South Korean President in India: What Lee Jae-Myung’s Visit Means for Both Countries

Article by Amit Pathak

As President Lee arrives in New Delhi for a three-day state visit, the two Asian democracies are poised to transform a decade-old strategic partnership into a fully industrial alliance built on chips, ships, artificial intelligence, and shared geopolitical caution.

At a glance, the upcoming three-day state visit of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung to India from April 19 to 21, 2026, comes at a pivotal moment for bilateral ties. Bilateral trade between the two nations has reached an all-time high of approximately $28 billion in recent years (with figures around $26.89 billion in FY25 and a previous peak of $27.8 billion in 2022-23), reflecting steady growth driven by the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Both countries have set an ambitious target to nearly double this volume and push bilateral trade to $50 billion by 2030, focusing on expanding cooperation in high-potential sectors. The visit by President Lee’s first to India since assuming office and the first by a South Korean president in eight years, will centre on deepening collaboration in semiconductors, defence, shipbuilding, artificial intelligence, trade, and energy. These areas promise to build resilient supply chains, foster technology transfer, create high-skilled jobs, and enhance strategic partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region.

This moderate yet forward-looking engagement underscores the complementary strengths of the two economies: South Korea’s advanced manufacturing prowess and India’s vast talent pool and growing market, setting the stage for mutually beneficial outcomes in the years ahead.

When South Korean President Lee Jae-myung touched down in New Delhi on Sunday, he brought with him more than diplomatic pleasantries. Accompanied by First Lady Kim Hea-kyung and a high-powered delegation of ministers, senior officials, and business leaders, his three-day state visit, the first since assuming office in June 2025, signals a serious recalibration of one of Asia’s most consequential but underappreciated bilateral relationships. The Ministry of External Affairs, announcing the visit earlier this week, described it as an opportunity to “further strengthen the existing areas of cooperation while expanding collaboration in new and emerging areas of mutual interest.” What those areas look like in practice could reshape the industrial and strategic landscape for both nations well into the middle of this century.

A Decade of Partnership, Now at an Inflection Point

The India-South Korea Special Strategic Partnership was formally elevated during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2015 state visit to Seoul. In the years since, South Korean giants Samsung, Hyundai, LG have become household names in India, and both governments have deepened ties through the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) of 2010, joint naval exercises, and successive rounds of high-level dialogue. Yet analysts have long argued the partnership has punched below its weight. That argument is harder to make today. India and the Republic of Korea held their 6th Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue in Seoul just two months ago, in February 2026, noting that bilateral trade had touched an all-time high of approximately $28 billion. Both sides formally agreed to push that figure to $50 billion by 2030, a target that gives the visit a measurable, commercial spine.

“India-ROK cooperation can no longer be understood merely as a bilateral trade relationship; it represents a structural response to a fragmenting global economic order.”

                                                          -Asia Times, February 2026

The context for Lee’s visit has also been shaped by a series of prior engagements that built trust between the two leaders. Modi and Lee met on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Canada in June 2025, their first bilateral meeting, and again at the G20 Summit in Johannesburg in November, where the Korean presidential office noted both leaders had agreed on the need to boost cooperation in artificial intelligence and the defence industry. Modi personally invited Lee to India during that Johannesburg meeting, and Lee accepted. Sunday’s arrival is the fulfilment of that commitment.

Semiconductors: The Centrepiece of the Technology Agenda

For anyone tracking the global chip race, the semiconductor dimension of this summit is its most consequential element. India is midway through an ambitious drive to become a credible fabrication nation, backed by the ₹76,000 crore Semicon India 2.0 programme and Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes. The missing piece has been deep-technology partnerships with countries that actually know how to build advanced chips at scale. South Korea, home to Samsung and SK Hynix, two of the world’s largest chipmakers are precisely such a partner. Discussions are expected to focus on integrating Korean fabrication expertise into India’s chip ecosystem. The geopolitical logic is equally compelling: a meaningful India-Korea semiconductor corridor would reduce global dependence on Taiwan-concentrated chip production, a goal that New Delhi, Seoul, and their major trading partners all quietly share.

