Abstract
South Korean president Park Geun-hye visited India in January 2014 after India and South Korea marked 40 years of diplomatic relations the previous year. These developments symbolise a burgeoning relationship between two of Asia’s leading economies and democracies. However, they have added significance as Asia undergoes a shift in the strategic balance of power. This has been prompted by the US rebalance or strategic pivot towards Asia, the rise of China and its proclivity to adopt a more assertive position on regional issues, and the emergence of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ as a new geopolitical frame of reference. In this context, rising Asian powers such as India and South Korea hold an increasingly significant place in meeting the region’s development and security objectives.
The India–South Korea relationship is unique in the Asian context because it serves as a clear demonstration of the growing interdependence across the sub-regions of Asia. For instance, India maintains a vested interest in a peaceful and denuclearized Korean peninsula given the long-standing symbiotic relationship between Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme and North Korea’s ballistic missile programme. This has been supplemented by strategic cooperation between North Korea and Myanmar, which has persisted despite the ongoing process of democratic transition in Myanmar and the country’s rapprochement with the West. Thus, Pyongyang’s actions have served as a destabilising force both to India’s western and eastern borders. Meanwhile, South Korea has a vested interest in ensuring freedom of navigation along Sea Lines of communication (SLOC) in the Indian Ocean given that over 85 per cent of its oil imports come from the Middle East or West Asia, transiting the Indian Ocean.
This interdependence extends across the breadth of the India–South Korea relationship. Even India’s reassertion of relations with East Asia through the prism of its ‘Look East’ policy can be rooted in its relationship with South Korea. Contrary to common belief, India’s ‘Look East’ policy was not first enunciated in Singapore during then Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s renowned speech in 1994.  Rather, the policy has its origins in South Korea where the term ‘Look East’ was first coined by Rao during a visit to the country in 1993.
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