India-South Korea relations in the era of Act East Policy: comprehending intents and executions

Abstract

India started reaching out to the East Asian countries through its Look East Policy in early 1990s. In the first two decades, the policy successfully got India connected more to the region. To further strengthen the process and inject more dynamism into its engagements with East Asia, India revised the policy and named it Act East Policy in 2014. India’s engagement with South Korea also got more attention in this process. There have been more frequent meetings of the top leaders of both the countries and both the countries have created more mechanisms and institutions to cooperate with each other. It has led to noteworthy progress in India-South Korea relations. However, it is also true that both the countries have not been able to realise the full potential of their relations. The reason for this shortfall has been certain inadequacies in the intents and executions of the Act East Policy especially in the case of South Korea. The paper argues that insufficient realisation of each other’s importance, insufficient trust in each other and looking for immediate reciprocity are the three important reasons which have limited the progress and both the countries need to rectify them to realise the full potential of their bilateral relations.