Some artists of the Korean Wave (Hallyu) (Source: habkorea.net) The event was part of a researchproject on the enhancement of public diplomacy towards the Vietnam - RoK comprehensivestrategic partnership.
Dr. Tong Thuy Linh from the Institutefor Northeast Asian Studies, head of the project, said the workshop aimed tosuggest appropriate solutions and policies to promote people-oriented publicdiplomacy, thus helping to strengthen and foster the friendship and multifacetedcooperation between the two countries.
She noted that public diplomacy ofVietnam may consist of two main components, information for foreign services andculture for foreign services, creating methods for communicating with andimpacting the public as well as non-state entities in other countries to conveymessages and build up positive images of Vietnam to serve the realisation ofdiplomatic targets and help guarantee national interests.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hoang Minh Hang fromthe Institute for Northeast Asian Studies said that before 2010, the RoK had mainly carried out cultural diplomacyvia the Korean Wave (Hallyu). It implemented public diplomacy in various forms,but public diplomacy was often equated with cultural diplomacy. In 2010, theRoK Government officially released the definition of public diplomacy, and oneyear later, it appointed the ambassador of public diplomacy for the first time.
Therefore, public diplomacy wasupgraded and became one of the three pillars of the RoK’s diplomacy,together with economic diplomacy and political diplomacy. The RoK’sdetermination to elevate public diplomacy was shown in the issuance of the PublicDiplomacy Act in February 2016, and this act went into effect in August thesame year, Hang added.
At the workshop, participantsdiscussed the difference between cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy, the PublicDiplomacy Act of the RoK, and the Vietnamese approach to public diplomacy,among others. They also gave several suggestions about the issue./.
VNA
