Forging an Inclusive Regional Order: India, South Korea, and the Indo-Pacific Strategic Partnership

Shreya Das

The author is a Post-graduate Student at the South Asian University, New Delhi. This article was an outcome of the ‘Korea Centre Summer Internship Programme-2024′. 

 

Abstract

The Indo-Pacific is a regional construct initiated and led by the USA, Japan, Australia, and India (QUAD) and strategically supplemented by the ongoing Sino-US rivalry. While the USA envisions the Indo-Pacific as a security-focused alignment network that will advance a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ toward balancing a ‘rising and assertive China,’ others envisaged it as a ‘free, open, and inclusive’ regional order focusing on partnerships and collaborations. This inclusivity extends to China, the USA, and middle powers like the Republic of Korea (ROK). This paper analyses how India’s vision of an inclusive Indo-Pacific can be harmonized with South Korea’s vision of a ‘free, peaceful, prosperous’ Indo-Pacific. India’s quest for strategic autonomy and establishment of a multipolar world order can be accommodative of South Korea’s aspirations to be a ‘global pivot state’ and shape regional order collectively, as well as create a balancing act that can support rising India and middle power South Korea amidst superpower politics.

 

Introduction

In the following passages, I will discuss Indian and South Korean Indo-Pacific strategies and their implications for their bilateral relations. These efforts have the potential to conceive a greater regional role and transform them into key players in maintaining a stable world order. Since its inception as a modern nation-state, India has been drawn to a just and peaceful world order that aims to maintain collaborative relations with neighbors and extra-regional actors while respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all. It seeks to broaden its horizon beyond a traditional understanding of ‘alliances.’ It envisions a multipolar world with a common pursuit of progress and prosperity for all stakeholders without tying itself to any official ‘allies.’ This inclusive vision of world order has been central to the Indian approach to the Indo-Pacific. South Korea, too, is a country that has been in pursuit of advancing its autonomy. This vision of Korea has been articulated in the latest Korean foreign policy outlook, ‘Global Pivot State,’ committed to a greater strategic role while embracing values and principles such as freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in support of a rules-based international order without being economically, militarily, or diplomatically constrained great power politics between the USA and China.

This article outlines the converging points between India and South Korea’s aspirations and their mutual tilt to a rule-based international order that can be achieved through greater bilateral cooperation and joint initiatives to advance regional development and mutually tackle transnational concerns. India and South Korea have been historically peripheral to each other’s foreign policies, leading to limited bilateral engagement since their independence. With the Indo-Pacific promising a new era in bilateral relations, this article explores existing but underutilized avenues for cooperation, highlighting their potential to revitalize ties between the two countries.

This essay is organized into six parts, beginning with a brief discussion of how the Indo-Pacific came to be and how relevant it is to India and South Korea diplomatically and economically. The next sections delve deeper into the historical backgrounds of India and South Korea and their push toward the Indo-Pacific narrative, followed by identifying areas of cooperation to build a bilateral relation based on inclusivity and prosperity. These include cooperation in the economic and defense sectors, forming new supply chains, maritime cooperation, and, finally, multilateral cooperation. In conclusion, the article addresses these initiatives’ structural and political challenges, stressing the importance of policymakers’ strategic recognition for effectively implementing Indo-Pacific strategies and strengthening bilateral partnerships. The final segment takes note of the structural and political barriers to such initiatives and the need to recognize the strategic value of such cooperation from policymakers to practically implement their Indo-Pacific strategies.

 

Indo-Pacific Regional Construct

The term ‘Indo-Pacific’ seeks to combine the regions around the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean into a singular regional construct. It envisions a geo-economic connectivity between the Indo-Pacific regional construct for shared economic prosperity. However, more importantly, it builds strategic stability that seeks to restrain actions of state actors deemed as ‘disruptive.’ From a security perspective, the US Department of Defense (2023) has defined it as a primary theatre of rivalry with revisionist powers, particularly China, whom it considers seeking regional hegemon. The increasing politico-military assertiveness of China has drawn the USA, along with Japan, Australia, and India, into a strategic convergence. Nonetheless, there is substantial multiplicity in what Indo-Pacific means to actors outside the USA, leading to criticisms of the regional construct being artificial and US-manufactured. India, for example, has steered clear from endorsing any anti-China or China-containment understanding of the Indo-Pacific as advanced by the US (Baruah, 2020).

