New Delhi: External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Thursday said the country’s best tribute to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would be "to work for a stronger India".

“Our best tribute to Prime Minister Abe would be obviously, to work for a stronger India,” EAM Jaishankar during the book launch event of “The Importance of Shinzo Abe: India, Japan and the Indo-Pacific”.

The EAM said he thinks Shinzo Abe would have visualized the India, Japan relationship as a positively defined one and not anti-China or anti-Western.

“The kind of relationship that I think he (Abe) would have visualized and we should visualize is a positively defined relationship. I think to see it today as anti-China or as some people did some years ago, as anti-Western would say, is to do injustice really to both countries. It should be relationship-driven not by nostalgia and some writings of the past,” EAM Jaishankar said while speaking at the book launch event.

Jaishankar further said India-Japan relations should be based on “what are our hopes and aspirations for the future. And certainly, today when we speak of Atmanirbhar Bharat, when we speak of democratic values when we look at this to mould both the international economic and political and cultural order, I would say that Shinzo Awe offers inspiration not just for Japan, but also for India.”

The book “The Importance of Shinzo Abe” talks about Abe's contribution to global security and the future of Asia and Japan-India relations. The book brings together insights from various experts.

Jaishankar said the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, commonly known as the Quad, is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the US) is essential for the development of India-Japan relations and that economic relations between the two countries are developing in a certain way.

“The Quad, to my mind, is also essential for developing India-Japan relations. I think that in a way because India-Japan relations, the economic side of it is developing in a certain way. It has its speed, it has its comfort, it has its touch points. But if one looks at the strategic side, if one looks at issues, as I said, like supply chains today, if one looks at the digital issue, the semiconductor world, those issues require a certain strategic context and sometimes one has to invent a context for the text to move,” the EAM said.

Earlier in 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot while delivering a campaign speech in Nara City in western Japan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the state funeral of Shinzo Abe at Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo.

After attending the State funeral of Shinzo Abe, PM Modi met with Akie Abe, wife of the late Japanese PM and conveyed his heartfelt condolences on the tragic loss. Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister, stepped down in 2020 citing health reasons. He became Japan's prime minister twice, from 2006-07 and again from 2012-20.