India, Japan and the Indo-Pacific: Evolution, Consolidation and Limitations of the Strategic Partnership

India–Japan relations over the last two decades have become a regionally and globally oriented ‘strategic partnership’ from a narrow bilateral relationship. A key factor driving this transformation has been the discourse of the Indo-Pacific regional construct. Considering the overwhelming space occupied by maritime affairs in the bilateral strategic agenda, describing contemporary India–Japan relations as an India–Japan Indo-Pacific Strategic Partnership is justified. The article attempts to provide an evolutionary account of the India–Japan Indo-Pacific strategic partnership. In doing so, it identifies four phases in the evolution of the partnership: conception, actualisation, consolidation, and resilience, corresponding to the evolution of the Indo-Pacific concept from a geographic idea to a strategic concept to a regional order framework.