[Column] Zeroing in on India for diplomacy

India is a perfect partner for Korean diplomacy to take off.

Yoon Young-kwan

The author, a former foreign minister, is an emeritus professor at Seoul National University. New Delhi is emerging as a hub for global diplomacy. Heads of state from Egypt, Germany, Italy and Australia visited the capital of India earlier this month followed by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Mar. 19 to 21. As chair country of G20 in 2023, India hosted the finance ministers meeting in February and foreign ministers meeting in early March. India is also the current chair of the eight-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SOC), a multilateral body for security and economic cooperation among member countries, including, Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

On January 12-13, India hosted a virtual summit with leaders of 120 developing countries representing Global South. That’s not all. The country is tightening small, multipartite diplomatic cooperation networks, such as the India-Australia-Indonesia trilateral dialogue and a new India-Israel-U.S.-UAE cooperation bloc. The United States is not happy with India keeping a neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but has been courting India for nearly 20 years. Japan wants to maintain “close relations with India” sparked by personal friendship between the late prime minister Shinzo Abe and current Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi.

Why are such things happening? The primary reasons are four-fold: India’s huge populations at 1.417 billion as of 2022, which surpassed China’s; enormous potential from its massive land; democratic political system; and the deepening Sino-U.S. rivalry on the global stage.

Most countries experienced steep economic recession after the Covid-19 pandemic and in the wake of the Ukraine war. But India was an exception. While the U.S. GDP grew 2 percent and China’s GDP 3 percent last year, India’s GDP grew 6.5 percent. A recent Morgan Stanley report forecast that India’s economy will outsize Japan’s and Germany’s in four years to become the third largest economy after the U.S. and China and that India will emerge as the third largest stock market by 2030.

A recent IMF report attributed India’s growth at a dazzling pace to the government’s methodical reform drive and successful digitalization to boost its growth potential. New Delhi has successfully carried out a structural reform of the economy since 2016. Through the digitalization of the financial sector, the government gave each citizen a digital ID of their own while operating a broad financial data-sharing system after reforming the banking sector. Thanks to its ecommerce innovation and deregulation, its economic frame turned more transparent and business-friendly, the report said, which helped small and mid-size enterprises to grow and revitalize the economy. The central government also increased its infrastructure investment to 3.5 percent of GDP in 2022 from 2.8 percent in 2013. Externally, India has signed as many as 13 free trade agreements with foreign countries.

The ongoing shift in international environment also helps India’s rise. After China turned to aggressive diplomacy to pursue its coveted China Dream after the 2008 global financial crisis, the U.S. government under Donald Trump adopted a full-fledged hard-line policy against China starting with the tariff war in 2018, and the following Biden administration continues building pressure on China by forming a united front against Beijing. After the Sino-U.S. hegemony contest deepened, security concerns began to weigh over economic considerations. As a result, American and Western enterprises are leaving China one after another for reshoring or friend-shoring. But the problem is what their alternative investment destination is, if not China. At that critical time, India, a democracy with vast land and a mega market, has surfaced as an attractive substitute.

Under the current circumstance where security and economy move in tandem, the Korean economy relies on China, an authoritarian state, too heavily. (Korea’s trade with China is more than Korea’s trade with America and Japan combined.) It could be ideal if the Korea-China relations can be sustained by good U.S.-China relations as in the past. But regrettably, the opposite is true, as clearly exemplified by the challenges Korean chipmakers face when they invest in China.

To prepare for the future, Korea must broaden its economic relations with foreign countries. As Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, SK, Hyosung and Posco are energetically investing in India, there are plenty of areas for the two countries to cooperate on. But the diplomatic relations are still left unattended. Former president Moon Jae-in pledged to elevate the Seoul-New Delhi ties to the levels of the U.S, China, Japan and Russia, but it was just an empty slogan. Today is no different.

The diplomacy of the Philippine draws our attention. After abandoning his predecessor’s pro-China policy, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is reinforcing relations with the U.S. He recently allowed the U.S. forces to use four additional bases in his country. He took a step further to deepen the Philippines’ bilateral cooperation with Japan, Australia and the UK to establish diplomatic cooperation networks on all fronts.

Korea’s economy is much bigger than the Philippines’. It could be better for the country to broaden its diplomacy frontier with strategic minds befitting its economic size to prepare for a bright future. Korean people’s rush to an emotional approach with Japan still makes it hard to improve Seoul’s ties with Tokyo. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration still seems to be tied up with cementing relations with Uncle Sam without a strong determination to weave tightly-knit diplomatic nets with diverse countries to escalate its diplomatic stature. India is a perfect partner for Korean diplomacy to take off.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.