Seoul: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s three-day visit to India starting Sunday is likely to serve as a significant milestone in enhancing India-South Korea bilateral relationship, extending beyond the economic sphere to include security, culture, and people-to-people connections, a report said on Saturday.
According to international magazine ‘The Diplomat’, unlike 2023 and 2025, the year 2026 is likely to be remembered as a landmark year for ushering in a new phase in the second decade of the Special Strategic Partnership.
The last State Visit by the South Korean President to India took place in July 2018, while the Indian Prime Minister last visited South Korea in February 2019, over seven years ago. Since then, interactions between the two leaders have largely been limited to brief encounters at multilateral forums.
“This lack of energy is puzzling, considering that India’s strategic position has skyrocketed over the past decade. Amid rising global instability, countries’ and companies’ search for a reliable partner has led them to India. India has surpassed France and the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth-largest economy and is expected to overtake Japan and Germany to become the third-largest by the end of this decade,” the report detailed.
“The world’s most populous country and the largest democracy have also improved their business environment by investing heavily in infrastructure and liberalising foreign direct investment rules,” it added.
The report stressed that India and South Korea have yet to discover the synergies in their multi-alignment approaches, even as the conditions for deeper convergence are rapidly emerging.
The upcoming visit of President Lee to India from April 19-21 is expected to significantly alter the current diplomatic mood.
“The current Korean government, which took office in June 2025, is dedicated to inheriting and advancing the New Southern Policy of the Moon Jae-in administration (2017-22), which focused on deepening relationships with Asia’s emerging economies. The government is implicitly preparing for a multipolar world by using the term ‘Global South’ in its 123 National Policy Agenda,” the report mentioned.
“The document highlighted the diplomatic and economic significance of the Global South and the government’s intention to upgrade partnerships. In this context, it is not surprising that the current South Korean government will make its utmost effort to strengthen its relationship with India, the leading voice of the Global South,” it stated.
Emphasising the complementary strengths between India and South Korea, the report said that there is strong potential to reinforce value-chain resilience and economic security through cooperation in strategic sectors, particularly defence and shipbuilding, in which the interests of both countries are clearly aligned.
(IANS)
