Not many foreigners knew about Korea in the 1980s. As a child of a diplomat living abroad, I was often ashamed that many foreigners knew well about my Japanese friends’ country but not about my country, Korea. When someone asked me about Korea, I had to say that it was next to Japan in order to get some form of acknowledgement. Europeans adored everything about Japan from Sushi to Manga, Origami, and SONY electronics. Japanese people were busy hosting events to promote their food and culture. The only big event hosted by the Korean embassy was commemoration of the Korean War for the war veterans. Although I knew nothing about the effect of state power or public diplomacy then, I could visibly see the invisible power that is related to attractiveness.
It all changed dramatically over a generation. I now go anywhere in the world, and easily find people who not only know about Korea, but love things about Korea. Even in Africa, I see young people singing Kpop, speaking Korean or listing things they know about Korea such as Korean celebrities, sport stars, Taekwondo, and Samsung. It appears that Korean culture, sports, and products have transformed and enhanced the image of Korea to “win the heart and minds of the foreign people.” This owes much to Korea’s success in public diplomacy.
A form of diplomacy has changed. Since the demise of the Cold War, a paradigm shift brought new actors, tools, and tracks in diplomacy. Diplomacy expanded beyond the domain of governments and positional diplomats and came to accommodate functional diplomats. New concepts of “soft power” and “smart power” were introduced to replace the conventional measurement of power based on economic and military capability. The “soft power” is the ability to attract and co-opt people of different parts of the world with ideas, culture, norms, and values. A national strategy of enhancing the country’s soft power is termed as ‘public diplomacy’, which entails behavioral ways of obtaining desired outcomes by attracting the hearts and minds of the people,thus, influencing them. I believe that Korea’s active pursuit of public diplomacy as a national strategy contributed to changing the perception of Korea.
Public diplomacy, however, is not confined to changing the image of one’s country. Every individual has their own soft power. I have met many students on campus, who have full potential to be a great public diplomat. Some have clear ideas as to what values they would like to promote, whereas some have not yet discovered their real talents and soft power. After all, public diplomacy at its highest level is promoting universal values towards peace and development to make a better world for everybody. George Mason University Korea is one of the organizations that have great resources to do this. Due to its unique situation of being an American University in Korea, it works in both ways: U.S. public diplomacy towards the Korean community and vice versa. But, the real strength of our university is that we are nurturing and training students to be the most proficient and transnational agents of public diplomacy on global issues through global cooperation. It may take another generation to see dramatic change, but soft power is indeed powerful. Take a minute to think about your soft power today, and see what you can do to change the world.
Soyoung Kwon, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Global Affairs
skwon14@gmu.edu
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