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Overseas presidential visits are an essential diplomatic activity that support official development aid (ODA) for humanitarian and strategic purposes worldwide. This study examines the effects of such visits on bilateral ODA allocation by focusing on South Korea, which achieved economic development through foreign aid, subsequently becoming a donor country. We find that presidential diplomatic visits abroad increase ODA agreements in visiting countries, confirmed through multiple robustness checks. ODA is increased through several aid delivery channels (concessional loans, public institutions and summit meetings in recipient countries) with heterogeneous effects across regions. Thus, political leaders’ diplomatic visits are crucial to ODA allocation.

This paper analyzes the dynamics of supply chain diversification in a contested East Asia and their implications for India–South Korea cooperation in the post-COVID-19 era. Major powers have sought to restructure supply chain by designing a strategy to reduce their reliance on China-controlled supply chain. The United States–China trade and technological war, Asian regional powers’ escalating conflicts with a rising China, and pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions have played key roles in driving the restructuring process. India and South Korea, Asia’s two major economies, have also re-evaluated their supply chain strategies. As this paper explains, on the one hand, India has been striving to emerge as a supply chain hub for key industries by ending China’s control. On the other hand, South Korea has also been aiming to diversify its supply chain beyond China under the New Southern Policy. Against that backdrop, critical developments concerning supply chain cooperation have occurred between the two countries amid the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic has not only facilitated the opening of high-level political exchanges on supply chain but also brought tangible outcomes, as Korean companies have become active participants in India’s quest to build an India-centric supply chain. I conclude this study by contending that the two countries are “natural partners” in reshaping the supply chain dynamics in East Asia in the post-COVID-19 era.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea) and India in 1973, their bilateral relationship has made significant progress. This year marks the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic partnership, which calls for a scholarly examination of the developments in Korea-India relations over the last five decades, and their future prospects. This special issue’s introductory paper provides a concise overview of the evolution of Korea–India relationships and introduces the other papers in the issue, emphasizing their significance in understanding the trajectory of the relationships. The primary goal of this introductory paper is to make two contributions: First, it aims to enrich the existing literature on India–Korea relations; and second, it provides key insights for policymakers to strengthen India–Korea ties in a new global order.

Great attention has been paid to the bilateral economic relations between India, Vietnam, and South Korea; however, only scant research has focused on the prospects of triangular economic cooperation among the three countries. Given the advantage and demand for the cooperation of each party, there is significant potential for trilateral economic cooperation among South Korea, Vietnam, and India. In this paper, we discover the prospects for their triangular economic cooperation in three aspects. First, this study examines the potential for cooperation in production networks and supply chains between the three countries in the context of reconfiguring the global value chains (GVCs), with a focus on the leading role of South Korean multinational enterprises (MNEs). Second, the study explores trilateral cooperation in the digital economy and connectivity, focusing on how South Korea and India can collaborate on investment projects in Vietnam. Third, this study discusses the rationale and possibility of forming a regional trade agreement (RTA) between the three countries. South Korea, Vietnam, and India have extant bilateral trade agreements between two of the three countries; however, there is no regional integration among the three countries discussed in specific. Considering the bilateral relations and domestic and external factors, the paper reckons that an RTA for starters between the three countries would be mutually beneficial to each of the corresponding economies.

The economic security of middle powers across the world is being challenged by great power rivalry and, more recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One of the largest trade and investment countries globally, South Korea is amongst the middle powers most affected by these developments. In this context, South Korea needs to finetune its economic security strategy. One way of doing so is by diversifying its economic relations. In this respect, India, a fellow middle power and also one of the biggest economies in the world, is a key partner. Supply chains, trade, investment and human capital have all been benefiting from strengthening links between South Korea and India, and will be key moving forward as the former seeks to further boost its economic security. Indeed, South Korea and India have been strengthening their links in the intertwined areas of maritime security, cyber security, and economic security in recent years. This suggests that economic security is part of broader security cooperation between the two partners.

