China-Japan-India axis strategy

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

China-Japan-India axis strategy: an all-round economic& political
cooperation


Compared with East Asia regional cooperation of great concern to the
people, the suggestion on China-Japan
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/japan.html>-India
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/india.html> strategic
cooperation cannot but be regarded as a new thinking in which
consideration is given to regional cooperation and to the broadening of
space for cooperation in a diversified and alternating way.

According to an article on International Herald Leader, Japanese
Ambassador to India Yasukuni Enoki recently said in New Delhi to media
that a China-Japan-India trilateral axis is conducive to regional
stability and prosperity. He revealed that India and Japan had conducted
informal discussions on the subject but the aforesaid suggestion had not
been formally put to China. Then, how big is the possibility for
realizing a strategic cooperation among the three countries?


         The Possibility of strategic economic cooperation

China, Japan and India are all big countries each with a population
exceeding a hundred million. Their GDPs are $1.4 trillion, $4.3 trillion
and $0.5 trillion respectively. India's GDP, calculated according to
purchasing power parity (PPP), is next only to Japan and China in Asia.
For this reason the three countries can be called the three "Giants" in
Asia. If the three giants can strengthen their strategic cooperation, it
is not only conducive to their own development but also to the
rejuvenation of Asia.

Viewed from its economic and technological development stage and level,
basic realization of industrialization is one of the main tasks facing
China in the first 20 years of this century. In the meantime, it is
necessary to blaze a trail for new-type industrialization by persisting
in propelling industrialization through informationization and promoting
informationization through industrialization. Japan has achieved
industrialization and led the world in many important industrial fields
and informationization. India has remarkable advantages in the area of
software industry and the conditions for developing manufacturing
industry in a big way by utilizing its low-cost labor force. However the
development of manufacturing industry in China and India is apparently
at different levels.

The total GDP of China, Japan and India tops $6 trillion, accounting for
around 20 percent of the world total GDP. The per-capita GDPs of the
three countries are quite different, which means China, Japan and India
will constitute the largest multi-level market in the world. China and
India are much larger than Japan in terms of population and territory
whilst Japan is a populous island country. Japan has a labor force of
higher quality than those of China and India. But the problem of a small
and ageing population is very prominent. The quality of labor force in
China is generally higher than that of India, but China also will face
the problem of ageing population in the not distant future. The
population structure of India is relatively young. It is estimated that
the population aged between 15 and 59 will make up 47 percent (35
percent for now) of the total population by 2020. By then India will be
a country with the largest working population and the biggest number of
consumers in the world. This may become a very important reason for the
possibility of India's economy to maintain a fairly fast growth in the
future as well as a vital factor that gives rise to economic
complementarity among China, Japan and India in the sense of time-
coordinates.

China and Japan are neighboring countries separated by a narrow strip of
water. China and India are neighbors facing each other across mountains.
Although Japan and India are relatively far away from each other, they
have very convenient transportation, because India is located in the
middle section of the sea route that makes frequent contacts possible.
The economic exchange among China, Japan and India has the obvious
advantage of favorable geographical position.

The above analysis shows that the three countries have very great
potential for economic cooperation. Japan's advantages in capital and
technology are of great importance to the development of China and
India. However, compared with Sino-Japanese trade volume of more than
$130 billion in 2003, the volume of trade between China and India was
only $7.6 billion in the same year. The room for the development of
Sino-Indian trade is still enormous.

In terms of informationization China, Japan and S. Korea have started
active exchange and cooperation in the areas of Linux, IPV6 technology
and its standardization and 4G mobile communications. In the future,
it's worth considering that India, an internationally recognized
information industry giant, should be drawn in and information
cooperation among China, Japan and the ROK
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/rok.html> should be widened to
cover India and thus make the three-nation cooperation into four-nation
cooperation.


         The possibility of political and security strategic cooperation

Currently, the relations among China, Japan and India, that is, the
Sino-Japanese, Sino-Indian and Japanese-Indian relations, are generally
good. Admittedly there are some problems and frictions, which exactly
indicate that the three countries should seek for a new transcending
platform to improve their respective bilateral relations through
developing multilateral cooperation.

As early as 1937 Indian leader Nehru said: "India and China are both
countries with vast territories, yet the problems they are facing are
even bigger than their territories. The problems of the two countries
are, without exception, the No.1 problems in the world. How India and
China will eventually develop themselves is of vital importance to the
whole world. Therefore we should enhance our mutual understanding
because we will both have lots of things to decide on in the future.

Traffic security at sea will become an outstanding question in
China-Japan-India strategic cooperation. It is already an established
fact that China and Japan depend heavily on Mid-east for oil. The Indian
Ocean is a conveyor connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean
for the traffic and transportation of oil. It has been agreed by many
Western strategists in history that "five keys lock up the world", among
which the Indian Ocean gets hold of three - the Suez Canal, the Malacca
Strait and the Cape of Good Hope. India projects out into more than
1,600 kilometers of the Indian Ocean occupying an important strategic
guarding position of the Indian Ocean. While appropriately handling
relations with the United States
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/usa.html>, whether China, Japan
and India can avoid the "all-lose" situation of being on the alert and
taking precautions against and even getting into conflicts with one
another with regard to maritime traffic security, and whether they can
join hands to deal with non-traditional security threats such as
terrorism and pirates rampancy involve a major strategic choice.

Among China, Japan and India there shouldn't be the kind of thinking of
"pulling another over to one's side so as to contain the other" or
joining hands with a superpower in regions outside Asia to contain or
even encircle one of the three countries. China, Japan and India each
lay great emphasis on the importance of relations with the United States
In the meantime they should attach great importance to the mutual
relations with one another rather than letting oneself become a pawn of
a superpower outside Asia in containing one of the countries within the
region. This is of particular importance in the case of Japan-US
military alliance that shouldn't have the intent of targeting China.
China, Japan and India each pay attention to developing relations with
ASEAN
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200306/15/eng20030615_118282.shtml>;
all want to establish a free trade area with ASEAN. In dealing with the
relations with ASEAN, the three countries should build up a virtuous and
healthy competitive relations while at the same time enhance and
strengthen their sense of urgency in cooperation among China, Japan and
India.

China and India are both countries with ancient civilizations. China,
Japan and India should strengthen their ideological and sentimental
connections by promoting oriental cultures; particularly they should
strengthen the harmony of relationship by developing the Great Harmony
idea; and jointly pursue the grand realm of sustainable development by
carrying forward the oriental idea of the "Integration of Man and Nature

This is a translation by People's Daily Online of an article by Feng
Zhaokui, research fellow at Japan Research Institute of Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences