Highlighting the possibility for semiconductor collaboration between India and Japan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday that he was “seeing the beginnings of something potentially important” that could reshape global geopolitical dynamics. Speaking at the India-Japan Forum in New Delhi, Jaishankar also spoke about rebuilding India’s relationship with China post the recent disengagement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, and how that is an exercise that still has to be undertaken. After the session, which also had a video message by his Japanese counterpart Iwaya Takeshi, Jaishankar said in a post on X, “The India-Japan partnership makes a key contribution to a free and open Indo-Pacific. Discussed its strengthening and expansion.” At the event, he pointed out that both India and Japan, while revitalising their semiconductor industries, are also working with Taiwan, paving the way for a transformative partnership in this vital sector. “Japan is today revitalising its semiconductor sector, and India, after a very long period of neglect, has announced a semiconductor mission. There are a lot of things happening. It is interesting that both of us also happen to be working with Taiwan. I am seeing the beginnings of something potentially important here, and potentially really significant for both countries,” he said. “This is such a vital field which is going to be so important in a way that balances geopolitical level equations in this coming decade,” he added. Asked about China, he said, “Our entire relationship with China was predicated on the fact that the border areas would remain peaceful and stable and we had agreements to ensure that. In 2020, the Chinese chose to bring a lot of forces to the border areas and obviously we responded with counter-deployments. Then we had an incident in which a number of soldiers got killed and obviously this impacted the relationship.” Noting that it has taken 4.5 years to negotiate the disengagement of forces, Jaishankar said, “We still have challenges left with us. We still have to de-escalate because what we have done is disengage forces from close proximity but we have a de-escalation because there is still a very large number of forces.Now, we have to sit down and discuss with China how we rebuild our relationship and that is an exercise that still has to be undertaken”. On Thursday, India and China held the first official-level talks in New Delhi, reflecting on “the lessons learnt” from the military standoff and agreed on the need for “effective border management” and “maintenance of peace and tranquillity” as part of bilateral pacts. On India’s trade ties with Japan and other aspects of the bilateral relationship, Jaishankar said that even though India and Japan never had problems, it does not mean everything works well. “I would say how do you take good sentiment and make it into a practical plan,” he said. He also said tourism and education collaborations offer great potential in this regard. “Our passport issuance is going up at the rate of 10-15 per cent a year. We are issuing between about 13 million to 15 million passports every year and these are 10-year validities. In this country, foreign travel is growing and interest in foreign tourism is growing but we have not yet seen any of this directed at Japan. If you look at Southeast Asia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Gulf, Europe, Indian tourists are really going there in very large numbers.,” Jaishankar said. Touching upon higher education reforms, he noted that India is now more open to collaborative efforts in this field, including facilitating student exchanges and establishing joint campuses.
