Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s just concluded Japan visit continues to rile China, with a state-run daily warning that India could get close to Tokyo “at its own peril” and ties with it “can only bring trouble” to New Delhi.
After attacking Japan yesterday accusing it of attempting forge alliances with India and other neighbours to “encircle China” the ruling Communist Party-run Global Times today came out with an article titled “India gets close to Japan at its own peril”.
Written by a scholar from an official think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Affairs of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, the article with aggressive overtones outlines China’s concerns over the close relations between India and Japan.
“Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh concluded his visit to Japan on Wednesday. The visit, coming after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s recent trip to India, led to speculation in Indian media that it was a balancing tactic against China,” it said.
Noting that Singh’s visit, coming immediately after Li’s visit, was coincidence, it said, “However, adding a day to the visit, initially planned for two days, after the recent China-India border confrontation, prompted speculation about India’s concerns over China in the visit to Japan,” it said.
“Given the long-lasting Diaoyu Islands dispute (Japan calls the islands Sekakus) and China-India border confrontation, there may be some tacit understanding in strategic cooperation between India and Japan,” it said.
“However, India should keep sober over the (Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe administration’s vicious intentions of denying the World Anti-Fascism War as a just war. East Asian countries that were the victims of the World War II won’t indulge Japan”.
“Overheated strategic cooperation with the Abe administration can only bring trouble to India and threaten its relationships with the relevant East Asian countries,” it said.