The Study On The South Korea's Soft Power Diplomacy

"Soft Power" emerged as a new concept in the international politics in 1990s. And as a supplement to the hard power, it has received the attention of the international community, especially since the 21th century, the soft power has no longer been the preserve of the great powers. The middle powers represented by South Korea also pay more and more attention to the soft power and strengthen the construction of it, in order to improve their global reputation and international standing, and then promote their international images. At last the middle powers has formed their own soft power foreign policies which are different from the those of the great powers. This paper takes the soft power diplomacy of South Korea as an example to discuss it systematically, with the method of literature reading, comparative analysis, and the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis. The paper is divided into four chapters.The first chapter starts with the development of South Korea's soft power and then introduces the main actors of South Korea's soft power foreign policy. South Korea stay focus on the construction of soft power from 1980s. From the start of foreign aid in 1980s to the establishment of " Nation-building based on culture " strategy in 1990s to the advancement of "Global Korea" in the new century, the actors, the target countries as well as the means of South Korea's soft power foreign policy has been diversifying. The main actor is dominated by the government, for example Presidential Council on Nation Branding, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Ministry of Strategy and Finance set foot in soft power diplomacy and become the leading actors in this area. In addition, the non-state actors, such as Non-Government Organizations, multinational corporations, and even individuals, play a growing role in this field.The second chapter makes a full analysis of the resources and means of soft power diplomacy South Korea, to a great extent, is a bridge connecting the developed and developing countries, the traditional oriental culture and the modern western cultures, and thus it not only absorbed a lot of technology, system, ideology and ideas of developed countries, but shares the history of being colonized and enslaved with the developing countries, which provide rich diplomatic resources for the construction of South Korea's soft power, including the development experience, national brand, Information Technology and "Hanliu"(Korean wave). Meantime, South Korea has enriched its means of soft power diplomacy a lot in recent years, for instance, international organization participation, international aid, international peacekeeping, media and network has been the foremost means to promote its soft power diplomacy.The third chapter discusses the conditions and characteristics of the soft power diplomacy of South Korea. The reason why the South Korea's soft power diplomacy has been expanding since 21 century, depends on both favorable economic, politic and cultural conditions of South Korea, and the liberal and inclusive foreign policies of the target countries as well as the relatively stable international environment. Besides, as a middle power, South Korea formed its own characteristics of soft power diplomacy.The fourth chapter mainly expounds the achievements and limitations of the soft power diplomacy of South Korea. At the same time, this chapter explores South Korea's soft power diplomacy pattern on the basis of analysis and comparison between the characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, purpose and precipitating factors of the soft power diplomacy of America, France, China, Japan, Britain and Canada.