Public Diplomacy Requires a Mid- to Long-Term Perspective Approach

K-pop led by BTS, K-movies like Parasite, and K-dramas such as Squid Game have gained worldwide popularity, and recently, interest in K-food has been growing significantly. Frozen gimbap is leading the K-food craze, especially in North America, causing sold-out phenomena. Ramen, seasoned seaweed, frozen dumplings, and LA galbi are also highly popular.

Observing the global spread of Korean content and culture, it is clear that public diplomacy has become increasingly important. Public diplomacy is not a universally used term. However, since the early 2000s, major developed countries such as the United States, France, and Japan have aggressively increased their budgets and expanded the scope of public diplomacy.

Why do developed countries place such importance on public diplomacy? Public diplomacy existed even during the Cold War era. However, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States recognized the limitations of relying solely on hard power, such as military and economic strength. Since then, public diplomacy utilizing soft power?such as culture and arts?has been emphasized as a new diplomatic paradigm and has gained significant attention. Public diplomacy is a concept that pursues soft power by capturing the hearts of people in other countries through intangible assets like tradition, culture, arts, and sports.

This requires continuous efforts from various actors. While the government plays a central role, it is also important for individuals, NGOs, corporations, and local governments to form and maintain networks through ongoing exchanges with actors from other countries. Building networks, or relationships, takes time. However, once friendly relations are properly established, mutual understanding will increase, and the effects of public diplomacy can continue without incurring large costs.

Although somewhat late compared to major developed countries, our government designated 2010 as the inaugural year of public diplomacy and formally embarked on public diplomacy by enacting the Public Diplomacy Act in 2016. The Korea Foundation (KF) was designated as the sole domestic public diplomacy agency at that time. It carries out various international exchange activities, including promoting global Korean studies, international cooperation networking, and cultural exchange cooperation such as supporting museum exhibitions.

As a result of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Korea Foundation cooperating with other actors to lay the groundwork and build human networks over a long period in the realm of public diplomacy, concrete achievements have appeared in recent years. For example, one of the reasons behind the official establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and Cuba last February is attributed to KF’s continuous public diplomacy activities since 2005, including opening Korean language courses at local universities, broadcasting Korean dramas, and supporting exhibitions. In Vietnam, focused support for promoting Korean studies at major national universities since 1994 led to the remarkable achievement of Korean being selected as the first foreign language in 2021.

Winning the hearts of people from other countries and establishing favorable relations require continuous investment. Approaching this with a long-term, macro-strategic perspective and investing accordingly will bring us multiple times the economic and non-economic benefits. This is why developed countries aggressively expand their public diplomacy budgets.

Seung-geun Lee, Professor at Keimyung University (President of the Korean Public Diplomacy Association)

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.