S Jaishankar’s tour of Korea and Japan prioritises the semiconductor industry
EAM visits South Korea and Japan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was on tour to South Korea and Japan, this week. These two nations in India’s Asian neighbourhood, are also some of its closest allies while also being a major source of inward investments. The press release from MEA outlined the Korean visit to be dominated by “India – Republic of Korea Special Strategic Partnership
expanded to diverse areas of cooperation, which include trade, investments, defence, education, S&T, and culture. The JCM is expected to comprehensively review the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation and explore avenues for further strengthening it. It will also provide an opportunity for the two sides to exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest.”
The Japanese leg of the journey highlighted “issues of bilateral, regional and global importance, and exchange views on cooperation for a free, open, inclusive, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific.” It is also no coincidence that a special roundtable of the Raisina Dialogue, an important international diplomacy platform, propped up by India’s external affairs ministry, also took place in Tokyo during EAM’s visit. Earlier justifying holding the Raisina roundtable in Tokyo, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said “ Raisina has become today an important global platform. We just had the Raisina Dialogue, where people from all over the world, leaders, political leaders, think tanks, and strategic thinkers all came to Delhi. We had the Greek Prime Minister who was the chief guest. So, there is a global resonance of this platform today. Japan, of course, is a very important partner for us and this particular engagement will help our conversation, will help our engagement with Japan as much.”
The real outcomes of the meetings in South Korea and Japan will be unveiled in the coming few months, where India has laid claim to occupy a significant chunk of the semiconductors supply chain network. Recently Indian cabinet approved a whole range of semiconductor proposals running into lakhs of crores. The current global semiconductor manufacturing capability is disproportionately cornered by Taiwan, South Korea and China, while the US and Jaan have a minority share in the pie. The Covid pandemic and subsequent actions by China, including the weaponisation of semiconductors ( a critical component of all machines from toasters to high-end space rockets) have forced almost every country to secure their supply chains and diversify. India doesn’t have great relations with China and the situation is unlikely to improve in the coming years, that leaves India to fall back on its old allies Japan, and South Korea with a fair amount of support from the US and EU, to look at getting some a sizeable portion of the semiconductor manufacturing cake. In the vibrant Gujarat summit, held in January 2024, the state Chief Minister indicated that several South Korean and Japanese semiconductor firms are actively considering Gujarat for investments. The race to secure semiconductor manufacturing is in reality the current state of geopolitics as seen through a minuscule chip.
The US and China are trying to outdo each other in the race for greater technological prowess, whose building blocks are the chips (minute integrated circuit boards, requiring complex multilayered, multiple steps design and manufacturing), which power almost every machine in today’s world. The US has already blocked the export of high-tech chips, which can find their way to state-of-the-art military technology, to China stalling its total technology dominance ambitions. Indian Prime Minister and the current government, are confident of returning to power towards the middle of this year and want to waste no time in setting up the large employment-generating technology factories for tomorrow. EAM’s South Korea and Japan, justify the need for India’s ambitious journey for the next decade.
(The writer is a policy analyst; views are personal)
