Manmohan Singh extends Japan trip, sends a strong message to China

NEW DELHI: Under fire from the opposition for its "soft" foreign policy in the face of Chinese incursion in eastern Ladakh, India has finally started to show some teeth to Beijing. The initiative has come from PM Manmohan Singh himself who, in a not so subtle message to Beijing, has decided to extend his visit to Japan later this month by a day.

Confirming the development, top government sources said Singh will stay put in Tokyo for two days, instead of one as decided earlier, and use the extra day to interact with Japanese leaders cutting across party lines.

Not denying that the decision by India was a reaction to the developments in Ladakh, where Chinese troops remain stationed 19 km into Indian territory since April 15, they admitted that it is rare for the PM to spend an entire day in a country without any official engagement with the host government.

Japan and China are witnessing deep hostility over the Senkaku islands (called Diaoyu by the Chinese) with its nationalist PM Shinzo Abe, often also described as a hawk, threatening to respond physically should the Chinese try to land in the contested islands. Tokyo controls the islands and strongly believes that these are an inherent territory of Japan "in light of historical facts and based upon international law".

The visit to Japan is scheduled for the last week of this month. Singh was earlier supposed to have a bilateral meeting with his counterpart Abe — after arriving in Tokyo the previous evening — and fly back the next day. Now, Singh will remain in Tokyo the next day too to meet senior political leaders.

For China, which has serious reservations even about India-Japan-US trilateral talks, an extended Japan visit by Singh will be irksome at the least also because of how it perceives the Japanese PM to be. Its state-run media recently criticized Abe's trip to Russia even arguing that this posed a threat to Beijing.

Abe has for long been advocating further expansion of ties with India and had surprised many in his previous tenure as the PM in 2006 when he predicted that Japan-India relations had the potential to overtake Japan-US and Japan-China ties. His deputy PM, Taro Aso, recalled at a public gathering here on Saturday Abe's speech in Indian Parliament then in which he had said that a strong Japan was in the best interest of India and a strong India was in the best interest of Japan.

Interestingly, several Indian foreign policy experts maintain that Singh should, in fact, have had a telephonic conversation with Abe by now over the development at Daulat Beg Oldi in eastern Ladakh.

In his speech on Saturday, Aso also called for more contact between the navies of the two countries to take maritime cooperation to a much higher level. He said as China continues to augment its naval power, Japan is committed to defend its territory.