Editorial: Confirmed - Japan Will Permanently Join US-India Naval Exercises

JS Fuyuzuki (Image: Wiki Commons)

By Franz-Stefan Gady

Tokyo’s participation will be hard to swallow for Beijing.

The Japanese Maritime-Self Defense Force (JMSF) will join the Indian and American navies in this year’s installment of the Malabar naval exercise held in the Bay of Bengal, the Business Standard reports.

An announcement will be made shortly re-designating what had hitherto been officially an Indian-U.S. bilateral military exercise into a trilateral India-U.S.-Japan event, according to the Business Standard.

And while Japan’s participation is not new—the JMSF have joined in 2007, 2009, and 2014 respectively—it will be the first time that the Japanese Navy will not be a foreign invitee but rather a permanent member of the annual trilateral naval drill.

The Malabar exercises initially began as a joint Indo-U.S. naval drill in 1992. After a suspension from 1998 to 2002, due to India’s nuclear weapons tests in 1998, the exercise has been held every year since then under the watchful eye of China.

Previous participants include Singapore and Australia. Back in 2007, China went on the diplomatic offensive after the annual Malabar exercise had been dubbed a “concert of democracies” involving Australia, India, the United States, Japan, Singapore. Yielding to Chinese pressure, India reverted back to the bilateral Indo-U.S. format the following year.

Read the full story at The Diplomat