Amid geopolitical turbulence, Indian states and Japanese prefectures build on shared local interests, giving the partnership between India and Japan lasting stability.
A billboard welcoming Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in New Delhi on July 2, 2026. (©Sankei/Shusuke Takenouchi)
In August 2026, Yamanashi Governor Kotaro Nagasaki led one of the largest Japanese prefectural delegations ever to Uttar Pradesh, with over 200 delegates, including business leaders, academics, tourism officials, and students, reinforcing state–prefecture partnerships.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Yamanashi Governor Kotaro Nagasaki held a similar meeting previously in December 2024. It was a landmark in India–Japan subnational diplomacy, formalizing direct cooperation between Uttar Pradesh and Japan’s Yamanashi Prefecture.
The parties signed memoranda of understanding on cooperation in green hydrogen, clean energy, investment, industrial collaboration, tourism, culture, education, skill development, and technology transfer. This is where India–Japan sub-national diplomacy is emerging as a quiet strategic force.
In an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape defined by trade wars, regional security crises, territorial skirmishes, and economic uncertainty, national policies are in constant flux.
However, these dynamics rarely extend to regional partnerships, which operate within a distinct framework shaped by local economic conditions, labor-market structures, and community priorities. Their durability stems from stronger alignment of interests, built on principles of sustainability, reciprocity, and collective resilience.
In this context, sub-national diplomacy, which entails collaboration among states, prefectures, and cities, is quietly becoming one of the strongest anchors of bilateral relations. This article explores the crucial role of Indian States and Japanese Prefectures in creating platforms that build on complementary resource endowments and historical connections, and how to harness their energy to advance a more comprehensive vision of the India-Japan partnership.
From Sister Cities to Strategic Partners
Sub-national diplomacy is emerging as a strong avenue for concretizing cooperation. They drive employment and business promotion, adding resilience and depth to the broader bilateral relationship. It allows partnerships to multiply across regions, thereby serving as platforms that promote diplomacy from the ground up, grounded in patience, practicality, and people-focused approaches.
This was demonstrated in August 2025, when the Joint Vision for the Next Decade was signed between India and Japan. It explicitly highlights state–prefecture and city partnerships among its eight key lines of effort. Consequently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with sixteen Japanese Governors in Tokyo, underscoring that sub-national cooperation is now central to the bilateral agenda. Earlier, several Chief Ministers have visited Japan.
In 2016, then Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar visited Japan, and in 2018, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar did the same. In January 2025, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also visited Japan, reinforcing the growing importance of sub-national diplomacy in translating ties into concrete regional economic and developmental partnerships.
A Growing Web of State-Prefecture Ties
Across India, several models already exist. These include Kyoto–Varanasi (heritage management), Ahmedabad–Kobe and Hamamatsu (industrial & cultural cooperation), and Pune–Okayama (education & culture).
In August 2025, Hamamatsu City and Ahmedabad City signed a twinning agreement for friendship and cooperation. The partnership aims to foster friendship and enhance cooperation through regular exchanges, delegations, and institutional interactions across multiple sectors.
The areas of collaboration include civic administration, land use planning, transport, education, culture, sports, waste management, infrastructure development, environmental sustainability, public health, science and technology, tourism, heritage management, and urban planning.
This is Ahmedabad's second Sister City pact with a Japanese city, following an earlier agreement with Kobe City. It was the most recent in the series of sister city agreements signed between India and Japan.
Maharashtra has already demonstrated what such collaboration can achieve. The Pune–Okayama sister-city partnership, established in 2016, has become a model for cultural diplomacy and municipal cooperation.
It shows how city-level ties build long-term goodwill that outlasts political cycles. The Maharashtra–Hokkaido dialogue took place in January 2026 and focused on food security and agri-trade. Similarly, Shizuoka has cultivated ties with Gujarat, including agreements linking Hamamatsu and Ahmedabad and academic memoranda of understanding with Indian institutions.
Furthermore, while Toyama has established a dedicated India Economic Desk to support companies seeking entry into the Indian market, Iwate and Miyagi are exploring collaboration with India's growing semiconductor ecosystem.
In December 2024, Andhra Pradesh and Toyama renewed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote cooperation in several areas, including manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and digital innovation sectors.
Uttar Pradesh also signed an MoU with Yamanashi on green hydrogen and plans a joint center of excellence with IIT Kanpur, a public institute of technology in Uttar Pradesh.
