KOREAN ENVOY BUILDS INDIA TIES THROUGH CULTURE

Korean diplomat Sang Woo Lim’s India tenure blended diplomacy and storytelling, building India-Korea ties through museums, cinema, language and G20.

- MURTAZA ALI KHAN

Senior South Korean diplomat Sang Woo Lim.

On most days, the National Museum in Delhi hums with the soft murmur of school groups, scholars, and tourists tracing the long are of Indian civilisation. But on certain weekends, visitors pause a little longer, surprised—not by the artefacts, but by the man explaining them.

“Tam not here as a diplomat today,” Sang Woo Lim tells his group, smiling as he gestures toward an ancient sculpture. “Today, I am only a storyteller.”

For nearly three years, Lim served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in India. It was his seventh overseas posting, but India, he insists, was unlike any other. “Every country teaches you something,” he says. “India teaches you patience—and scale. The scale of history, of diversity, of ambition.”

Lim arrived in New Delhi in January 2023, at a moment when India was stepping confidently onto the global stage. The G20 presidency, the 50th anniversary of India~Korea diplomatic relations, and a rapidly expanding strategic partnership made it one of the busiest diplomatic postings in Asia. “The first year itself felt like three years,” Lim recalls with a laugh. “There was no gentle introduction.”

As Deputy Chief of Mission, Lim covered every domain—political coordination, economic diplomacy, multilateral engagement. But amid the formal meetings and protocol-heavy schedules, he gravitated toward something quieter, more enduring: cultural diplomacy.

“I genuinely believe people-to-people exchange is the bedrock of any relationship,” he says. “Governments may change, policies may evolve, but culture stays. It stays in memory.”