On May 27, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Japan, just a week after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang traveled to India. Li's visit helped deal with the aftermath of the border stand-off between the two sides in April, but Singh's visit to Japan, whose relationship with China is at a nadir thanks to disputes over the Diaoyu Islands, has unnerved some Chinese analysts.

By strengthening its alliance with Japan as a part of its Look East policy, experts say India is happy to exploit the deep hostility between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands for economic and technological gain.

Defense links

A major aspect of Singh's Tokyo visit was boosting defense cooperation between India and Japan.

"India and Japan are natural and indispensable partners for advancing prosperity in our two countries and for a peaceful, stable, cooperative and prosperous future for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions," said Singh after meeting his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.

A joint statement released at the end of the summit said the two leaders "expressed their resolve to further consolidate and strengthen the Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan in the years ahead, taking into account changes in the strategic environment."

The two sides also decided to establish a Joint Working Group to explore cooperation on the US-2 amphibious aircraft, a significant step forward in defense ties.

"The salience of this decision can be made out from the fact that providing India with the US-2 is a deviation from Japan's export control on defense goods policy," Joshy M. Paul, an Associate Fellow at the New-Delhi based National Maritime Foundation, wrote in an article on the website of the New Delhi-based National Maritime Foundation.

Rahul Singh, an Indian strategist, told the Global Times that the exemption Japan made in this policy for India "indicated that Japan and India are taking their ties to newer levels to include sectors which hitherto were not explored."

Moreover, the two leaders also pledged to conduct bilateral naval exercises "on a regular basis with increased frequency."

In fact, as early as 2011, Abe has already called for strengthened Japanese-Indian cooperation at sea. "Please let your navy meet the Japanese naval force more often at sea. Our two navies can exchange flag signals," Abe said in a seminar in New Delhi."Even the Chinese may fly over us to see what is going on, which is more than welcome," he added.

Business relations

Wang Dehua, director of the Institute of South Asia and Central Asia Studies at the Shanghai Center for International Studies, told the Global Times that India's efforts to develop its ties with Japan is a part of its Look East policy, first developed and enacted to reinvigorate India's relationship with ASEAN countries, and later extended to South Korea and Japan.

Ever since Japan's former prime minister Yoshiro Mori's visit to India in 2000, the relationship between India and Japan has been progressing in a steady pace. The pace started to pick up after 2005, with the prime ministers of India and Japan paying state visits to each other every other year.

Swaran Singh, a professor at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, told the Global Times that China was "clearly seen as India's most important neighbor and a long-term challenge and competitor." Instead, India's relations with Japan are "far more businesslike."

"It is Japan's Official Development Assistance and technology transfers in nuclear power generation, fast track railways and automobiles that defines the nature of their relations," he said.

Sunjoy Joshi, director with New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, told the Global Times the  Indian-Japanese relationship is "a mutually beneficial relationship with no suspicion or perceptions of threat whatsoever," because, unlike China, the two countries have no legacy disputes or bitter history.

Joshi also pointed out that the Indian-Japanese ties have been transforming dramatically over the last few decades. "India, Japan's largest ODA destination some time back, is now emerging as a key partner and an attractive investment destination for Japanese companies," he said.

"Unhindered by any past issues, India's dealings with Japan continue unabated across various sectors in ventures that belong to niche areas of collaboration, joint-production, technology development and so on," he added.

However, some Indian strategists are wary that the Look East policy will create friction with China, one of India's largest trading partners.

India's bilateral trade with China in 2012 was $340 billion, much larger than its $14 billion trade with Japan.

But Joshi said the policy should not be perceived as a threat but seen as an opportunity to China. "The future for Asia is greater economic integration. The flow of investments, trade and commerce is pushing us inexorably in this one direction. It would be futile to expect that such integration could ever take place without the participation of both India and China," he said.

"Therefore there is every reason why India's Look East Policy should not be perceived as a threat but as an opportunity that will enable the two countries to increasingly rub shoulders with each other and benefit from each other's presence."

Careful restraint

By strengthening its alliance with India, Wang said that Japan's intention to contain China was clear, while India was also happy to take advantage of the territorial dispute between China and Japan for economic and technological benefits.

But he pointed out that, so far, New Delhi has showed restraint in its defense and security cooperation with Tokyo, because it is clear too close an alliance would have a negative influence on its relationship with Beijing.

Prior to Li Keqiang's visit to India, the Hindustan Times reported that India suddenly withdrew from the planning of a trilateral naval exercise with the US and Japan in April off the island of Guam. The Indian defense ministry said India would rather stick to bilateral naval exercises conducted in areas with less geopolitical sensitivity.

"India's Look East policy has a dual nature, with both an intention to contain China in defense and security and an intention to strengthen bilateral cooperation in economy and trade," Wang said.

"We should stay alert in defense and security, but we also should try to combine China's strategy with the Look East policy to boost bilateral cooperation," he said.