The need to address infrastructural connectivity as part of the Indo-Pacific can be deemed as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. However, it is not entirely reliant on US-China rivalry, and it has been promoting the Indo-Pacific as a multipolar order that must be inclusive enough to work together and maintain equilibrium in the region. The Indo-Pacific construct has steadily transformed itself to project an independent sense of agency for rising powers and middle powers. Medcalf (2019) analyses the Indo-Pacific as a construct to lessen, if not contain, the influence of China in the international order, particularly in maritime Asia – which houses some of the world’s most strategically significant trade and energy corridors. Besides the QUAD members, states like Indonesia, South Korea, ASEAN, and many other countries have also developed their official understanding of the Indo-Pacific, which points towards a shared emphasis on rules, norms, and international law. Therefore, this diplomatic solidarity has raised the question of whether like-minded countries can engage in coalition-building or issue-based linkages and create strong partnerships to uphold a multipolar world order that does not succumb to Chinese hegemony or remain caught up in great power rivalry between the US and China.

 

India and the Indo-Pacific

The most popular interpretation of the Indo-Pacific is a regional construct that aims to expand and strengthen as a balancing mechanism against a rising threat of a China-centric regional order, mirroring US geopolitical anxiety about its dominance in Asia, particularly East Asia (Pan, 2014). However, countries like India have moved away from such regional designs despite its close strategic relations with the USA and Japan. Instead, official statements point towards a “common, rule-based world order,” such as the ones made by Prime Minister Modi in the Shangri La Dialogue 2018, which do not explicitly condone Chinese aggression over territorial disputes but imply support for a rule-based world order based on territorial integrity and sovereignty. R Rajagopalan (2020) considers India’s stance as neither an act of balancing China nor of hedging but refers to it as ‘evasive balancing’ – India is mindful of China’s aggressive tactics, prioritizing traditional military balancing while also reassuring China that it does not seek to contain it, and has, therefore, shied away from security alliances with partner states.

The fundamentals of Modi’s vision of the Indo-Pacific are not directed against any country, nor does India want to be part of a grouping that ‘seeks to dominate.’ From a normative dimension, India has highlighted the importance of partnerships – a key tenet in its understanding of ‘inclusiveness.’ The emphasis is on a ‘rule-based international order’ that applies to individual states and the governance of global commons, based on consent and not coercion by major powers. Therefore, India’s leadership role in the region is hinged not only on balancing the competing interests of the USA and China but also on mutual respect, dialogue, cooperation, peace, and prosperity (Chaudhury, 2018).

India claims that its vision of the Indo-Pacific is an extension of its Act East Policy, based on the principle of ASEAN-centrality. Besides trade and investment, other areas of collaboration include infrastructural projects based on connectivity, sustainability and transparency, people-to-people ties, defense, and security. In tandem with India’s ‘free, open and inclusive’ sloganeering, with time, India has extended its focus to East Asia as well, extending its sense of inclusivity to ‘antagonist’ China and, most recently, South Korea. The supply chain diversification/resilience initiatives commanded by the USA and its allies, such as the EU and South Korea, have opened interesting windows of opportunity for India to enhance the competitiveness of its manufacturing sector and identify selected products through increased engagement with such countries (Vashisht, 2022).

