It is important to deepen the understanding of how the peace and prosperous future of the world and the Indo-Pacific is perceived and hence it is very important to have intellectual input to take action on it, Taga Masayuki, Consul-General of Japan, said.
Mr. Masayuki said this was exactly what former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe [who was assassinated last week] wished to see, where India and Japan could cooperate much openly and strongly and see a free and open Indo-Pacific and an open world.
The Consul-General was speaking at the release of a resource paper on ‘India and Japan in Free and Open Indo Pacific’ by the Indo-Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday. “The resource paper is very useful to go through. More people will understand the discussion that was done in the symposium [held earlier],” he said.
N.Ravi, Chairman, Kasturi and Sons Ltd, said the late Abe was a visionary with foresight who made a deep impact on Indo-Japan relations and the global Indo-Pacific strategy, a world leader who contributed in reshaping the global order.
Summing up the discussions of the symposium, Mr. Ravi said three themes stood out from it — that India-Japan relations were acquiring a new dimension which could not be thought of even decades earlier and coming to be characterised as the fastest growing relations in Asia; the role of the Quad in both fostering economic ties among the member nations and in firming up security in the Indo-Pacific, and China and its assertiveness in both the South Asian and Indo-Pacific neighbourhoods.
Sridhar Krishnaswamy, Secretary, IJCCI, said the bilateral relationship between India and Japan was something that stands on its own with the late Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking it to another level and that future leaders would take it to a higher level.