India and the Republic of Korea (RoK) are, respectively, the second and sixth largest economies of Asia with significant trade ties since the historic past. India is currently negotiating to upgrade the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the RoK, which was operationalized on January 1, 2010. A key area of concern for India has been its increasing trade deficit with the RoK which has more than doubled since 2009–10. This paper aims to analyze the flow of goods, services and investment between the two sides in major sectors of interest in the last decade. Further, it aims to identify barriers to trade and investment for the Indian exporters and areas of improvement in the CEPA and beyond to enhance economic gains for both sides.

The US-China chip war is becoming more intense as both countries understand the significance of semiconductors for their economic security and national defense. As a result of nationalist and unilateral actions taken by the US and China under the chip war, other Asian economic powerhouses are reassessing their semiconductor strategies, leading to new opportunities for semiconductor partnerships in Asia among middle powers. South Korea, a leading semiconductor power in Asia, is facing critical challenges amid the chip war, that, in turn, resulted in reshaping its trade and overseas production strategies that are heavily reliant on China. To maintain its semiconductor dominance and ensure economic security, Korea is adopting new approaches such as export and production diversification. In the meantime, India, amid the ongoing US-China tech war, is also seeking to construct a resilient supply chain and decrease its reliance on China for imports. In the process, New Delhi is looking to develop its semiconductor industry and build chip ties with like-minded countries in production and workforce development. This opens up significant prospects for Korea-India semiconductor partnerships. This paper proposes three areas where Korea and India could collaborate: semiconductor trade partnerships, semiconductor production partnerships, and semiconductor workforce collaboration. By doing so, it highlights how the US-China chip war is creating new opportunities for other Asian economic powerhouses to collaborate in the semiconductor industry. This paper also provides insights for policymakers to set a new agenda for India-Korea partnerships as both countries celebrate the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic ties in 2023.

For the past two decades, India and South Korea have sought to create a strategic convergence in their long-term cooperation. Defense cooperation, which has been discussed bilaterally, is a key area of their partnership, should it later be transformed to companionship. As some of their efforts have materialized, South Korea has become the fifth largest exporter of conventional arms to India. Markedly, Seoul and New Delhi are on the way to restyle their regional strategies towards each other to fit into their Indo-Pacific strategies. In the course, two sides have found valid points to explore stronger partnership than in the past. The stronger driver they have now is likely to sustain in the future as they already made some meaningful progress in the last decade. In this latest move, the two sides appear to be on the right trajectory; however, the future awaits a more productive joint effort.

In air quality prediction, it is essential to find the upstream areas from which a small initial error can grow into large forecast errors in the region of interest. The conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation for initial conditions (CNOP-I) is a suitable tool for targeted (adaptive) observations. To calculate the CNOP-I several variables are included; those are used from the multiple energy equations (eg. kinetic energy, dry energy, moist energy, etc). In particular, the previous studies on improving the Asian dust storms (ADSs) prediction mainly considered the kinetic energy calculation, which included only two variables (u-wind and v-wind). However, variables affecting the actual ADS’s development and movement also include the other variables. This study aims to identify the main variables and classify the synoptic patterns for given ADS cases using the principal component analysis (PCA). We focus on the ADS events that occurred during the last 32 years (1990—2021) over South Korea. Through the PCA, we identified the top five variables — temperature, specific humidity, divergence, ozone mass mixing ratio, and eastward wind — which affect origination and translocation of the ADSs. Furthermore, the ADSs are significantly affected by vertical velocity, divergence, relative humidity, eastward wind, and potential vorticity; for example, strong downdraft and divergence make ADSs finally land on the Korean Peninsula. For a further study, we plan to identify the sensitive areas in targeted observations for air quality prediction via CNOP-I. We expect to improve air quality forecasts by classifying the synoptic situations that bring about severe Asian dust storm outbreaks in South Korea and by identifying the upstream areas for targeted observations to which we can enhance observations, potentially through international collaborations.