To avoid provoking China, India leaves Japan out of Indo-US Malabar exercise

NEW DELHI: In the run-up to PM Narendra Modi's visit to China this week, India has studiously kept Japan out of the initial planning for the major Indo-US Malabar naval combat exercise to be held in the Bay of Bengal in October.

Sources on Tuesday said the groundwork being done by India and the US for the Malabar exercise "did not as yet include Japan" despite the two Modi-Obama summits in September and January agreeing to "upgrade" the annual combat manoeuvres.

"The next Malabar planning conference between India and the US is slated for July. Japan does not figure in the talks till now," said a defence ministry source. Instead, the India-Japan naval exercise Jimex, which was held for the first time in 2012, is being separately planned for November.

Both Washington and Tokyo are keen for Japan to join the top-rung exercise on a regular basis but India does not want to needlessly needle a prickly China, which sees any multi-lateral naval grouping in the region as a security axis seeking to contain it.

Modi may still well invite Japan for the forthcoming 19th edition of Malabar in the Bay of Bengal — which will see the US participating with Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyers and nuclear submarines — since he and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe have decided to take their military ties to the next level. "Moreover, India and the US have also committed to upgrading Malabar exercises," said the source.

But there are no such indications till now, with the NDA government continuing with the earlier UPA regime's policy to keep Japan out of the exercise when it is held on India's western or eastern seaboard. "While building stronger ties with all these countries on a bilateral basis, India will refrain from any security grouping or bloc that may be construed as anti-China," said another source.

Under the previous UPA regime, India had largely restricted the Malabar exercise to a bilateral one with the US after China protested against its 2007 edition in the Bay of Bengal especially since they were expanded to include the Japanese, Australian and Singaporean navies as well. Japan has been inducted into the exercise only when it has been held in the north-western Pacific like in 2009 and 2014.

India, the US and Japan are all wary about China's growing military capabilities and assertive behavior in the crucial Asia Pacific region, which has fast emerged as the region for geopolitical shadow-boxing. But while the US-Japan combine is quite overt over its apprehensions about China, India wants to be seen as a neutral player in the jostling.