Japan has deepened defense technology and industrial ties across the Indo-Pacific – but with India, cooperation remains slow, selective, and structurally constrained despite strategic convergence on China. Technology transfer, cost competitiveness, export controls, and domestic political economy remain stumbling blocks. Political enthusiasm has yet to translate into scalable defense technology cooperation.
But things are about to change as Japan is recalibrating its defense industrial strategy. Tokyo is repositioning the defense industry as both a strategic asset and an economic driver, with greater emphasis on co-development and co-production with trusted partners. At the same time, structural pressures in Japan – including an aging workforce and the erosion of second and third tier suppliers – have weakened the industrial base, prompting Tokyo to prioritize resilience. Recent policy moves, including the overhaul of arms export guidelines and the 2023 Act on Enhancing Defense Production and Technology Bases, aim to enable equipment transfer, strengthen supply chains, and support international collaboration.
Meanwhile, India is diversifying beyond its traditional reliance on Russia, and deepening defense technology cooperation with the West including France, the United States, and Israel. That means opportunities are opening for Japan’s defense industry.
With China rapidly scaling its defense manufacturing base, the question is no longer whether India and Japan should cooperate, but whether they can do so fast enough. The stakes are rising amid the evolving character of warfare with the growing centrality of drones, electronic warfare, and AI-enabled targeting systems. Recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf have underscored the shift in modern combat toward low-cost, scalable, and rapidly deployable technologies. Robotics, artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and autonomous platforms are now becoming central to asymmetric defense strategies in the Indo-Pacific.
Meanwhile, the conversation on de-risking supply chains is increasingly shaping how Japan structures defense cooperation with strategic partners. Tokyo has pushed for a “China-free” defense supply chain following Beijing’s ban on dual-use exports targeting Japanese firms participating in enhancing military capabilities. Separately, Japan’s domestic debate is underscoring the imperative of building allied supply chains in Asia to ease dependence on U.S.-centric supply chains, which are strained by ongoing conflicts. For India, this raises the challenge of effectively positioning itself within Japan’s emerging network of trusted supply chain partners. The 2025 India-Japan Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation prioritizes technological and industrial collaboration including in high technology and equipment and supply chain linkages including in critical minerals.
SIPRI identifies India as the world’s second-largest arms importer, accounting for 8.2 percent of global imports in 2021–25. Yet despite policy alignment between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative and Tokyo’s 2014 easing of arms export regulations under the late Abe Shinzo, Japan has made limited inroads into the Indian defense market over the past decade. Navigating India’s complex defense procurement and offset framework presented a challenge for Japanese firms entering a highly competitive global defense market.
In sharp contrast, during the same timeframe Japan has noticeably graduated from a traditionally constrained defense exporter to an increasingly active partner in high-end defense technology cooperation, particularly following the National Security Strategy of 2022. While early, unsuccessful attempts to secure major overseas sales – such as the Soryu-class submarine bid in Australia in 2016 and the promotion of the Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrol aircraft in the United Kingdom in 2015 – highlighted the limitations of Japan’s defense export model, Tokyo has since changed its game.
Today its participation in the next-generation fighter aircraft project with the U.K. and Italy, alongside its involvement in the U.S.-led Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) initiative, demonstrates that Tokyo is willing to collaborate on high-end defense technologies under aligned frameworks. A new deal for Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to sell Mogami-class frigates to Australia similarly underscores Japan’s growing willingness to export complex naval platforms when industrial, political, and operational conditions converge. The delivery of an air surveillance radar system to the Philippines in February marked Japan’s first transfer of finished defense equipment. This highlights Tokyo’s gradual yet tangible shift toward operationalizing its defense export policy.
These developments contrast sharply with the lack of progress in India-Japan defense industrial ties, suggesting specific structural mismatches shaping engagement. Protracted negotiations over the US-2 amphibious aircraft – despite the 2018 MoU between Mahindra Defense and ShinMaywa Industries – failed to materialize, reflecting persistent divergences over cost considerations, technology transfer, and production arrangements.
Similarly, Japan’s lack of response to India’s 2017 request for information (RFI) for a submarine program from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries underscored the difficulties in aligning expectations on high-end platforms. Together, these cases highlight the gap between strategic intent and the commercial, regulatory, and industrial realities shaping bilateral defense cooperation.
Despite a robust institutional framework established since 2015 – including key agreements on defense equipment transfer and information security, as well as multiple rounds of the Joint Working Group on Defense Equipment and Technology Cooperation (JWG-DETC) and the India–Japan Defense Industry Forum – tangible outcomes have remained limited. The only completed project to date has been the joint ATLA-DRDO research on Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV)/Robotics, which has yet to transition into production. The ongoing co-development of the Unified Complex Radio Antenna (UNICORN) sensor mast represents the first meaningful move toward co-production.
This is despite Japan’s designation as a privileged partner in Modi’s “Make in India” initiative, and invitation to participate in defense industrial corridors. For its part, Tokyo has also signaled intent: India was identified in Japan’s 2014 Strategy on Defense Production and Technological Bases and prioritized in industry policy outreach by Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation.
Structural divergences weigh on India-Japan defense technology cooperation. There is an expectation gap over technology transfer and industrial control. India prioritizes deep localization, domestic manufacturing, job creation, and the absorption of advanced technologies under its indigenization frameworks, while Japan’s broader approach remains shaped by intellectual property protection, technology security, and stringent end-use restrictions, reinforcing Tokyo’s cautious approach to sensitive transfers. Japan’s defense industry, which is only recently transitioning toward global markets, remains cautious about large-scale overseas projects involving extensive technology sharing. There’s little appetite for strategic risk among Japanese defense firms.
This is further compounded by cost competitiveness. Japan’s defense systems – developed within a historically export-restricted domestic market – struggle to achieve the economies of scale necessary to compete in India’s price-sensitive procurement environment, a structural constraint rooted in decades of limited arms exports.
Even as new opportunities emerge, India–Japan defense technology cooperation is likely to advance incrementally. Regulatory reform is a necessary step, but not a sufficient one. Bridging the gap will require addressing deeper structural constraints – without which the partnership risks remaining politically robust but industrially underdeveloped.