Partnerships are pivotal to India’s vision and strategy and countries such as Australia, France, Japan, and the United States emerged as New Delhi’s natural partners in India’s Indo-Pacific approach. Regional organisations such as EU, ASEAN, and IORA are also important partners – and ultimately, these partnerships are New Delhi’s attempt to stay away from ‘alliances of containment’ while simultaneously acknowledging the ‘shifts in global power’ (Prime Minister’s Keynote Address at Shangri La Dialogue, 2018) and take its role as a leading power with a stabilizing mission in the hostile environment. Some of the noteworthy initiatives undertaken by India under the ambit of its partnership-oriented inclusive Indo-Pacific strategy include teaming up with Japan to build Asia-Africa Growth Corridor projects for Southeast Asia and Africa. This cooperation came as a response to India’s opposition to the growing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean region and counter China’s BRI projects. The Indo-Japanese initiative is, therefore, a combination of the “Act East” policy and Japan’s “Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure,” which signals an attempt at bilateral cooperation under the Indo-Pacific narrative, focusing on regional integration and industrial networks through improved connectivity. Other connectivity initiatives included extending port connectivity among the littoral states of the Indian Ocean. This is due to India’s perception of the west coast of the Americas to the eastern littoral of Africa within the ambit of its security in the Indo-Pacific. However, India’s partnerships are not entirely geography-bounded in their scope either, and it has emphasized a civilizational link between India and countries in the Southeast Asian region – supplementing its call for a ‘free, open and inclusive’ Indo-Pacific.

The convergence of partnerships and security has led India to mirror the US stance to some extent in the case of maritime security, especially on the need to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea. This assertion is also rooted in the liberal values of respect for democracy and the rule of law. As part of its multilateral cooperatives, it has also undertaken capacity-building and humanitarian assistance initiatives, such as Mission SAGAR to deliver COVID-related assistance to the island states of the Indo-Pacific and as part of other mini-lateral groupings in the Indo-Pacific, including the Trilateral Dialogue with France and Australia since 2020, and with Australia and Indonesia since 2017. New Delhi’s appetite for maritime cooperation is also indispensable to its vision of the Indo-Pacific. The Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogues hosted by India were focused on regional cohesion through maritime connectivity, developing a ‘blue economy’ and the related challenges, and the possibility of deepening the SAGAR (Security And Growth for All in the Region) on the multilateral forums. Broadly, it focused on maritime security, maritime ecology, maritime Resources, disaster risk reduction and management, trade connectivity and maritime transport, capacity-building and resource sharing, and science, technology, and academic cooperation.

 

Korea and the Global Pivot State: Aspirations and Anxieties

 During the post-Cold War period, South Korea has navigated a delicate balance, maintaining its core security alliance with the United States while cultivating essential economic partnerships with a rising China. The escalating US-China strategic rivalry has strained South Korea’s balanced diplomatic approach. This tension became evident in 2016 when South Korea’s decision to deploy the American THAAD missile defense system triggered severe economic retaliation from China, highlighting the growing difficulty of maintaining strong ties with both powers. The THAAD incident demonstrated how security decisions aligned with its US alliance could result in significant economic costs for China. Beijing alleged THAAD deployment was an encirclement attempt by the USA using its allies to ‘undermine the regional stability of Asia-Pacific’ (Ma, 2017, p. 182); Chinese action led to massive consumer boycotts against Korean conglomerates like Hyundai, Kia, and Lotte. Caught in the crossfire of great power competition, South Korea has been reluctant to endorse a US-centric notion of Indo-Pacific, and former President Moon Jae-In focused on developing a two-pronged multilateral strategy – New Northern Policy (NNP) and New Southern Policy (NSP) – to secure South Korea’s political, economic, and people-to-people connectivity with other regional powers. NSP, in particular, was geared towards ASEAN and India as part of South Korea’s economic diversification program to reduce its economic dependence on China. “We cannot abandon economy for the sake of security, and we cannot abandon security for the sake of economy,” was the official rhetoric in 2020 (American Progress, 2021). However, under the conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea has abandoned the goal of ‘strategic autonomy’ and balanced diplomacy in favor of the Korea-US alliance-centric approach to its foreign policy, endorsed Indo-Pacific, and promoted itself as a ‘Global Pivot State.’

