules it did not shape.

(Anushka Saxena, a Staff Research Analyst (China) with the Indo-Pacific Studies Programme at the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.)

Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.