Tsunami or Ebb Tide? Soft Power and the Limits of the "Korean Wave"
| May 1, 2006 • According to Joseph Nye, Asian countries have impressive potential resources for soft power, which he defines as the “power to attract”—that is, the power of getting others to do what you want them to do through emulation or inducement, rather than through force or coercion. To Nye and increasingly to many other observers of world politics—including academics, policymakers, business people and even ordinary citizens—soft power has become almost as important as “hard power,” which rests primarily on physical resources: military forces, population, territory, raw materials and the like. Soft power, by contrast, is based on largely intangible resources such as the attraction of one’s ideas, culture, business practices, intellectual know-how, political and social values, and so on. To Nye, exploiting the potential of these resources is crucial. Countries that do so will exercise greater influence in the world, which, in turn, will allow them to achieve greater security and prosperity for their own citizens. True or not, Nye’s ideas have had a strong impact both within and outside of academia. Indeed, the tremendous interest in the “Korean Wave” (or hallyu) does not merely reflect an expression of national pride (which it certainly does), but also represents a conscious effort—primarily on the part of Korea’s political and economic elite—to expand Korea’s influence in world affairs. In this regard, hallyu can be seen as the cultural or “soft” side of South Korea’s foreign policy. This is not to say that the growing popularity of Korean movies, dramas, and music is a creation of the state. It clearly is not. Rather, it means that the Korean government (and business leaders) are consciously promoting and attempted to co-opt hallyu in many ways in order to build soft power and expand Korea’s influence in the world. |
There is, it should be emphasized, nothing unusual about governments incorporating soft power into their foreign policies. Almost all national governments do so. Some, however, are more successful than others. For example, Nye argues that Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands tend to have more influence than other states with equivalent economic or military capability. Yet, Asian countries, including South Korea (but also Japan and China), tend to have less influence than their physical capabilities would otherwise suggest. It appears, though, that hallyu has given the South Korean government a golden opportunity, which raises some obvious questions: Can hallyu be an effective instrument of foreign policy for South Korea? Will hallyu serve as a significant resource of soft power for Korean society? The answers, I think, are still very much open to debate. It is important to understand, though, that the power of a society’s culture, ideas, and values does not merely derive from their acceptance by and popularity with an international audience. On this score, the Korean Wave has already achieved great success. But by itself, “popularity” is a very tenuous thing: it can evaporate very quickly and may even become a liability if a country’s popular image is found to be at odds with its actual policies and social practices.
It is in this regard that hallyu has clear limits, for the realities of Korea’s social and political systems are, under the surface, inconsistent with the image of the country projected through hallyu. That is, the propagation of Korean culture, ideas, and values through hallyu suggests openness to cultural interchange or “mutual understanding”; however, Korean society remains inward looking and highly resistant to outside (cultural) influence. This is easy to see, for instance, in the country’s immigration policies, which are not only extraordinarily resistant to any significant inflow of “outsiders”—and their values and social practices—but are also implicitly premised on a “hierarchy of culture” (and of race).
Resistance to cultural interchange is also evident on a more mundane level. Consider Arirang TV, which is a government-funded satellite station explicitly designed to “spread the uniqueness of Korea to the world.” Even more, according to its former CEO, Samuel Koo, Arirang TV is premised on encouraging “two-way” conversation between Korea and the rest of the world—a point supposedly encapsulated in its motto, “Korea for the World, the World for Korea.” Ironically, though, the station recently stopped showings its daily dose of Korean drama—almost certainly one of the most popular programming segments on the channel. Despite an outpouring of protest on the station’s online BBS (mainly from international viewers), Arirang TV has refused to change its programming or even to justify its decision.
All of this is particularly important in that the strongest influence of hallyu is not in western countries, but in Asia. Indeed, it is in Asia that hallyu provokes the image of a veritable tsunami. But, its influence may easily ebb if hallyu is perceived as a cynical effort to promote South Korean culture, values, ideas—and power—at the expense of other societies. At this point, there are no indications that Korea will soon suffer from a “hallyu backlash,” but time will tell. The key point, however, is clear: “culture” is complex resource that is dependent on a number of other factors, including domestic policies and foreign policy practices. The effectiveness of using cultural resources to enhance soft power, therefore, requires broad-based consistency, which, at present, is lacking in Korea. To maximize the soft power potential of hallyu, therefore, much more comprehensive planning and coordination will be necessary.
By Timothy C. Lim
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
California State University Los Angeles
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