Tokyo: Asserting that India and Japan are natural partners in the re-globalisation of the world as democracies and market economies, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on March 7 that the two nations also share basic affinities. The external affairs minister Jaishankar is in Tokyo for the second leg of his four-day visit to South Korea and Japan.

The minister, addressing the first Raisina Roundtable here, said, “The world is heading for re-globalisation with the building of resilient and reliable supply chains and trusted and transparent digital transactions.”

He said the “top 20 or 30 nations today are not what they were two decades ago. Even less so. What they were four or eight decades ago.” Adding, “Not only are the countries that impact us different but so are relative weight, importance and capability. As a result, new balances are being sought and occasionally achieved.”

Jaishankar also said that India and Japan’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific is being taken forward by the Quad each year. “The value of this contribution is also being increasingly appreciated across the world,” he said underlining that the comfort India and Japan have built up is a foundation to think more ambitiously as the two nations look at the opportunities and challenges of the future. The QUAD is a four-member strategic security dialogue between the US, Australia, India and Japan.

He said, “The progress in India in the last decade promises even more for a partnership.” The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said in a statement ahead of Jaishankar’s visit that the Raisina Roundtable is a key step towards enhancing track 2 exchanges between India and Japan. External Affairs Minister Jaishankar’s visit and meetings in Tokyo will provide strategic guidance to India’s functional cooperation in various areas, impart further momentum to bilateral exchanges, and set the agenda for future cooperation, it said.