New Delhi: India and Japan on Thursday called for an early meeting of Quad leaders while renewing emphasis on safeguarding commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, as the Iran conflict and mounting concerns over economic coercion weighed on the priorities of the two Indo-Pacific partners.The twin emphasis leapt out from the outcomes of the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi, whose first visit to India came amid what the joint statement described as an “increasingly volatile and uncertain geopolitical environment.”In her statement after talks, Takaichi said that “in the midst of international affairs in disarray,” the two countries’ complementary relationship had “become ever more important.”The summit declaration committed both governments to “cooperating towards an early convening of the next Quad Leaders’ Summit,” even as the grouping awaits a date for its first leaders’ meeting since US President Donald Trump’s return to office. This contrasts with last year’s summit declaration that said that the two prime ministers looked forward to the Quad Leaders’ Summit to be hosted by India.Since the start of the second term of President Trump, there has been no sign that the White House has been eager for the Quad leaders to meet, even though the revival of the Quad took place during his first term.Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, briefing reporters after the talks, said the leaders discussed the Indo-Pacific “extensively” and that both sides had “reached a consensus that they will continue to work to increase cooperation on the Quad.”Japanese officials also sought to dispel suggestions that the grouping had lost momentum. “We have no doubt [about] the continuation of Quad cooperation even at the leaders’ level,” Japanese foreign ministry press secretary Kitamura Toshihiro told Indian reporters, adding, “So I’m not talking about cooperation to convince President Trump of holding this summit meeting.” He asserted that Quad countries were working to “provide tangible, practical cooperation to the region”.Hormuz and energy securityOn the Strait of Hormuz, the joint statement said the two prime ministers “reiterated the importance of ensuring unimpeded freedom of navigation and uninterrupted flow of global commerce, including through the Strait of Hormuz, and opposing any restrictive measures hampering the flow of commercial vessels.” A separate section on regional and global issues tied the same language to the ongoing crisis around Iran, calling for “stable supply chains for energy and other essential goods.”Kitamura told reporters that more than 90 percent of Japan’s crude oil imports passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the conflict began. Of 45 Japan-related vessels stranded in the Gulf, he said, roughly 31 remained stuck at the waterway even after the conflict had ended.He said Tokyo opposed any move by regional actors to impose a fee on vessels transiting the Strait, a reference to reported discussions between Iran and Oman on a voluntary fee arrangement for shipping.Earlier this week, Prime Minister Modi had also stressed the need for free and unimpeded navigation in a conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.Economic coercion and China’s shadowThe leaders’ language on the prevailing uncertainty in the global geopolitical environment carried into the summit’s economic security outcomes. The India-Japan Joint Declaration on Economic Security Cooperation, one of the documents signed during the visit, said both sides “reiterate their grave concerns over the use of economic coercion and non-market policies and practices, including arbitrary export restrictions that may lead to supply chain disruptions, particularly on critical minerals, and critical industrial sectors, and price manipulation.”The declaration commits both governments to reduce reliance “on any single country” for supplies in five sectors – semiconductors, critical minerals, information and communication technology, clean energy and pharmaceuticals.While the joint statement did not name China, it came after several months in which Beijing tightened export controls on Japan, including blacklisting Japanese defence-linked entities and restricting rare earth and dual-use exports, in response to remarks by Takaichi in November that suggested Tokyo could respond militarily to a Chinese move on Taiwan.Kitamura stated that Japan was “suffering from so-called weaponisation of the economy” and had recently faced difficulty importing “dual-use items or critical minerals from our neighbouring countries.” He said China had designated nearly 40 Japanese companies on an export restriction list in the past week alone, on top of an existing ban on Japanese seafood imports.The China backdrop was also evident in the joint statement’s language on the South China Sea, which has also been a part of previous summit declarations.The joint statement said the two prime ministers “expressed serious concern over the situation in the East China Sea and the South China Sea,” reiterating “strong opposition to any unilateral actions that endanger the safety as well as freedom of navigation and overflight and attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion,” and voicing concern over the “growing militarisation of disputed features.”The two countries also agreed to prepare for an inaugural Track 1.5 policy dialogue with the Philippines, the joint statement said. The format brings together government officials alongside academics and private experts, rather than functioning as a formal government-to-government channel, Kitamura said, adding that Tokyo hoped to launch it this month though a date had not been finalised.A diplomatic source explained that the trilateral 1.5 dialogue “would not be confined to the topic on how to respond to China’s aggressive activities and aggressive diplomacy”, but extended to cover disaster management, energy security and people-to-people exchange. The trilateral engagement remained at a “very early stage,” the source said, calling it part of Japan’s effort to diversify its regional partnerships.Defence cooperation deepensDefence ties featured prominently among Thursday’s outcomes. Tokyo revised its Three Principles on Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology on April 21, scrapping a rule that had confined exports of finished military products to five non-lethal categories, namely rescue, transport, warning, surveillance and minesweeping. The change allows Japan, for the first time in the post-war period, to export lethal weapons systems to partner countries.It has already produced Tokyo’s first major finished-platform export deal, a $7.15 billion contract with Australia for Mogami-class frigates signed in April.Misri said the two leaders discussed defence cooperation “across the entire spectrum from designing to production, manufacturing.” They welcomed progress on the Unified Complex Radio Antenna project, known as UNICORN, under which Japanese naval antenna technology is being transferred to India under the Make in India framework, he said.The joint statement said the two sides had reached “an agreement in principle on the remaining technical details” of the project, and expected an early conclusion while identifying further defence equipment and technology projects. The fourth round of the India-Japan 2+2 foreign and defence ministerial dialogue will be held in Tokyo by the end of the year, though officials on both sides said a date had not yet been fixed.Asked whether India had raised the prospect of acquiring or co-producing Mogami-class frigates, given Japan’s eased export posture, Misri said there had been no discussion of Mogami-class frigates specifically on this occasion. Both leaders had referred to cooperation across “land, air, naval systems, unmanned vehicles and systems of various kinds,” he noted, and he did not rule out the subject surfacing in future rounds of talks between the two countries’ defence establishments.Kitamura added that Japan’s revised export principles retained a strict monitoring mechanism requiring a bilateral memorandum of understanding before any transfer. The “next candidate” for transfer to India beyond UNICORN was still to be identified between the two defence ministries, he said.Terrorism language and trade outcomesThis year’s joint statement named Pakistan directly in its language on terrorism, a first for the India-Japan annual summit series. The two prime ministers “unequivocally and strongly condemned terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism from Pakistan,” the statement said. The equivalent line in the 15th summit statement, issued in Tokyo in August 2025, condemned “cross-border terrorism” without naming a country.Just like last year, the joint statement condemned the April 2025 Pahalgam attack and cited the UN Security Council Monitoring Team’s report naming The Resistance Front (TRF). Both also called for action against Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and other UN-listed groups. This year’s statement additionally condemned a “terror incident in Delhi on 10 November 2025,” and called for the “perpetrators, organizers and financiers” of both attacks to be brought to justice.On trade, Misri said bilateral commerce between India and Japan, in the range of 25 to 27 billion dollars, “does not really do justice to two of the largest economies in the world.”He said India had proposed a significant upgrade of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or CEPA, given how much global trade arrangements had shifted since the pact was signed. Misri said Takaichi had confirmed during the talks that Japan was prepared to look at the review, and that officials from both countries would take the next steps. The joint statement noted that more than 15 years had passed since India and Japan signed the CEPA, and said the two prime ministers “concurred on accelerating the review of the implementation as well as full and effective utilisation of the CEPA to make it more forward-looking.”Alongside the strategic and security outcomes, the two countries signed sixteen agreements spanning artificial intelligence, batteries, pharmaceuticals, mineral exploration and biogas. They set a target of doubling the number of Japanese companies operating in India over the next decade, while working to exceed the existing 10 trillion yen investment target.