India and Japan to tie-up for 5G technologies, QUAD to pitch in

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Friday. The two leaders decided to take the bilateral special strategic and global partnership to a new level.

Updated on: Sep 26, 2020, 14:07:10 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

India and Japan have decided to join hands in technical development of 5G and 5G plus technologies with the help of other QUAD strategic dialogue members—US and Australia—and Israel. The development of next generation telecommunications technologies will be discussed between QUAD Foreign Ministers in a meeting in Japan next month.

India and Japan have agreed to closely cooperate and develop the 5G and advanced technologies with US and Australia ramping up technological support. (HT Photo)

According to authoritative government sources, while India and Japan have decided to pitch in for 5G and plus technologies, India is also eyeing the 3GPP, umbrella mobile telecommunications standard organization, and has been successful in the global standards consortium to accept the first Indian rural standard for telecommunication. India along with its partners now will be setting more technological global standards. It is understood that majority of 3GPP standards have been set by the Chinese telecommunication development companies.

Also read: High-speed train, Quad figure in 1st call between Japan’s Suga, PM Modi

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and the two decided to take the bilateral special strategic and global partnership to a new level. It is understood Prime Minister Suga told PM Modi that Japan wanted to push QUAD with other three partners and contribute to multilateral efforts for a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” Both India and Japan have been at the receiving end of Chinese aggression this year with a stand-off with Chinese Army in Ladakh and muscle flexing in Senkaku Islands.

“India and Japan have agreed to closely cooperate and develop the 5G and advanced technologies with US and Australia ramping up technological support. We are also taking help from Israel. There are discussions on within the government and our 5G policy will take a final shape in the coming days. But Japan will be a close partner nevertheless,” said an official involved in the exercise.

Also read: Japan announces emergency loan for India to fight Covid-19 pandemic

On September 10, India and Japan signed an acquisition and cross servicing agreement that allows the Japanese Self Defence Forces and the Indian Armed Forces to share supplies and transport duties. Indian and Japanese navies are currently exercising with the possibility of Australian Navy joining the QUAD exercise in November not ruled out. While Japan is still coming to terms with its legacy of the past century, the Chinese aggression over Senkaku Islands has forced Tokyo to increase its defence budget as the ruling party leaders are very vocal about defending the contested Islands from the PLA Navy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.