HALLYU? Is it an effective soft power?

by Cornelius Susanto (016201200005)

Nowadays, almost every part in the world is crazy about K O R E A, and it's culture, especially their handsome and beautiful singer and artist. This phenomenon is known as HALLYU. What is that actually? And can Hallyu itself be an effective soft power? As an international relations student, i will try to analyze it by my own perception about it.

Soft power which is believed as one forms of power that use the term of culture, ideology, beliefs, and so on rather than military power to achieve a country’s national interest has born a new form of soft power called Hallyu. Korean Wave or popularly known as Hallyu refers to the term of crucially popularity increase of South Korean culture around the world since the beginning of 21^st century due to their attractive and persuasive culture, that attracts people from all over the world. Hallyu firstly gained its popularity from the melodrama spread back in 1990s, and continually developing a lot in such areas, which include the tradition, food, music, and so on. In which the term of Hallyu is getting more and more popular now yet in entertainment areas and international relation areas.

            Hallyu, or Korean Wave which use its “soft” ways such as their spread in culture by using its tradition, food, and entertainment has proven that it is the new effective South Korean diplomatic ways to achieve its national interest, which is “…to elevate the quality of life for all the citizens and contribute to lasting world peace world peace and common prosperity of mankind and thereby to ensure security, happiness for ourselves and our posterity forever”.In which these popular culture has able to spread its range by effective way in order of introducing the attractiveness of their Hallyu tradition to the world, influencing the mindset of attracted people all around the world, introducing more new and new attractive tradition of Hallyu, and finally enhancing their diplomatic ties with attracted hosted countries in which gives much benefits for South Korea, especially for their interest. For example, the negative impression of South Korea from Taiwan after their diplomatic break-ups in 1992 because South Korea wanted to maintain their relation with RRC has transformed into more positive image days by days in which due to the Hallyu capabilities to provide attractive diplomatic culture ways to rebuild positive relationship with new image of South Korea. And also not only in Taiwan but also many Asian countries          such as Malaysia, in which the influence of Malaysians to prefer Korean food over Malaysian food and to purchase South Korean goods has brought lots of economic benefits for the South Korean.

PSY (one of the most viral korean singer) with Ban Ki Moon (UN Secretary General)

            At last, the enhancement of South Korean new emerging soft power or so called as Hallyu has led to higher sales of other goods and services such as food, clothing, video games, and Korean language classes, in which this has help the government to enhance their economic interest which is the part of their national interest. And also besides that, Hallyu has also able to be used by the government as a soft power tool to engage with the masses of young people all over the world, and to reduce the sentiment of anti-Korean. In which they achieve all of this diplomatic success in some effective ways once again by using their attractiveness of their culture that let the people embrace with the capability of their culture and also emerge with the Hallyu intentions of being spread worldwide. And these culture ways that is possessed by South Korea will be more and more effective as the resource of their soft power if they keep practicing and introducing the world the new innovation of their wave as these decades are just the beginning of their emerging soft power.