Shipbuilding: A New Industrial Frontier

One of the most distinctive items on the summit agenda is shipbuilding, a sector where South Korea is unquestionably world-class. The visit is expected to formalise Korean support for a new Shipbuilding Technology Cooperation Centre in India, aimed at bridging what Business Upturn calls a 25 per cent global shortfall in skilled maritime labour. The focus will be on the co-production of LNG tankers and advanced marine engineering, aligning directly with India’s Maritime Amrit-Kaal Vision 2047. Foundational groundwork was already laid in early April when India and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) signed an agreement to modernise India’s maritime workforce, weeks ahead of the summit.

“For India, the visit is a gateway to becoming a global shipbuilding and semiconductor hub. For Seoul, India represents a vital, stable market for high-tier technology exports as global trade dynamics shift.”

                                                        – Business Upturn, April 2026

Artificial Intelligence and Critical Technology

Seoul’s National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac, briefing journalists ahead of the visit, said it would mark a “new chapter” in India-South Korea relations, naming AI as a principal area alongside shipbuilding, maritime industries, finance, and defence. Both countries have substantial national AI programmes, and the complementarity between India’s vast pool of software engineers and South Korea’s strengths in hardware manufacturing is frequently cited as a natural basis for joint research and commercial collaboration. Talks are also expected to cover Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) for civil nuclear energy, an area where South Korea has considerable expertise through its SMART reactor programme and green hydrogen, which featured in the Modi-Lee agenda at the G7 Summit last year.

Defence Manufacturing: Deepening a Proven Model

The defence dimension of the relationship is well established but has significant room to grow. India already operates the K-9 Vajra-T, a self-propelled howitzer developed through a joint venture between South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace and India’s Larsen & Toubro, a successful template for the “Make in India” model applied to Korean technology transfer. The 6th Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue in February confirmed that both sides have agreed to deepen cooperation in security and defence. Expanding the Hanwha-L&T model to naval systems, surveillance technology, and aerospace platforms would meaningfully boost India’s domestic defence industrial base while giving Korean defence firms preferential access to one of the World’s largest and fastest-growing defence markets.

Supply-Chains, Energy-Security, and the Geopolitical Backdrop

The summit is taking place against a backdrop of considerable global uncertainty. Middle East tensions in 2026, including what has been termed the “Hormuz Shock,” have exposed the vulnerability of both nations’ energy supply chains. Both India and South Korea are heavily dependent on Gulf shipping routes, and Seoul’s NSA specifically noted that the two countries would enhance coordination on energy supply chains in response to shifting global dynamics. This shared vulnerability is pushing them toward closer alignment on energy security and on the resilience of supply chains more broadly.

President Lee himself brings a different diplomatic style to these conversations compared to his predecessor, Yoon Suk-yeol. Where Yoon’s foreign policy was anchored in close alignment with the United States’ Indo-Pacific framing, Lee has pursued a more pragmatic and independent approach one that emphasises economic logic and national interest over ideological alignment with any bloc. That posture is, ironically, well-suited to India’s own tradition of strategic autonomy. Both governments can cooperate on technology, trade, and defence without either side being required to position the relationship as part of a containment strategy against any third country.

What both countries stand to gain

For India, Lee’s visit represents access to Korean capital, fabrication technology, and industrial expertise across sectors like semiconductors, shipbuilding, clean energy and defence that are central to the country’s Viksit Bharat 2047 development vision. The diplomatic groundwork laid through the Special Envoy visit of former Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum in July 2025, the back-to-back Modi-Lee meetings at G7 and G20, and the February Foreign Policy Dialogue suggest that both sides have done the preparatory work to turn summit commitments into actionable agreements rather than communiqué language.

For South Korea, India represents a large, stable, democratic market at a moment when Seoul is rationally looking to diversify away from excessive dependence on Chinese demand and American supply chains. India’s 1.4 billion consumers, its growing middle class, and its accelerating manufacturing build-out make it among the most attractive long-term partners for a technology-export economy like Korea’s. Asia Times, writing in February, described the relationship as undergoing “a transition from transactional bilateralism toward a more structured and strategically embedded partnership” and the events of this week appear to confirm that assessment.

If the agreements reached in New Delhi over these three days translate into implementation on the ground and the level of prior diplomatic engagement suggests both governments are serious about follow-through, April 2026 may be remembered as the moment India and South Korea stopped being merely friendly neighbours and became genuinely indispensable to each other’s industrial future.

Views are those of the Author(s)

References:

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