Opinion | Modi And Takaichi And The Playbook For Asia’s Middle Powers

India and Japan's summit signals a deeper strategic partnership, with defence, AI, critical minerals and energy cooperation taking centre stage amid global geopolitical uncertainty

Sanae Takaichi departs New Delhi on Friday, at the end of a three-day visit that produced 16 agreements, a defence co-development deal, a joint declaration on economic security and a statement on artificial intelligence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted her, in Hindi, as his “younger sister", a nod to her roots in Nara prefecture, a seat of the two countries’ shared Buddhist heritage. The warmth was genuine.

A middle power in 2026 isn’t defined by army size. It is defined by whether a country can dodge being locked into one camp, pull rival powers into the same room over a shared problem, keep its supply chains from hinging on a single supplier, and turn up when a partner is actually in trouble. Measured against that test, the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit was more a rehearsal than a ceremony.

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Neither Washington Nor Beijing

Both capitals have spent the past year absorbing tariffs from the Donald Trump administration, and both watched Washington quietly revert the name of its Indo-Pacific Command to the Cold War-era US Pacific Command, a change the Pentagon insists is cosmetic but that registered in New Delhi and Tokyo as a flagging of American attention.

China, meanwhile, has leaned on both countries through the same lever: restricting exports of the rare-earth minerals that feed everything from electric motors to precision-guided weapons. It has diminished confidence in the American security umbrella, bringing these powers........

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