Yoon Suk Yeol’s rallying cry of South Korea as a ‘Global Pivot State’ seeks to embrace greater roles and responsibility to counter regional and global challenges within and beyond the Indo-Pacific, rejecting an inward-looking project that was more concerned with North Korea during the Moon administration. The previous administration was ambitious regarding Korea’s international agency. It wanted to move past Korea’s status as a ‘middle power’ and sought formidable economic, military, diplomatic, and cultural clout based on its material capabilities. However, it remained reticent about the Indo-Pacific concept and avoided Seoul’s participation in diplomatic initiatives associated with the Indo-Pacific.   In contrast, the Yoon administration has taken a more decisive stance, actively supporting the Indo-Pacific framework and aligning it with value-based diplomacy while maintaining South Korea’s traditional pragmatic foreign policy approach. It emphasizes South Korea’s credentials as a democratic country, associating the word ‘freedom’ with prosperity, and has called for close cooperation with all nations inside and outside the region to realize ‘common goals based on universal values.’ Its visibility in promoting human rights discourse, notably its role in trying to move a resolution against China for its alleged atrocities against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang and a human rights envoy to North Korea, has garnered international headlines.

South Korea’s liberal values and democratic identity consequently seek to cooperate with other like-minded countries and converge their strategic interests. This has been the basis of its numerous bilateral engagements with other democratic countries, such as the USA, Japan, and Australia, as well as liberal institutions, such as the EU. One such example is the current government’s tilt towards the US axis, emphasizing the importance of US-ROK security and technology cooperation and reshaping global supply chains, such as being part of the US-led ‘Fab 4’ alliance. Its conceptualization of a “free, peaceful, and prosperous” Indo-Pacific based on inclusiveness, trust, and reciprocity cemented its allegiance to liberal values that are system-supporting rather than system-replacing (Ryu, 2023). It has increased its multilateral and multilateral engagements, such as network ties between U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation and joining the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Expanding its geographical scope of conduct has led to aspirations of making its presence felt in the Indian Ocean. However, currently, it has been more successful in its engagement with the European region through its participation in the NATO summit of 2022. Besides liberal values and strategic relevance, the ‘Global Pivot State’ has invested in global public goods such as development and humanitarian aid, military trade with countries such as Poland, and made advances in digital spaces to bridge the digital gap between developed and developing countries to increase access to education, finance, and healthcare.

The South Korean understanding of inclusiveness can be captured through a two-way engagement: one with like-minded countries that share the same values and the other that is focused on countries that do not align with universal values. It has denounced any changes in a regional order or the status quo by force or coercion but rather change based on universal values. As part of its commitment to peace and stability as a liberal democratic country, it has championed freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea. However, simultaneously, the Yoon administration’s inclusiveness strategy “neither targets nor excludes any specific nation” and regards China as “a key partner for Korea to achieve its peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, 2022). A nuanced understanding of South Korea’s pillar of inclusiveness requires one to be mindful of its deep economic affiliation with China and its shaky non-economic engagement with the latter. On the one hand, its statement on China being a key partner in achieving peace and prosperity shows a willingness in Seoul to advance cooperation such as the China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit; however, the exercise has failed to generate noteworthy results, and the states have skirted around security issues in the summit. It has, therefore, raised concerns about how the South Korean understanding of inclusiveness accommodates non-like-minded countries such as China. Additionally, limited levels of engagement with like-minded countries such as India and ASEAN have raised concerns about whether the normative framework is yet to be as penetrative as has been the case for ROK-US relations and, to a lesser degree, ROK-EU relations.

 

India-ROK relations: Inclusivity & Prosperity

In the context of the India-ROK bilateral relationship, their respective Indo-Pacific strategies have created avenues of equivalent partnership within a security and economic framework. Both states are major stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific region. They are crucial to how the strategic narrative will pan out, particularly due to the USA’s backing of their regional centrality to counter China. The ROK, with its legacy of going from one of the poorest countries in the world to being an OECD member and a powerhouse of technological innovation in strategic sectors such as semiconductors, promises to be a source of immense development cooperation with India, which has managed to become the fifth-largest economy in the world, and setting records with an annual growth rate of 7.6% according to IMF data, registering the highest growth rate amongst the biggest economies of the world. Additionally, India should look at South Korea and not just ASEAN to expand its diplomatic influence beyond its immediate neighborhood in South Asia. India’s multi-alignment strategy based on issue-based coalitions complements South Korea’s quest to “seek out agenda for cooperation and shape discussions in the region and the wider world.” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, 2022).  A bilateral relationship based on a mutual understanding of strategic autonomy incentivizes a long-term comprehensive relationship, both in the strategic and economic domains.

