India-Japan-South Korea trilateral: Time to chart new paths in the Indo-Pacific

In 2011 an idea was germinated in New Delhi over a dinner reception, and that idea led to the formation of a trilateral between India, South Korea, and Japan. After its conceptualisation, the first meeting was hosted by India in June 2012, followed by the second in November 2013 in Japan. However, that effort was unable to fructify as expected. At its first attempt , the trilateral could not succeed due to the absence of some important elements such as strategic alignment and strong convergence between the three partners. In addition, there was a hesitation to only focus on ‘softer, [and] noncontroversial issues.’ All these issues led to its failure. However, that effort gave some critical insights that need to be incorporated to build a more successful trilateral in its second birth.

As the India, South Korea and Japan trilateral re-emerges, it is important to look at it from a new perspective. The contemporary time demands the addition of new strategic vocabulary and a focus on critical issues and themes in the trilateral. The renewed effort to resuscitate the trilateral must take note of the changing regional environment, from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific, reflecting the importance of rules-based international order, essential to safeguard maritime trade and security.

We have identified three major areas where the trilateral can focus initially, these are Indo-Pacific Maritime security, Development cooperation, and Critical and Emerging Technology: semiconductors, EVs and critical minerals.

Re-emergence of India-South Korea-Japan trilateral: Finding new convergences

Today, the ‘free and open’ Indo-Pacific needs more minilateralism efforts from regional countries. In strengthening minilateralism, trilateral has been crucial in the Indo-Pacific, providing like-minded countries with a platform to convene on shared concerns and objectives. Today, India, Japan, and South Korea are more comfortable with the Indo-Pacific concept and have converging interests between India’s Act East Policy and Indo-Pacific vision, South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy , and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision . This article is an attempt again to nudge the trilateral cooperation between the three countries, particularly before External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visits South Korea and Japan in his East Asia tour. The continuity in his visit from South Korea to Japan highlights a common thread driving the increasing need to have a trilateral today. This is easier today when all three countries are engaged in many trilaterals with each other, India-Japan-US, India-Japan-Australia, India-US-South Korea, and US-Japan-ROK.

The first important area that demands cooperation is maritime regional security. This comes at a time when the entire Indo-Pacific region is experiencing turbulence in the maritime domain, from the western Indian Ocean to the South China Sea (SCS), conflict is affecting maritime trade and energy security. The concerns regarding the Red Sea crisis have risen in Japan, South Korea, and India. In this India has taken the responsibility to provide security to vessels moving from the western Indian Ocean towards East Asia in line with its SAGAR vision. Japan and South Korea can utilise this opportunity to collaborate on Maritime security focusing on the Indo-Pacific region, particularly the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and SCS, where all three have converging interests.

India can take the leadership role in the IOR. Defence cooperation through coordinated maritime patrol, anti-piracy operations, and strengthening maritime domain awareness are some areas where the three can work together. Japan and South Korea can leverage trilateral relations with India to bolster maritime security initiatives in the Indian Ocean region and Southeast Asia. Japan’s Official Security Assistance programme, India’s developmental aid, and South Korea’s military cooperation with regional countries can be synchronised to achieve two aims, defence modernisation and developing capabilities (sharing best practices, joint exercises, and military collaboration). For Instance, India , South Korea, and Japan are helping in building the Philippines’s maritime capabilities in a bilateral format to assist in improving its maritime capacity.

The second focus area is development cooperation, particularly on high-quality infrastructure and connectivity projects in South Asia. Japan is currently engaged in nine developmental projects amounting to $1.55 billion across sectors in the region. Similarly, South Korea is also looking to increase its ODA to India. These ODAs are utilised to build the infrastructure that is necessary for economic growth, such as roads, bridges, and airports. Japan and South Korea can coordinate ODA projects in India. Northeast India is one sub-region where the three can collaborate on projects, giving much impetus to easing connectivity with Southeast Asia, which converges with the interests of all three partners. The three can coordinate better on foreign ODA such as the railway project in the Philippines.

Further, South Korea and Japan can harmonise institutional working methods between JICA and KOICA to ease bureaucratic and budgetary systems in India and South Asia to fund ODA projects by creating a basket fund to be utilised for project implementation. This can be a coordinated approach rather than a joint approach, which will be more flexible. These projects can also be focused on imparting training skills that help in achieving the SDGs of low-income developing countries in the region.

The third area of cooperation is critical and emerging technology (CET). India is eyeing to expand its manufacturing capacity and is attracting South Korean and Japanese Tech conglomerates to invest in semiconductor supply chains, EVs, and Critical minerals. Many South Korean and Japanese companies are looking to diversify their new investments in the region and India is emerging as an attractive alternative in China plus one strategy. India with its incentives, market, economic growth potential, and human capital stands out among other options.

Trilateral on CET will enhance the tech partnership ensuring technical sovereignty in the region which currently remains elusive of any consensus. EVs and critical mineral supply chain cooperation is another vital area of cooperation that needs closer cooperation between countries as all three have an embedded interest in de-risking the supply chain from China for their economic security. The three countries can form their i-CET version to enhance collaboration in R&D, in line with the announcement of the India-South Korea-US CET informal dialogue last year.

The three nations must take the opportunity to fortify their partnership to safeguard their interests and uphold the international rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. This is the appropriate time for India, Japan, and South Korea to bolster this trilateral cooperative mechanism, particularly after correcting the mistakes that it made in the past as mentioned above. The three avenues of collaboration—Indo-Pacific maritime security, development cooperation, and Critical and Emerging Technology: Semiconductors, EVs, and critical minerals, can be the focal points that can later be expanded to other sectors.

Abhishek Sharma is a Research Associate with the Centre for Air Power Studies and a PhD Scholar in Korea Studies at Delhi University. Simran Walia is an Associate Fellow with the Centre for Air Power Studies and a PhD Scholar in Japanese Studies at Jawahar Lal Nehru University.