[INTERVIEW] Sending message of peace through public diplomacy

Park Enna, ambassador for public diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, poses during an interview with The Korea Times held in Seoul, Tuesday. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Amb. Park Enna says public diplomacy not 'zero-sum' game

By Kim Ji-soo

Ambassador for Public Diplomacy Park Enna cuts a stylish figure in her leather jacket, pants and smart bob. It may not be the typical fashion of a career diplomat, but when the 55-year-old Park speaks, she exhibits a soft persuasiveness that is hard to defy. In a Tuesday interview with The Korea Times, news came that South Korea and China have agreed to rehabilitate bilateral ties that have been icy because of the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system in Korea. President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping have also agreed to hold a summit.

"Seoul-Beijing ties have been mutually beneficial to both nations for the past 3,000 years, and its future relationship should also be so. The relationship in the past year or so has been a bit irregular, and Korean and Chinese people wish and desire for exchanges to continue, and for an end to the artificial mechanisms set in place to stall the exchanges," Park said.

"Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his three-hour-plus address to the 19th Communist Party Congress, said he will open a new era of Chinese politics and power by 2050, and that it will lead through soft power," she said. "But a country cannot just proclaim itself a soft power-leading nation; neighboring countries need to acknowledge the soft power of that country, and desire it. So, China has to earn the trust and the recognition of neighboring countries."

The charm of Korea's soft power has been highlighted through the world's hearty response especially to "hallyu" or the Korean wave, which refers to the spreading popularity of Korean dramas, pop songs and films, as well as aspects of traditional culture, namely art and food. After becoming a donor, not a recipient, of foreign aid, South Korea upheld 2010 as the first year of public diplomacy _ which is about winning the hearts and minds of people. Korea appointed its first public diplomacy ambassador, Ma Young-sam, in 2011. A more formal organization was set up last year when the Public Diplomacy Ambassador Office was established and the public diplomacy law was implemented last year. "I think it's a post that befits my assets, as we can draft a mid- to long-term vision to win the hearts of people, rather than focusing on detailed negotiations," Park said.

Some examples of public diplomacy are when former U.S. Ambassador to Korea Mark Lippert went to baseball games in Korea and when he and his wife gave their son a Korean middle name, Sejun. Park is working to convey multi-level, multi-faceted messages about Korea through her work. "Korea can send the spiritual and inspiring message of the can-do spirit, with which we have achieved economic growth after surmounting colonialism," Park said.

"Korea has shown we can live peacefully, even in the face of the threat of war, and thereby contribute to peace in the region. Also, our candlelit protests demonstrate Korea has found a new energy to overcome the limits of representative democracies; that we can carry and deliver person-centered, citizen-centered passion as a society."

She sees two pillars in public diplomacy: one, encouraging the people of the world to take an interest in and understand Korea, and two, sharing the vision of and consensus on Korea's policies, such as on denuclearization, peace-mechanism building and free trade with other nations, through opinion leaders and the media.

With the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics fewer than 100 days away, Park will visit Portugal and France next week, followed by a visit to the United Nations headquarters the week after.

"We will send the message of Peace Beyond Safety, which is the theme of the PyeongChang Olympic Games, and adopt the U.N. Olympics Truce Resolution in New York on Nov. 13," Park said of her U.N. visit, where she will be joined by South Korean Olympian Kim Yuna. "The Olympics True Resolution will note that the PyeongChang Games will contribute to peace in the region."

Some of the most challenging aspects of the new public diplomacy office are the limited budget, which stands at 20 billion won, and the fact that public diplomacy is still in its early stages in Korea. But since Park took office in March, an inter-ministry public diplomacy committee with the foreign ministry at the helm has been formed and a five-year plan has recently been adopted.

Park studied history at Yonsei University in Seoul and earned a master's degree in international relations from Columbia University. Fascinated by history, she had thought it was not about the past but about the future, and that was where she wanted to be, so she took the Foreign Services exam. She passed and entered the foreign ministry in 1985, and then served at various posts including the Korean Embassy in New Delhi, India, at the Korean Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York and as minister at the Korean Embassy in Beijing, People's Republic of China prior to her current post.

She oversees about 60 people; but her secret is not to micromanage, but let people do their jobs with their creativity and sense of responsibility.

Public diplomacy is in its third generation employing a variety of soft power measures including contributions to the global public goods such as official development assistance and peacekeeping, Park said. The first generation was about competing ideologies and propaganda during the Cold War, and the second generation emphasized cultural exchanges.

"(Now), in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack in the United States, public diplomacy's focus has been about winning the hearts of regular people and encouraging them to understand and like the country," Park said.

She said some refer to this challenge as a "public diplomacy war," because nations so actively engage in it.

"But when you think about it, public diplomacy is not a zero-sum game. The more each nation participates in public diplomacy, projecting its image as a peace-loving, human-rights-advocating contributor to the global public goods, the more it invariably helps policies accordingly, because a country is compelled to adhere to global standards," she said. "A country cannot say one thing and do another."