India and Japan Conduct Drill to Counter CCP Military Threat

A report on September 8th said, on Thursday, Japan and India announced they would deepen defense cooperation, and New Delhi would invite Japanese industry to invest and plan to hold the first-ever joint military exercise involving fighter jets.

 In Tokyo, Japan’s defense minister, Yasukazu Hamada, and India’s defense minister, Rajnath Singh held talks, and later in the day, the foreign ministers of both sides also participated in the 2+2 talks.

 India’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, (Singh) invited Japanese industry to invest in India’s defense industry. The two ministers agreed that the early conduct of the first fighter exercise would pave the way for greater cooperation and interoperability between air forces of the two countries.

 The joint exercise was originally scheduled for 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Thursday’s “2+2” meeting comes ahead of a possible summit meeting later this month between Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. Japanese officials previously said that President Modi planned to visit Tokyo on September 27th to attend the state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.