The difference in this year’s statement was not just the number of times UNCLOS was mentioned – four, compared to once last year. The contrast is also that in this year’s joint statement, UNCLOS is explicitly mentioned in the context of resolving the South China Sea dispute.

In September, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar staked out a bolder position in support of the Tribunal ruling than even Europe has. In the process, he subtly reminded China of India’s record complying with a 2014 tribunal ruling on a maritime dispute with Bangladesh.

India urges all parties to show utmost respect for the UNCLOS, which establishes the international legal order of the seas and oceans. In that connection, the authority of the Annex VII Tribunal and its awards is recognized in Part XV of the UNCLOS itself. India’s own record in this regard is also well known.

In an unusual move for Delhi, reports suggest India quietly lobbied Singapore to assume a firmer stance on the tribunal ruling, and was just as quietly rebuffed.

China

With both countries embroiled in territorial disputes with China, it’s no secret that shared concerns about the latter’s rise have served as a binding agent in India-Japan ties.

While the two are often loath to publicly admit as much, over time they’ve grown more candid with their concerns. “Japan and India have to work with China to ensure that the peaceful rise of China takes place in a manner which will be conducive to Asian security, Asian prosperity,” former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly told the Japanese press in 2012. “Japanese and Indian forces might not be operating together, but they share the same goal: to maintain the balance of power in the region,” argued Narushige Michishita, a senior defense expert and former Japanese official, in 2015.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Modi chose Tokyo as the platform to launch his first broadside against China as prime minister. At a speech in September 2014 Modi declared: “everywhere around us, we see an 18th century expansionist mind-set: encroaching in other countries, intruding in others’ waters, invading other countries and capturing territory.”

The first India-Australia-Japan trilateral dialogue last year involved “a full day discussion on China,” according to Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki. “We confirmed with each other we are on the same page.”

None of which went unnoticed by Beijing. The mouthpiece for Chinese nationalists, the Global Times, has warned that “Tokyo is trying to contain and besiege Beijing by every possible means, and Abe will not miss any chance to draw Modi over to his side to counter China.” During Modi’s visit to Tokyo this month, the hawkish outlet criticized India as a “an outsider that has no traditional influence in the region,” and warned India that with further involvement in the South China Sea it could “suffer great losses, especially in terms of business and trade.”

Just as China has chafed at India’s South China Sea policies, so too has Japan riled Beijing with a bolder approach to Tibet-related issues. In an era when China is waging an increasingly successful global crusade to demonize and isolate the India-based Dalai Lama and Tibetan Government in Exile (TGIE), Japan’s activism has assumed greater significance.

In 2012, between stints as prime minister, Abe met the Dalai Lama in Tokyo and declared: “We want to help the suffering Tibetan people and help create a Tibet in which people do not have to kill themselves in a quest for freedom.” More recently, Japan welcomed TGIE prime minister Lobsang Sangay to Tokyo, where Sangay condemned China for destroying “98% of monasteries in Tibet and burn[ing] Tibetan Buddhist scriptures.” He compared China to North Korea and Apartheid South Africa and warned India that China’s “invasion of Tibet will pose a serious threat to India for a long time.”

Modi, it’s worth noting, has also assumed a bolder stance on Tibet issues. After breaking with precedent and inviting Sangay to his inauguration, this year Delhi hosted a conference gathering Chinese minority and dissident activists, approved a request by the Dalai Lama to visit the Chinese-claimed district of Tawang in 2017, and facilitated the first-ever visit of a U.S. ambassador to Tawang.

Defense

If there were any disappointments from Modi’s trip to Tokyo, they arose from their failure to seal a long-pending deal for India to purchase twelve Japanese US-2 Turbo-prop aircraft. Eager to seal its first major defense-export deal after revising its constitution, a recent push by Tokyo to adjust the price and terms of the deal was insufficient to secure an approval from India’s Defence Acquisitions Council.

Nevertheless, the trend in defense cooperation has been overwhelmingly positive. This was evident in the myriad defense initiatives praised in last week’s joint statement. They include:

• “the Joint Working Group on Defence Equipment and Technology Cooperation,”

• “successful Annual Defence Ministerial Dialogue held in New Delhi, Japan's regular participation in the Malabar Exercise and [India’s] International Fleet Review,”

• “the ‘2+2’ Dialogue, Defence Policy Dialogue, Military-to-Military Talks and Coast Guard-to-Coast Guard co-operation,”

• “inaugural air force staff talks held earlier this year,” and

• “two Defence Framework Agreements concerning the Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology and concerning Security Measures for the Protection of Classified Military Information.”

Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar’s first visit abroad was to Japan. Under a new counterterrorism partnership, Japanese officers in a newly created intelligence unit are training in Delhi. And, as analyst Dhruva Jaishankar notes, cooperation has improved on “sensitive space and defence issues” as India has “publicly welcomed Japan’s constitutional reinterpretation on collective self-defence.”

Significantly, the United States and India have invited Japan to be a permanent participant in their annual Malabar naval exercises, complementing the JIMEX bilateral joint naval exercises India and Japan began in 2012.

Conclusion

Since 2011, America has been encouraging India to “not just look east, but engage east and act east.” Modi’s own instincts led him to conceptually embrace that vision shortly after taking office, and his deepening partnership with Japan demonstrates the commitment is not merely rhetorical.

With the possible exception of the United States, no country has been as successful as Japan in persuading India to abandon the artificial constraints of nonalignment. And no relationship is likely to prove of greater consequence to the regional and global order that the three countries seek to defend and uphold. From “soft power” to “hard power,” and from the South China Sea to Africa, India and Japan are constructing the framework for a transformative twenty-first-century partnership.

Jeff M. Smith is the Director of Asian Security Programs at the American Foreign Policy Council and author of Cold Peace: China-India Rivalry in the 21st Century (2014).

Image: Shinzo Abe with Narendra Modi. Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/Narendra Modi