NEW DELHI: In a first, India will play a diplomatic balancing act, as New Delhi hosts defence ministers from Japan and China on two successive days this coming week. There will be a lot of diplomatic and political signalling as the two east Asian adversaries build their distinct ties with the third Asian giant, India.

Japanese defence minister Itsunori Onodera will meet his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday, his first visit here as Japan and India ramp up defence cooperation. On Tuesday, Sitharaman is scheduled to meet Chinese Defence Minister and State councillor Wei Fenghe who is also on his first visit here, where India and China are scheduled to work on measures to improve trust between their armies facing each other on the over 4000-km long un-demarcated border.

With Japan being India's closest strategic partner right now, the two countries are building the next step of bilateral ties after investment and infrastructure.

Defence and security are the new areas of focus between the two countries. Japan is looking to not only exploit the Indian defence equipment market but also have their first army exercises. Japan and India have already developed a close naval relationship. The defence diplomacy has a larger aim here — for both countries to synergise their distinct goals in their Indo-Pacific policy.

With China, on the other hand, development of confidence-building measures between the two sides has been stepped up after the Modi-Xi informal summit in Wuhan earlier this year. Among other things, the post-summit statement said both governments would instruct their respective militaries to take steps to reduce conflicts like Doklam.

Both defence ministers are also expected to meet prime minister Narendra Modi .

The respective visits by Japanese and Chinese defence ministers come days after the first-ever visit to India by the Korean defence minister Young Song Moo. In an interview to TOI, he outlined their focus — “the Korean defence industry is looking to establish a presence in the Prime Minister's defence corridor and form a real partnership, once they have established a contractual relationship on the weapon systems that India is interested in. These partnerships will deepen defence industry cooperation relationship.”

