Korea Foundation helps diversify diplomacy

Korea Foundation President Lee Si-hyung has launched two regional organizations — the Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum Secretariat and the ASEAN Culture House — in line with the Moon Jae-in government's efforts to diversify diplomatic ground. / Courtesy of Korea Foundation

By Rachel Lee

A limited budget and a lack of Korea specialists make it difficult for the country to reach out to wider partners, an issue on which President Moon Jae-in focused in his diplomacy approach, the Korea Foundation (KF) chief says.

Such difficult conditions in South Korea, which has focused on the four great powers — the United States, China, Japan and Russia — become more evident when compared with neighboring countries, Lee Si-hyung told The Korea Times.

"China has established 500 Confucius Institutes in 125 countries by investing a huge amount," he said.

"The Japan Foundation has four times our funds and five times our number of staff. It also has 23 offices in 21 countries while we have seven offices in six countries."

With such a high level of support, the two neighbors have been able to promote their national interests to the world regarding the issues about which they are in conflict with South Korea, including the Dokdo islets and the "comfort women" statue.

"Also, the lack of specialists on Korea in emerging partner nations is another hurdle to overcome," Lee said. "Even if we could afford to provide the required financial assistance, looking for a qualified lecturer or a person specializing in these studies becomes the problem."

The KF, founded in 1992 for international exchange and public diplomacy initiatives, is the only public diplomacy organization affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs pursuant of the Public Diplomacy Act that came into force in August last year.

In line with the Moon administration's efforts to diversify diplomatic ground, the KF has launched two regional organizations — the Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum Secretariat and the ASEAN Culture House (ACH).

The former, which was officially launched in July this year within the KF office building in Seoul, aims to implement systematically project ideas arising at the Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum, the biggest multilateral dialogue channel between the two regions, the chief said.

With an agenda ranging from politics, economics, and socio-cultural issues, the secretariat has set the following priority areas for cooperation: transport and logistics, energy, modernizing and diversifying industries, climate change and environment, health and medical services, education and culture.

"To facilitate cooperation in these areas, the secretariat aims to build a two-way digital platform providing information for both regions," the president said. "Also working-level officials from Central-Asian nations stay as resident fellows to provide information on their countries."

The latter, which opened in Busan in September, aims to offer a diverse range of academic, people-to-people and cultural exchange programs to introduce ASEAN member states' rich culture here.

The biggest facility disseminating information on ASEAN, both within and outside of the regional community, it symbolized Korea's effort to correct the previous imbalance in exchanges between the two regions, Lee said.

Beside these newly launched organizations, the organization has designated India as a major partner in its public diplomacy efforts in 2018 with a five-year plan that includes promoting Korean studies at renowned universities, inviting distinguished leaders, and assisting Korea-related research of think tanks in India.

"Although matters have somewhat improved of late, the majority of Indians are still reported as being relatively indifferent to Korea," Lee said.

At the Korea Foundation Special Lectures on Korea 2017, Nov. 15-16, about 350 students and teachers from three universities in New Delhi — Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia and the University of Delhi — were present.

Sogang University professor Kim Jae-chun and Hanyang University professor Ha Joon-kyung gave lectures on "The Inauguration of the Moon Jae-in Government, Korean Democracy, and Foreign Policy Challenges" and "Korea's Growth Strategies: Implications for India's Economic Development," respectively.

The KF is planning to increase budgets for the aforementioned projects.

For example, providing assistance to Korea-related policy research will increase by 30 percent from 13 institutes across 10 countries to 23 institutes across 16 nations.

"However, such a move should not damage our undertakings in traditional counterparts like four neighboring powers," Lee said. "Therefore, expanding our reach to emerging partners without compromising the quality of undertakings in traditional partner countries is a challenge given our limited budget and lack of human resources."

"Although we are short of financial and human resources, we still have our own assets such as the Korean wave and the successful achievement of political and economic development within just a few decades — which other countries took centuries to do — to utilize as a valuable platform to raise interest in Korea."

Lee, a career diplomat with 35 years' experience, became the KF president in May last year. He was ambassador to Poland for three years from 2006, and was deputy minister for trade at the foreign ministry for two years from 2011. After returning from Warsaw, Lee was chief of protocol in the presidential committee in preparation for the G20 Seoul Summit in 2010. Before joining the KF, Lee was ambassador and permanent representative of Korea to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for two years.