In October 2025, the Indo-Japan Council launched the IJBC Regional Roundtable Initiative in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The idea was to create platforms where Indian states and Japanese prefectures can meet, share priorities, and open doors for collaboration in business, education, and culture. It aims to ensure that India–Japan collaboration is led not only by national governments but also nourished by universities, SMEs, state governments, and local communities.
Odisha Signals It Is Ready for Japanese Investment
Through the first IJBC Regional Roundtable in Bhubaneswar, Odisha is now signaling its readiness to join this momentum. The state offers fertile ground for Japanese investment in green energy, ports, and industrial corridors. With its coastline, mineral resources, and emerging IT sector, the state government earmarked approximately 665 acres of land near Bhubaneswar specifically for Japanese industrial ventures.
Corporate entities such as Indo-Nissin Foods and TRL Krosaki established early, successful operational footprints in the state. These initial investments demonstrated the viability of the region's industrial climate, characterized by accessible raw materials, supportive policies, and a developing skilled labor force.
Taken together, this reflects the evolution of sub-national diplomacy from symbolic exchanges to a practical instrument of economic integration, innovation, and people-to-people connectivity.
In February 2026, India and Japan inaugurated the Governors' Network. The framework aimed to deepen structured subnational cooperation, formalizing a trend already underway. Participants at the launch included Yamanashi, Tottori, Miyagi, Toyama, Iwate, and Shizuoka prefectures, each at varying stages of engagement with counterparts in India.
Japanese prefectures have increasingly forged direct partnerships with Indian states to promote investment, industrial collaboration, academic exchange, and labor mobility, and this initiative hits the right chord.
Japanese investments have largely concentrated in a few states, Haryana, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh (AP), and Karnataka, but in recent years Japan has tried to tap opportunities in other Indian states, especially in the Northeast.
The potential next-stage opportunities lie in collaboration between Gujarat–Kansai (EV components, med-tech, logistics), Uttar Pradesh–Kyoto (heritage urbanism at state level), Northeast India–Hokkaido (cold-chain, sustainable fisheries, disaster resilience under Act East Forum), and Tamil Nadu/Karnataka–Nagoya (advanced manufacturing, mobility, aerospace).
What do sub-national diplomacy points towards then? It can be understood as a delivery mechanism for foreign policy, translating national diplomatic objectives into regionally grounded initiatives and partnerships. While national agreements establish intent, states, prefectures, and cities convert that intent into economic and social outcomes.
Because of their proximity, regional governments understand labor needs, investment priorities, local industrial capabilities, and infrastructure constraints. This enables faster experimentation, targeted partnerships, and measurable results. The real opportunity now lies in institutionalizing these partnerships, enabling states, prefectures, cities, universities, and businesses to convert diplomatic goodwill into sustained, measurable outcomes, including distributed economic resilience, shared innovation, and long-term strategic interdependence.
Grounding Grand Strategy in Regional Partnerships
Building bridges beyond borders is an essential and recognized pillar of the bilateral relationship. Grand strategies are essential, but their effectiveness ultimately depends on their grounding in society and pragmatic cooperation.
Within this framework, connectivity is an important strategy itself, providing a durable anchor, rooted in institutional and societal linkages. These are less vulnerable to fluctuations in day-to-day commercial interests and better suited to long-term resilience. Examples include collaborations in trade, technology, tourism, skills, security, cultural exchanges, manufacturing, mobility, next-generation infrastructure, innovation, startups, and SMEs.
In addition, the prefectural diplomacy initiative also reflects Japan's decentralized industrial structure, as much of the country's manufacturing strength lies in regional clusters of small and medium-sized enterprises.
For both governments, connecting these clusters with India's expanding market is a strategic priority. India offers a vast market, skilled workforce, and growing production capabilities. This can also be called the "gateway" model, in which Japanese firms increasingly see India not only as a market but also as a base for manufacturing, innovation, and investment, with a long-term production and innovation presence.
However, Japan needs to build multi-layered connections between prefectures and states, with close coordination that supports a whole-of-nation approach to foreign policy. This will generate tangible projects, shared investment, and sustained people-to-people exchange, thereby lowering barriers and accelerating decision-making.
The next phase of India-Japan relations must move from agreements to outcomes: joint projects, skills partnerships, business corridors, institutional networks and sustained people-to-people exchanges. If national diplomacy provides the strategic architecture, sub-national diplomacy can supply its most resilient foundations.
RELATED:
Japan and India Deepen Strategic Ties as Summit Sends Clear Warning to China
Author: Varuna Shankar