‘Arc of freedom’ ends?

HONG KONG: What does Abe’s exit mean to the Indo-Japanese “strategic relationship”? DNA spoke to two experts.

Vibhav Kant Upadhyay, chairman, India Centre, a non-governmental catalyst for better Indo-Japanese relations. says, “There won’t be any setback to bilateral relations because they are not Abe-specific. The process was started in 2000, although Abe certainly speeded up the process. Whoever succeeds Abe, there will be continuity of policy towards India. The working style and pace may change, but the nature of the relationship will not change.”

Abe was like an Abhimanyu: he went into the chakravyuh (of undertaking constitutional and other reforms) without taking his team with him, and he couldn’t extricate himself. And in the end, he was done in by the people closest to him, the expert explained. 

Professor Jeffrey Kingston, international relations expert at Temple University, Tokyo, says that when Abe outlined his vision of shared values and “arc of freedom” (during his address last month to the joint session of the Indian Parliament), the members were half-asleep: nobody was cheering Abe.

The only time they woke up was when Abe spoke of funding infrastructure projects. That’s typical of the problems he faced at home: he ignored bread-and-butter issues and promoted ideological issues, which no one was enthusiastic about.