 

Economic Cooperation:

In 2015, New Delhi and Seoul became signatories to the ‘Special Strategic Partnership,’ and in 2019, India received favorable status under South Korean foreign policy as part of the New Southern Policy (NSP). These developments were excitable for the keen observers of the Indo-Pacific regional construct, as they marked a closer association between the comparatively disconnected regional neighbors in the past. Despite previously having been a part of a free trade agreement under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2009, the economic engagement between the two states is still relatively low, with India’s share in South Korean imports limited to 1.88% in 2021, while its share in the latter’s exports was a meagre 1.02% the same year. South Korean investments in India, such as the likes of Hyundai, LG, Samsung, and Kia, have certainly made a favourable impact on a sizable chunk of Indian households; however, overall infrastructural investment in India is still scarce. Neither has South Korea managed appropriately to tap into India as a low-cost manufacturing base.

If South Korea plans to project itself as a ‘Global Pivot State,’ it has to establish itself within the Indo-Pacific landscape by diversifying its partnerships with other regional actors, which are both economically and technologically sound. India shares similar aspirations of being a regional leader and has emphasized developmental projects as crucial to its foreign policy (John, 2020). Hence, South Korea, an OECD member, has been described as an ‘indispensable part’ of India’s ‘Act East Policy’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, reflecting India’s deep-seated desire to be part of multi-lateral, mutually beneficial and sustainable economic partnerships. The ongoing CEPA negotiations regarding its possible expansion are, therefore, occurring at a time when both India and South Korea’s mutual desire to take up a larger space in this new regional construct is severely hindered in the economic sector, where India’s trade deficit with South Korea stands at US dollar 14.57 billion in FY23 from US dollar 9.39 billion a year ago.

 

Reshaping Supply Chains:

The US-China chip war has opened up the possibility of a Korea-India semiconductor partnership, where an economic engagement veers into technological cooperation. China is the largest market for semiconductor exports from South Korea and semiconductor parts and equipment. However, China’s push for self-reliance in the semiconductor market, which has already irked the USA, has also become a concern for South Korean policymakers – intensifying debates over appropriate diversification strategies and looking for the ‘Next China.’ Conversely, India suffers from an import dependency on Chinese semiconductors. It has put India in a vulnerable position, particularly due to the increasing frequency of territorial scuffles between the two states.

Beyond the geopolitically intense landscape in Asia, the COVID-19-induced supply chain disruption also made India recognize the need for a stable, non-China-centered supply chain. It has pushed India to vouch for a QUAD Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, and now, India and South Korea must seriously consider building a partnership in this domain. With its increasing demand for semiconductors, India is a promising long-term market worth investing in for South Korea. The US initiative for a Chip 4 or a Fab 4 alliance – consisting of the US, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, can parallel an increasing South Korean semiconductor export to India, legitimizing the Indo-Pacific as a zone of freedom and openness. Such an arrangement can also supplement budding multilateral institutions such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which aims to secure regional semiconductor supply chains (Kumar, 2023).

 

Defense Cooperation:

Aside from semiconductors, India’s demand for arms import has skyrocketed over the years and has maintained its position as the leading arms importer in the world, with 9.8% of arms imported. South Korea, which currently occupies 2% of the world’s arms exports, according to SIPRI, is a promising partner in bilateral defense cooperation. Historically, India and South Korea have had minimal conflict, which reduces the risk of future political conflict. The Modi Government’s bid to utilize the ‘Make in India’ Initiative and make India a defense manufacturing hub created a requirement for diversifying its market of defense system suppliers. On the other hand, South Korea is a major defense manufacturing powerhouse – it is the 8th largest weapon exporter currently, and the Yoon administration’s iron-handed approach to achieve a 5% share in the weaponry export market by 2027 has gained a head-start through its multibillion-dollar defense contracts with Poland and Australia.

