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His Excellency Mr. Akitaka Saiki, Ambassador of Japan to India, addressed an eminent gathering at the ORF campus in New Delhi on June 29, 2011. In his lecture, Mr. Saiki outlined the huge potential for cooperation between India and Japan to build a strong partnership in the context of the rapidly changing security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region. This is the text of his lecture and the proceedings of the event.

Afghanistan’s situation has thrown up challenges for New Delhi

New Delhi is trying to deepen ties to confront common threats but in-group differences pose hurdles

Many developing countries have transformed themselves from recipients into aid donors. Foreign aid donor tag is no longer exclusive to developed economies.

is paper formulates an analytical framework to assess the impacts of India's Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on commodity value chains. Existing academic literature have relied on examining Balance of Payments (BoP) to assess the impact of FTAs. is paper views such methodology as reductionist, and instead oers alternative lenses of the impacts on the commodity value chain. is paper brings into fold the concerns for the wellbeing of various stakehold

India’s silence on developments in the South China Sea is highly unlikely to win it a lasting friendship with China but has the potential to do it some lasting damage.

Since the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967, Indonesia has endeavoured to play a leading role in shaping Southeast Asia’s regional security architecture; this continues to be true amidst the more recent shifts taking place in the global geopolitical landscape. Accordingly, the nature of Jakarta’s contributions towards Southeast Asian security reflects the dynamics of its national foreign policy dec

At a roundtable on "Understanding Contemporary Bangladesh", attended by vice-chancellors from nine universities of Bangladesh, the consensus view was that regional integration is not only beneficial for Bangladesh but for all of South Asia.

China and India, sooner than later, must assume regional leadership, which must be inclusive, allowing for not just coopera-tion and collaboration but the accom-modation of all stakeholders in energy. Despite their burgeoning share in energy market, both countries remain price takers rather than price makers now.

While the EU has been engaged in bilateral, regional and global efforts to enlist greater support for its Code on ICoC, one cannot say with certainty that the result has been totally satisfactory. There are still many countries that see the EU-proposed measure as problematic owing to a number of issues.

The SCO has so far not been a major factor in discussions about Afghanistan's stabilization. But there is a good possibility that Afghanistan will obtain observer status in the SCO. Given the differing agendas of the SCO and the US/NATO, Afghanistan's embrace of the SCO could greatly complicate reconstruction efforts.

While India’s diplomatic and political outreach with West Asia has been a success story over the past decade, the geopolitics of technology has the potential to offer a challenge.

The Taliban today undoubtedly has a stronger hold over how the US militarily plans to withdraw from the conflict in Afghanistan. This raises questions about the continuing challenges to security in South Asia—in particular, the influence of IS Khorasan (IS-K), the group’s Afghanistan avatar, and its rise both as an ISIS-aligned entity and a big-tent brand for various jihadist groups in the country. As the ‘Khorasan’ project of ISIS gets m

Trump’s “toned down” stance on the South China Sea issue, his emphasis on “America first” policy and his soft attitude towards China have made many Japanese leaders suspect that the US is retreating from Asia.

The Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka have brought the island nation to the forefront of the global terrorism discourse. The attacks further demonstrate the change in the Islamic State from a territorial group to a sponsor of terrorism worldwide.

Japan's engagement with SE Asia focuses through expanding economic ties, cooperation on maritime issues and building close diplomatic relations through Abe's travel diplomacy. This is Japan's 'pivot' to SE Asia and it is here to stay given its strategic rivalry with China.

Japan's new Prime Minister understands very well that peace and strategic stability in East Asia would depend on how effectively Japan and the US maintain their security alliance. And the Obama administration is supportive of Abe's moves and would be interested in initiating regular triangular security talks with Tokyo and Seoul.

