Security agreement, business pacts, bullet train ride on Modi’s Japan agenda

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba will travel together on a bullet train during his two-day visit to Japan that begins on Friday (August 29, 2025).

During the visit, the two Prime Ministers will hold the much-delayed 15^th annual summit, and are expected to upgrade the 2008 Declaration on Security Cooperation, including defence hardware purchases, launch an “Economic Security” initiative to build resilient supply chains in a number of areas such as critical minerals and Artificial Intelligence, and increase Japan’s investment targets to around $68 billion.

They will also discuss the India-Japan Indo-Pacific plans for the Quad summit due to be held in India, in the face of growing India-U.S. tensions.

The leaders will attend a business event on the sidelines of the visit, and officials estimate that about 100 business-to-business (B2B) agreements are likely to be signed. While bilateral trade between India and Japan is relatively low at about $22.8 billion, Japan is India’s fifth-largest source of foreign direct investment, with $43.2 billion cumulative investment up to December 2024.

The two sides are also expected to discuss Mr. Modi’s travel from Japan to China to attend the SCO Summit, where Mr. Modi will hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Meeting with diaspora

Mr. Modi will arrive in Tokyo on Friday morning and is due to hold a number of meetings before holding talks with Mr. Ishiba. Mr Modi is also expected to meet with some members of the Indian diaspora that number about 54,000 across the country.

At the India-Japan Summit with Mr. Ishiba, the two sides will release a joint statement as well as the “2035 Vision Statement” for the future of the relationship, to upgrade the 2025 Vision Statement announced by Mr. Modi and then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a decade ago. The meeting on Friday marks 20 years since the first annual summit in 2005 when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met PM Manmohan Singh in Delhi. However, the summits have been irregular over the past seven years, and frequently postponed due to unrest in India over the protests over Citizenship Amendment Act, the COVID pandemic, and political changes in Japan, including Abe’s illness and assassination. As a result, Mr. Modi last travelled to Japan for a bilateral visit for the 13^th summit in 2018, and former PM Kishida travelled to India for the 14^th summit in 2022, but the 15^th summit could only be held now. 

Mumbai-Ahmedabad project

On Saturday (August 30, 2025), Mr. Modi and Mr. Ishiba will travel by the Shinkansen High Speed Rail Network or bullet train to Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture, recreating a ride Mr. Modi took with Abe in 2016. They will visit a semiconductor factory and inspect the Tohoku Shinkansen factory of the East Japan Railway Company, officials aware of the programme told The Hindu. They will discuss the next steps in the 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad Shinkansen project, which was launched in 2017 with Japanese funding. Japan has been India’s largest Overseas Development Aid (ODA) donor since 1958, and the Shinkansen project, originally billed at $17 billion, is a major venture for both countries. Although it has missed a number of deadlines and the cost has increased many times, it is due to be completed in 2028-29. The Japanese government has also agreed to donate two Shinkansen bullet trains to India by 2026 (E5 and E3 models) and introduce its next-generation E10 trains on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad line in 2030. 

Mr. Modi will also meet with the Governors of other Japanese prefectures during the visit, which would highlight the “grassroots connection” between India and Japan, officials said.