Geopolitics, Security and Bilateral Relations: Perspectives from India and South Korea

Preface

In a significant step, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to South Korea in 2015, India and the Republic of South Korea (RoK), scaled up their bilateral relations to the status of ‘special strategic partnership’. A year before that, in 2014 the South Korean Prime Minister Park Geun-hye, was the Chief Guest at the annual Republic Day Parade in New Delhi. The relationship, since then, has grown substantially. Keeping this perspective, the two premier think tanks namely United Service Institution of India (USI) from India and Research Institute for National Security Affairs (RINSA) of Korea National Defence University, Republic of South Korea decided to partner each other to enhance and define the major contours of this bilateral relationship through a joint research project. This book owes its genesis to that decision.

Historically, legend has it that thousands of years ago, Queen Suriratna or Hur Hwang-ok came to Korea from Ayodhya, a historical place in India, This relationship continued during the Buddhist era. Thus the cordial relationship built in the past is continuing and has in fact become more pronounced through the upgradation to ‘Special Strategic Partnership’. The changing dynamics post-Cold War brought India and South Korea further close, as liberalization of Indian economy allowed the Korean value chain to invest westwards, and India became a major stopover and a manufacturing hub for the Koreans. Culture followed commerce and the Korean music and serials become a rave in India, (as a part of the global phenomenon of the Korean ‘Halyu’ wave). Thus a very cordial relationship developed between the two countries which benefitted them immensely.

It is in such a backdrop that United Service Institution of India (USI) and Research Institute on National Security Affairs (RINSA) collaborated on a joint research project namely Geopolitics, Security and Bilateral Relations: Perspective from India and South Korea. Four scholars each from USI and RINSA conducted research on subjects of mutual interest. Given the emerging strategic partnership between India and South Korea, they were tasked to address domains ranging from geopolitics of the regions, bilateral relations, to security cooperation and nuclear issues. The main purpose was to enhance mutual understanding about the newly emerging security environment and examine strategic challenges and opportunities.

The result, are the eight papers published in this book, which I am sure will give readers, both the Indian and South Korean perspectives on matters, relevant to the geo-strategic environment, particularly the Indo-Pacific region and the security concerns, especially the nuclear challenges. Considering both India and South Korea are surrounded by nations who have the proclivity to escalate tensions through lowering the nuclear thresholds, it becomes important to analyse the nuclear dynamics. In addition, approaches to enhance the bilateral relations through expanding economic interactions and political communications were also deliberated. It is hoped, that this book will serve as the starting point to further engagements and research on the subjects which are of importance to both the countries.

Lt Gen PK Singh (Retd)

Director

United Service Institution of India

New Delhi

Introduction

– RINSA

Since India and South Korea established a diplomatic relationship in 1973, the bilateral relations continue to grow across sectors. It is evolved to ‘strategic partnership.’ Seoul and New-Delhi shares values and interests in several aspects. First of all, India is the largest democracy in the World, while South Korea achieved democratization in a relatively short period. Both countries adopted market economy as an economic system. It is these commonalities that lay the groundwork for bilateral cooperation. With shared political and economic system, they pursue same national objectives of prosperity and security, which are intertwined. Same systems and common interests provide rationales for close collaboration between the two players.

Bilateral economic cooperation demonstrated a good performance over the decades in trade and investment. India appreciates South Korea which boldly took risk to invest in India, which had a bleak prospect of economic success in the early 1990s. South Korea also appreciates India for providing opportunities for expanding market vice versa. On the basis of economic achievement, the two states wanted to expand cooperation to political and defence area. Security cooperation has been included in the seven agreements concluded at the recent summit in Seoul. In an MOU, both sides promised to establish a new communication channel between the National Security Council Secretariat of India and the Office of National Security of South Korea.

Along with accumulated bilateral relations over decades, changing security environment at regional and global level drives cooperation between the two middle powers included in G20. Recently, the term of ‘Indo-Pacific’ increasingly gained currency among pundits and policy-makers. In the past, Asia-Pacific and East Asia were more popular in defining geographical scope of strategic discussion. Two developments uphold the Indo-Pacific as an emerging regional security construct. With the trends of geopolitics changing rapidly, the dynamics of regional players are transformed. There is no doubt that geopolitics is largely defined by great powers’ rivalry between the United States and China. Their competition is understood as a product of China’s rise. Amid increasing tension between the rivalries, growing India became more active and influential player. Prime Minister proclaimed that ‘Look East’ policy should be replaced by an ‘Act East’ one during his official visit to Seoul in May 2015.

Even if South Korea remains preoccupied by Northeast Asia, it considers a broader scope of issues in the region for strategic and economic purposes. During the Cold War, Northeast Asia is its primary concern because it occupied the center of strategic gravity, significantly affecting the destiny of the divided Korea. With dramatic transformation of geopolitics following the end of the Cold War, a unipolar system led by the United States was built and a Pax-America seemed realized. Various initiatives for multilateral security cooperation covering the Asia-Pacific were mainly presented by Canada and Australia. It is this circumstance that induces experts to use the Asia-Pacific confines. Then, East Asia was employed to effectively discuss multilateral security cooperation led by ASEAN. For instance, East Asia Summit was created in 2005.

The Indo-Pacific concept began to receive attention from expert of the Asia-Pacific. There emerged a strategic assessment by South Korean experts that India could take an expanded role for peace and stability in the region. Yet, Seoul shows no serious concern over security in Indian Ocean. In this vein, South Korea remains worried about the usefulness of the broad region for strategic discussion, while recognizing the advent of the Indo-Pacific era. The main reason is that South Korea confronts military threats from North Korea, which conducted nuclear test four times with enormous conventional capabilities. Preoccupation with North Korea’s threats kept South Korea from widening geographical definition of the region.