India’s rising military expenditure and the instability of Russia as the primary arms supplier create the opportunity for India and South Korea to gauge each other favorably for exploring new opportunities in defense collaboration. The ‘Roadmap for Defense Cooperation’ finalized during the Korean Defense Minister’s visit to India in 2020, was inclined towards a defense relation based on co-production and co-development rather than a traditional buyer-seller model, and locate potential areas of collaboration, including Land Systems, Naval Systems, Aero Systems and Guided Weapon Systems (John, 2022). With its requisite technology, distinct cost advantage, capacity to absorb capital investment, and political will, the aspiring Global Pivot State can use India’s appetite for capacity building, vast market, capital, resources, and the intent to grow as a manufacturing hub.

 

Maritime Cooperation:

The Indo-Pacific Convergence in the maritime arena creates a new area of proximity for India-ROK relations. The US vision of a Free and open Indo-Pacific maritime space is very rule-based due to China’s excesses in the South China Sea. The Chinese conduct in the South China Sea, which has recently gained the reputation of being the next geopolitical hotspot, is deemed intimidating and coercive. In comparison, the Indian idea of the Indo-Pacific also extends the values of inclusivity to the oceans and has explored common areas of collaboration with other like-minded countries. It has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with South Korea for shipbuilding. It seeks to explore joint capacity building, maritime domain awareness, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, search and rescue, marine pollution, anti-piracy, counter-terrorism and counter-trafficking, and combating marine pollution. India’s Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) initiatives should also vouch for South Korean investment, but the most important source of maritime cooperation is naval capacity building. Navy-to-navy cooperation was seen during India’s participation in the ADMM-Plus Maritime Security Field Training Exercise (FTX) as part of the deployment of the Eastern Fleet to the South China Sea in 2019 (Singh, 2020). Nonetheless, Seoul would not want to be part of explicit security-based cooperation in the Indian Ocean Rim region, especially during China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean for economic pursuits. South Korea would not be comfortable being part of any China containment coalitions in the South China Sea or the Indo-Pacific.

 

Multilateral Cooperation:

India-ROK relations in the context of their respective Indo-Pacific strategies should be analyzed in terms of their bilateral relations and their commitment to strategic regional development. The Yoon administration has categorically avoided usage of the term ‘Global South,’ referring to them as “countries with limited fiscal space and technical expertise” – and emphasized South Korea’s commitment to being an aid donor country and increasing the coherence and effectiveness of their aid policies. India’s Global South approach is outcome-oriented and aims to be consultative and focus on the human security aspect of its developmental programs with partner countries— its goal is to offer ‘simple, scalable, and sustainable’ solutions. A multilateral cooperation featuring India and South Korea to challenge global challenges such as climate change, global health, infrastructure connectivity, renewable energy technology, and digital access would enhance regional development and regional integration. COVID-19 was one such instance of the two countries taking proactive roles in regional development, when the Yoon government pledged 300 million dollars for research to combat the epidemic, while India started initiatives such as ‘Vaccine Maitri’ (Pankaj, 2023).

The ASEAN, IORA, AIIB, IPEF, and QUAD are important multilateral institutions that can be a source of convergence for South Korea and India to make constructive reforms in the liberal world order. ASEAN and IORA can be utilized to counter the Chinese footprint in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean as well as sustainability policies, AIIB as a source of financing physical and digital connectivity projects, IPEF to reshape global supply value chains, and QUAD to establish minilateral platforms for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and maritime security. An India-ROK maritime security initiative could cause concern in Seoul and Beijing. However, it could bring South Korea a lot closer to the QUAD dynamic, particularly due to the pre-existing US-Japan-ROK trilateral maritime alliance, which makes an India-ROK (or an India-ROK-Japan) alliance much more viable, kickstarting the QUAD Plus (Panda, 2023). These initiatives could also depart from ROK’s preoccupation with the Korean peninsula and truly expand South Korea’s global footprint, particularly in the security sector. Moreover, subscribing to the Indo-Pacific construct is a testament to South Korea and India’s commitment to propagating a democratic political system, an open market economy, and a rule-based international order and conduct. India and South Korea’s strategic autonomy can, therefore, encourage outward-looking collaborations in tandem with liberal values, especially in an era when the USA is becoming increasingly protectionist, while China’s self-sufficiency has made it markedly more coercive with hegemonic aspirations.

