Recently, the Korean ambassador to India Chang Jae-bok and his staff paid tribute to the Golden Globe winning song naatu naatu from the Indian movie RRR. For me, the gesture was notable and significant as it came from a diplomat representative of a country that has used public diplomacy for the purpose of its national security. Incidentally, 2023 also marks 50 years of diplomatic relations between India and South Korea and diplomatic staff grooving to an Indian song on all prominent social media platforms is a smart way of communicating with the audience in India. This also signals that South Korea believes in being ‘relational’, that is, learning from the world as opposed to one-sided ‘informational’ exchanges. The ambassador might also have communicated to the audience the popularity of K-pop and the Korean wave through various communication modes or interviews to journalists or event op-eds in prominent newspapers and portals.
This gesture though surprising was healthy departure from the usual diplomacy.
The K-diplomacy
Prof. Nick Cull of the University of Southern California wrote in a policy brief explaining that public diplomacy can be a ‘long game, but once it is established it will enable a lasting reputation’. This is significant because established public diplomacy will advance foreign policy interests substantively. In addition, if practiced and put into use well, it will only enable public diplomacy to be further mainstreamed. South Korea is a standout example. Countries like South Korea are also important in the trajectory of public diplomacy overall in Asia.
South Korea has systematically formalised its approach to public diplomacy by adopting a policy-based approach. Recently, the Indian Parliament’s committee on external affairs recommended the need for a policy-based approach to India’s soft power orientation. Soft power is just a subset of public diplomacy. India needs a guiding policy document to lead its public diplomacy orientation globally. It may be too early to judge the impact of South Korea’s public diplomacy but for starters such as India, the country holds important lessons.
South Korea has built its image from scratch and rubble. After the war with North Korea in 1950, the country wanted to communicate globally of its standing and ability. South Korea back then and even now by some, is considered a new entrant to the public diplomacy infrastructure. But in my opinion, it has made it their own.
The establishment of the Korea Foundation to sync this with their presence in the United Nations and OECD is a great enabler besides other important organisations in the country. The brief to the Korea Foundation remains very simple to promote Korea’s image abroad and win friends. South Korea’s external engagement has been premised on some of the following pillars: culture, the arts, education, academia, youth, media and publishing to name a few. Steadily, South Korea has also emerged from an aid recipient to become a global development co-operation partner to the OECD. In South Korea’s case, it also drew lessons from the US and the EU and learnt to brand itself for global good.
South Korea is perhaps one of the few countries in Asia to have included public diplomacy legally in the country and pass the Public Diplomacy Act in 2016. The Act defines public diplomacy as “diplomatic activities through which the State enhances foreign nationals’ understanding of and confidence in the Republic of Korea directly or in cooperation with local governments or the private sector through culture, knowledge and policies, etc.” The Act states guidelines to formulate a masterplan of four-five years and an annual plan for public diplomacy strategies. The legislation also gives due credence to the role of non-State actors.
South Korea has also successfully used international events as strategic tools to not just communicate with the world but also remain steadfast in its national developmental goals. The country has hosted the G-20 summit, expo, the Olympics, co-hosted the Football World Cup, besides global film festivals such as the Busan Film Festival and other multilateral events of significance. In fact, when South Korea bid to co-host the Football World Cup with Japan in 2002, the first in Asia, it was still recovering from a national economic crisis. This was also the first football world cup in Asia.
In the 2022 Ipsos Anholt Nation Brands Index, South Korea is the only other country apart from Japan and Singapore to have made it to the top 25 of the list.
Also read: Mizoram giving its own twist to the K-pop culture — An all-girls group is born
What India can do
The report of the Committee on External Affairs of Indian Parliament exhorted the House to learn lessons from other countries to improve its soft power orientation. South Korea could be a perfect case study. India has had no geo-political issues with the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi once remarked that his idol for development was South Korea as opposed to the West. Time is ripe for India to establish a working group on public diplomacy with South Korea and learn from the Asian tiger economy.
India has already established a memorial in honour of Korean princess Heo Hwang-ok, also known as Suriratna, in Ayodhya. Many South Koreans trace their ancestry to the queen. Former South Korean first lady visited Ayodhya in 2016 and it has seen several high level delegations from South Korea also visit. India also figures prominently in South Korea’s New Southern Policy. There has been a steady upsurge in consumption of Korean culture by the Indian public during the Covid-19 pandemic as well. Chennai also has a significant presence of South Korean expats because of Hyundai. And Tamil Nadu shares some incredible cultural and linguistic similarities. A group of Buddhist pilgrims from South Korea also visited Indian holy sites recently.
In pursuit of understanding effective global communication through public diplomacy, an evaluation will also be necessary for both South Korea and India. A recommended model by another academician, Professor Robert Banks, is the one being followed by the US for evaluating its public diplomacy orientation, which is for a government to clearly articulate short, medium- and long-term outcomes and key outputs and indicators to ascertain its public diplomacy goals. No public diplomacy ambitions will result in the affirmative if it does not have the right evaluation techniques.
The CSIS Smart Power Commission report elucidates public diplomacy as a necessary pursuit for countries to hone their smart power strategy (a skillful use of both hard and soft power). There are no rights or wrongs in the method adopted for public diplomacy.
The lyrics of widely popular PSY’s Gangnam style has a line in which Prof. Cull notes: ‘A guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscles’. 2023 could be the year of ‘bulging’ ideas between India and South Korea for a better world that is spearheaded by good public diplomacy.
Writer is an author and researcher. Views are personal.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)