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The Vivekananda International Foundation organized a joint webinar with the Japan Institute of National Fundamentals (JINF) on 10 February 2022 on Strategic Outlook for Indo-Pacific in 2022. After initial remarks by Dr Arvind Gupta, Director VIF and Ms Yoshiko Sakurai, President JINF, presentations were made by Amb Anil Wadhwa, Distinguished Fellow VIF and Hiroshi Yuasa, Senior Fellow JINF. The webinar discussed a range of issues from shaping a new regional security architecture to engaging ASEAN and analyzing ramifications of China’s military rise and Ukraine standoff on the region. Some of the salient points made were:

The Japanese side particular mentioned how Japan is facing its most serious strategic crisis in nearly over a century. For Japan, rising Chinese firepower, record incursions in waters around Senkakus, untypical naval transits by PLA navy in Japanese waters along with Russia, continued harassment of Taiwan, Chinese encouragement to North Korea to conduct provocative tests threatening Guam and the US forces in the region, etc. destabilize its security. The India side explained how unprecedented Chinese aggression on the border since June 2020 along with the CPEC project, eyeing military facilities in the Bangladeshi port of Pyra and Sittwe port in Myanmar and heavily indebting India’s neighbourhood countries like Maldives and Sri Lanka pose serious challenges for India and allow China further ingress into its neighbourhood.

The Japanese side noted that actions of the Russian army on the Ukrainian border pose a severe challenge to the liberal international order. The Indian side explained India’ position on the Ukraine standoff and its inability to take sides as both Russia and the US are very important strategic partners. Both sides agreed the Quad should work together to invite major ASEAN countries to "Quad Plus" and prevent China from building a "forced sphere of influence." Both sides agreed that Quad is a flexible alliance that does not mandate all four partners to be uniform on policy positions and allows for focus on a wider agenda that reinforces security amidst a rapidly changing environment.

Both the VIF and JINF appreciated the candid and frank discussions that clarified positions of both India and Japan on the new strategic developments. Recommendation was made to expand such exchanges to regular frequency and also bring in new partners especially from ASEAN countries.