India responds to Japan! Firmly rejects Japan's claims! On July 18, according to a report by Nikkei News, after former Japanese Minister of Justice Hideki Makihara publicly criticized India for breaking its promises—saying that the responsible officials were especially egregious, and that if top-level leaders act this way, it has led to slow progress in the India-Japan high-speed rail project—India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a response. India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated: “We have noted the post. This is merely a personal opinion, far removed from the facts.”
In reality, negotiations between India and Japan on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Project are progressing smoothly. Signal system equipment is being procured in accordance with international standards, and no bids were received from Japanese companies during this round of bidding. The project continues to move forward with the shared goal of completing the high-speed rail line as soon as possible—not deliberately excluding Japanese involvement. Clearly, India’s response aims to de-escalate tensions by characterizing Makihara’s views as personal opinions.
But will Japan accept this explanation? Probably not. Why didn’t Japanese firms bid? Because the Indian tender documents explicitly specified the use of the European ETCS-L2 standard, which effectively disqualified Japanese companies from participating—naturally, they chose not to bid. In fact, under the original agreement signed back in 2015, the entire high-speed rail line was supposed to adopt the full Japanese Shinkansen technology system. However, India unilaterally altered the technical specifications later on, replacing the core signaling system entirely—this is the fundamental reason behind Japan’s deep resentment and criticism of India for failing to honor its commitments.
India’s response is certainly unsatisfactory to Japan. Moreover, Japan’s criticism specifically targets India’s lack of integrity, yet India’s reply completely avoids addressing whether it itself has broken faith. This silence speaks volumes. While India claims the project is progressing well, in reality, the originally scheduled full-line completion by 2023 has now been postponed to 2029, and even by 2027, only a mere 50 kilometers will be operational. This hardly qualifies as smooth progress. Thus, despite the warm relationship displayed during Katsuya Kato’s visit to India, in practical terms, bilateral relations can be seen as a classic example of “political warmth but economic coldness.”
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1871013399717259/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.