In these bilateral and regional contexts, it is even more pressing to bolster the strategic partnership between the two countries by improving political and defence communication, expanding economic interactions, and enhancing mutual cultural understanding. It is timely for USI (India) and RINSA (South Korea) to conduct a joint project on India-South Korea security cooperation. This is the first joint effort between the two prestigious institutes to do research together on security issues. The primary purpose of the joint work is to enhance mutual understanding of newly emerging security environment in the region. Secondly, the project examines strategic challenges and opportunities posed by a transition of geopolitics. Lastly, the co-work is devoted to draw approaches and measures to facilitate regional security cooperation and bilateral relations between India and South Korea.

The project is predicated on a couple of assumptions. Firstly, the regional scope is broadened to the Indo-Pacific. Secondly, India’s overall national might continue to be strengthened and its role expanded. Thirdly, South Korea as a middle power, wants to be part of regional security rearrangement. Lastly, India and South Korea share interests and values and urgent need to bolster bilateral relations. With the research purposes and fundamental assumptions, the two institutes convened workshops in Seoul and New-Delhi. Through the two workshops, participants in the project exchanged ideas, perspectives and assessments in order to prepare a coordinated edited book as a final product of the joint work.

This publication consists of four main parts. Two experts from India and South Korea address either similar or same topic in each part. It could be helpful for readers to draw similarities and differences by making comparison of both articles. Part I is description and assessment of shifting regional geo-politics, presenting threat perceptions by India and South Korea.

In terms of scope, the former is broader than the latter. Part II is discussions on comprehensive security arrangements. The part introduced Indian and Korean perspectives. Part III deals with nuclear security issues, combining Indian and Korean analyses. Part IV focuses on bilateral cooperation between Korea and India.

As mentioned, Korea and India could collaborate in planning and implementing the path for moving the bilateral relations forward. In future studies, the RINSA and USI could play a significant role in designing roadmaps for India-Korea cooperation. The first work we carried out could lay the cornerstone for more detailed future studies. A temporal agreement after the joint work is that the cooperation could serve peace, prosperity, and human dignity of the two countries and the region as a whole.

Chapter One

Emerging Geopolitical Trends in East Asia

Seok-soo Lee

(Director-General, the RINSA, South Korea)

Introduction

East Asia remained peaceful since the end of the Cold War mainly due to strategic leadership by the United States in the region. However with a rising China, East Asia witnessed the realignment of regional geopolitics.¹ The United States tries to maintain and strengthen US-dominant order in the region, while growing China challenges the status quo forged by the United States. Attempts have been made to reconfigure power distribution in the region by a growing China. The escalating tensions in the South China Sea highlight a standoff between the United States and China.

Termination of the bloc politics at the global level brought about a uni-polar strategic framework in East Asia.² Given the uni-polar international system, the United States stayed dominant in East Asia as the only superpower. The absence of a competing peer ensures US-led regional security environment for a while. The seemingly fixed regional construct became unstable by the advent of a strong China equipped with economic and military might. With onset of the current decade, existing power distribution underwent modification in East Asia.

Peaceful development is the primary national objective of China. In order to achieve that goal, China wants to maintain favourable relations with the United States and other regional countries. But China became aggressive and assertive to the extent that it could not tolerate any thing that affects its core interests such as territorial sovereignty, security, and development. Furthermore, the tension between China and Japan has been on the rise due to several reasons such as military confrontation, difference in interpretation of history, and the rise of nationalism in both countries. The accelerating rift between the two countries resulted in territorial dispute in the East China Sea.

Economic growth of China nudged China’s ambition to be a powerhouse in the region. Resources available to her have been mobilized by Beijing for the elevation of regional and global status. Military and economic instruments are used to gain leverage to other regional states. For instance, ASEAN member states are heavily relying on trade with and investment by China, while they are increasingly dependent on the United States militarily. They are worried of China’s aggressiveness and assertiveness in the South China Sea. Because of economic interdependence, regional countries would like to have better relations with China. But China’s strategic expansion to the South China Sea poses military threat to ASEAN countries.

Confronting China’s rise, the United States sought an option to effectively deal with a new geopolitical reality and ensure peace and stability in the region. For the United States, regional security and economic success seems to be a product of the long-lasting U.S. primacy in East Asia. In order to maintain a predominant position, Washington announced a new regional strategy of ‘pivot’ and rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region. The strategy led to a reallocation of overseas military capabilities of the U.S. in favour of the Asia-Pacific region. Given the financial difficulty, the United States has tried to bolster alliance and improve relations with friends and partners in the region. In other words, the U.S. military build-up has been complemented by enhanced cooperation with allies and partners.

This paper is mainly designed to trace the changing nature of geo-politics in East Asia as a product of China’s ascent. A basic assumption of the study is that the major power rivalry between the United States and China is a source of turbulence in strategic landscape in East Asia. The paper consists of three parts. First of all, it describes the emerging trend of geopolitics in the region. Then, it explores contributing factors to the geopolitical change. Last part is devoted to a discussion on both implications of a new geopolitics for regional peace and stability and how to successfully convert competition and confrontation to cooperation and accommodation among regional actors.

I          Emerging Geopolitics in East Asia

China’s rapid economic growth gave rise to the increase of military expenditure. As a result, China continued to modernize military capabilities especially in the area of navy, which are closely associated with power projection in East Asia. The regional policies by China were directed at the United States and