Bangladesh, July 3 -- In course of welcoming his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi for the annual bilateral summit, Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi described a “free and rules-based Indo-Pacific” as a common priority for both India and Japan. One, however, suspects this much-publicized discourse on the FOIP has hardly been substantial.

The history of contemporary diplomacy bears out the march of this idea has been very slow. In his famous address, “Confluence of the Two Seas, to Indias Parliament in August 2007, former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo mooted this idea for the first time in December 2012, Premier Abe expanded the idea in an op-ed “Asias Democratic Security Diamond,” and proposed that ...