 

Conclusion

While the growing popularity of Korean pop culture, cosmetics, and cuisine among Indian youth highlights the deepening India-ROK relationship, these cultural connections should be a foundation for broader cooperation. The significant Korean cultural presence in India raises an important question: How can both nations leverage this cultural affinity to foster deeper bilateral engagement and contribute to shaping a multipolar, inclusive, and rule-based global order? India and South Korea have recognized each other as integral to their respective Indo-Pacific strategies. However, New Delhi has emphasized strategic relations with QUAD members more, while South Korea has been more oriented towards the US and the ASEAN. Both countries face similar threats of Chinese aggression, an unstable immediate neighborhood, heightened further by Chinese intervention, and exercise strategic autonomy by having a defense tilt towards the USA and deep economic engagements with China. However, despite these convergences, both these states are constrained by geographic distance and sub-regional geopolitics, leading to limited partnerships.

The mutual commitment to the idea of inclusiveness in their respective Indo-Pacific strategies, can be a cornerstone in the unfolding India-ROK relations in the future. India fits the bill of the Yoon administration’s desire to collaborate with like-minded countries with liberal values and bilateral visits by high officials, where newer agendas high technology, IT hardware manufacturing, semiconductors, electric vehicles (EVs), battery technology, and defense has captured the imagination of policymakers in both countries. As mentioned previously, South Korea’s aim to diversify its supply chains is a major incentive for India to establish itself as a manufacturing hub in the Indo-Pacific region. External Affairs Minister Jaishanker’s visit to Seoul in 2024 underscored this sentiment, as the ministries discussed ways to extend cooperation to new areas such as critical and emerging technologies, semiconductors, green hydrogen, human resource mobility, and resilient supply chains, working both bilaterally and together with other countries. There was an acknowledgment of common interests and concerns in the shared Indo-Pacific region and the commonality of initiatives undertaken by both, respective to their Indo-Pacific strategies. The ‘2nd KNDA-KIEP-ICWA-RIS 2+2 Policy Dialogue’ on “ROK and India: Partners of Strategic Trust in the Indo-Pacific” in the same month highlighted the need for bilateral cooperation in areas of concern: protectionism, digital transformation, and climate change, as well as reorganization of the global supply chain. It would focus on key GVC industries such as semiconductors and automobiles, with an added emphasis on ‘fragmentation’ and ‘multi-alignment’ as strategic environmental changes in the Indo-Pacific region. Furthermore, the previously mentioned EAM’s visit to South Korea also touched upon maritime cooperation, where he pitched for Seoul’s participation in the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) to converge in issues of both conventional and non-conventional security issues as well as trade, connectivity, maritime transport, and marine resources, to strengthen their relationship with the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). South Korea is also invited to partner with India and identify maritime projects in the IOR, particularly in Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Mauritius.

Despite bilateral engagement, the lack of political momentum impedes both aspirations to being a pivot state trying to upgrade from middle power status or a rising power that seeks to establish itself as a regional leader. Nonetheless, there has been an explicit recognition of building a sustainable and stable regional order by collaborating on common yet complex challenges based on universal values. The promotion of a regional order based on norms and rules, the rule of law, human rights, counterterrorism, free and fair economic order, security cooperation such as maritime security, cybersecurity, and health security, as well as technological shared advancement cannot exist in isolation – it has to be realized through issue-based linkages with a multilateral outlook. For India and South Korea, these linkages would be possible only after both countries recognize each other’s strategic value. South Korea needs to acknowledge India as one of the key players in the Indo-Pacific and advance cooperation to build regional organizations spanning the Indian Ocean, South Asia, West Asia, and Africa, as well as in functional organizations such as the QUAD and the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) where India plays a principle role. India needs to look beyond Japan and recognize the importance of South Korea in the economic domain, especially its prowess in shipbuilding and the semiconductor industry, and utilize its resources to become a key industrial base. As aspiring leaders, their cooperation will not only positively impact their immediate national interests but also provide infrastructure assistance in addressing the issues of the Global South.

 

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