For all the focus on China’s ascendancy, the developing strategic and economic entente between Japan and India may eventually prove to be as important in shaping Asia’s future. In many respects, India and Japan could not be more different: one has more poor people than any other nation on Earth; the other was the first non-Western society to fully modernize. The order and discipline of Japanese society contrast vividly with the hustle-and-bustle of any Indian city. India is the world’s youngest big country, while Japan is aging more rapidly than any other developed society. India, traditionally, has pursued a foreign policy of non-alignment and opposition to Western hegemony in world affairs, while Japan has been a model ally of the United States for over sixty years. Japan remains shackled by its postwar pacifist constitution and normative constraints on the use of military force; India is a nuclear-weapons state engaged in one of the world’s largest arms buildups.

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