Despite the change of guards in Japan, the new government has reaffirmed its commitment to maintain "global and strategic partnership" with India

Despite domestic political changes, the alliance with the US continues to be the cornerstone of Japan's security policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Although Japan has taken some siginificant steps in the direction of normal statehood, the domestic constituency in favour of full strategic autonomy is still very weak. Japan's dilemma between its growing security concerns and the limitations laid by its Constitution will continue to be a major chall

The explosions of October 1, 2005, in the predominantly Hindu-inhabited tourist resort island of Bali in Indonesia came on the eve of two important religious observances¿¿on the eve of the Dusserah (called Galungan in Bali) festival, which the Hindus all over the world observe as marking the triumph of good over evil and the Muslim holy fasting period of Ramadan.

Kazakhstan aspires for economic cooperation between China and Europe, and connectivity within itself and with its neighbours.

India should be watching Mr John Kerry's trip to Asia with interest considering that the US and China have just held a dialogue on South Asia, even as the US has refused to hold a bilateral dialogue with India on East Asia in the last year.

The importance of Xinjiang Province in China’s Eurasian connectivity initiative—the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB)—has received some coverage in the media. However, these news articles offer only a cursory view of China’s primary motive in pursuing the initiative, that is the ethnic unrest in Xinjiang. This paper argues that the conflict in Xinjiang is a main driving force to pursue SREB and that the initiative is congruent with a broader

All the major powers in the Asia Pacific region are ramping up their defence budgets and modernising their militaries. They are also building coalitions with each other through defence partnerships agreements and ports calls.

Maritime Asia is at a crossroad. Growing military activity, and rising non-traditional challenges in the littorals threaten the health of the oceans and the people who depend on them. Asia’s leading maritime powers must engage in a development alliance that can help deliver security and sustainable growth. This brief evaluates the prospects for a partnership between India, South Korea, and ASEAN in the areas of ocean governance, maritime connec

This paper evaluates the possibility of an increase in maritime terrorist violence in Asia, based on a recounting and analysis of some of the most recent past incidents in these waters. It argues that the vulnerability of high seas shipping to criminal acts of violence and the weak and inconsistent nature of maritime governance raises the possibility of a terrorist strike in the Asian littorals. In assessing the odds of a major terrorist attack i

The South Asian region lacks a common plan of action to deal with the impact of climate change despite possessing common ecological habitat. Africa and Latin America fare a tad better on this front. India should take the lead to create elaborate policies for joint management of common resources and ecological preservation.

It may be too early to call it a ‘Middle Eastern Quad’, but the United States, India, Israel and UAE are in for greater cooperation and coordination in the region

The Nepal-India-Sri Lanka initiative could be used to pursue better people-to-people relations.

There is a need for a new regional arrangement in South Asia to tap water as it is a regional common issue that should be handled collectively rather than dividing it.

There is a need for a new regional security architecture that reflects the changed geopolitical realities of the region. This suggestion was made during an interaction between senior Japanese and South Korean journalists and Indian scholars at ORF.

Given the emerging geo-political tensions in the region, the need of the hour for India, South Korea and other nations is to integrate and stay united, according to Mr. Anil Wadhwa, Secretary, Government of India.

Ties between Qatar and the three GCC members went downhill after uprisings in Arab countries that began in Tunisia, the beginning of the so-called “Arab Spring”.

As the two biggest Asian economies, China and Japan are directly involved in infrastructure development in many Asian countries and this has led to fierce rivalry between the two. The recent decision of the Indonesian government to offer the construction of Jakarta-Bandung high speed network to China came as a bolt from the blue to Japan.

There is a definite need for India to reconsider its doctrine or a strategy to counter and/or deter use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons weapons by Pakistan for non-strategic (say battlefield) purposes.

Barack Obama's strategic problem now is to reassure east Asian allies of the strength of American commitment to them without provoking an unwanted conflict between the US and China.

Myanmar hosted US President Barack Obama this week in Nay Pyi Taw for the ASEAN and East Asia Summit. Obama, who visited the former 'paraiah State' for the second time in three years, said that the reforms in Myanmar were real but incomplete.

This Paper examines the existing critiques of China's oil supply diversification strategies in the Asia Pacific. It deconstructs the growing energy relationship between China and the Middle East that has made the security of the Hormuz Strait and the Malacca Strait vital to China's energy security. It also analyses specific geographic and strategic chokepoints in China's oil supply route and concludes that supply diversification motivations are d