Where Politics and Popular Culture Intersect: Soft Power in East Asia

Millions flock to Japan each year to see the famed cherry blossoms bloom and to visualize their beloved animated scenes come to life. Others devote their lives to their idols in Korea; others visit for the breathtaking views from the Great Wall. But what benefit do these bring to the country and why do these countries endorse it?

Soft power, in contrast to the militaristic approach of hard power, primarily uses entertainment and popular culture to attract and to appeal to others, and is used as a tool to strengthen political relationships. With the turn of the century, the global market has been further opened, to which the opportunity for ideas, entertainment, and ultimately culture to spread rapidly. Multiple East Asian countries have taken this opportunity to make their “breakthrough” into the Western world, establishing a connection with leaders or to raise their favor with common people. However, these countries all differ by their own individual reasons for using soft power, their strategies, and the responses received by the Western world.

South Korea’s prior fear of entering the global market stemmed from its repeated history of invasion from other cultures, namely Chinese, Japanese, and American. The fear of other countries’ popular cultures competing with its own resulted in its closed market, unable to participate internationally. In the early 1990s, the Korean film industry only took up 15.9% of the country’s market. In contrast, importing American films into Korea was allowed due to insistence from the US government, and the ban of Japanese popular culture instated in 1945, the time of Korea’s liberation from Japan, was lifted in 1998. This unpopularity of domestic entertainment allowed foreign media to dominate the industry, essentially overshadowing its own popular culture.

But by the late 1990s, Korean popular culture began to rise, detaching from its wariness of stepping into the global market and turning its fear of foreign cultural invasion around, instead growing its influence on others. This wave of Korean popular culture, tagged as the term Hallyu (Korean Wave), has become a source of national pride for the people of South Korea, and is used as a soft power technique to gain its standing internationally.

Hallyu first reached Korea’s neighboring countries in Asia, particularly Japan. Japan and Korea’s relationship throughout history has been faltering, including Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Despite the animosity between the two countries, Korea’s push of its popular culture has proved to be a success. Namely two events stand out in the spread of the Korean Wave to Japan: the debut of BoA, and the release of Winter Sonata.

BoA, a Korean singer, made her debut in Japan in 2001 after her success in Korea a year prior. Her debut in Japan set her off on her career, topping Japan’s Oricon pop music charts, and being the first Korean singer to do so. BoA continued to grow in popularity, eventually extending her name to other parts of East Asia. Despite being a first generation idol, her name is still widely known throughout the K-pop community.

Within the film industry, the release of the Korean drama Winter Sonata in 2003 pushed the Korean Wave in Japan more significantly than ever before. Despite past Korean dramas appealing to the Chinese-sought modern life, Winter Sonata appealed to middle-aged Japanese women’s reminiscence of a more traditional lifestyle. The traits of the male lead and the actor, Bae Yong-joon, depicted a “gentle” and “sincere” character, which was attractive to many. Soon, Bae’s popularity in Japan skyrocketed, the Korean Wave being so strong that Japan’s lack of entertainment imports from the West even affected the market for American films.

The Korean Wave that heavily influenced Japan and the rest of Asia did not necessarily have the same impact in the Western world, specifically North America. The early 2000s successes of Winter Sonata and BoA did not meet the same success in North America as they did in Asia. But by the late 2000s and 2010s, the circumstances of Korean popular culture in the West changed drastically.

This second wave of popularity for Korean culture mainly owes itself to the role of social media. Known as the new Korean Wave or Hallyu 2.0, its main difference from the first wave is the presence of social media and its ability to circulate information rapidly, which led to the new wave having a more profound intensity.

Because of this newfound approach to spreading influence, Psy’s famous release of “Gangnam Style” in 2012 marked the breakthrough of K-pop into the North American market. With the use of social media and the new opportunity to enter the Western world, the appeal for K-pop and Korean culture grew rampantly. The shift from entertainment being solely on television to being readily available allowed Korean popular culture to grow farther beyond its borders than ever before.

Even now, effects of the Hallyu 2.0 are still present. Boy group SEVENTEEN’s EP FML: The 10th Mini Album released on April 24, 2023, and has broken global records, selling over 3.9 million copies within the first 24 hours of release. With this record, they surpassed BTS’s 2020 album Map of the Soul: 7 as well as Adele’s 25, both which had about 3.4 million within the first week. More recently, SEVENTEEN performed at England’s Glastonbury Festival in June, with many locals praising the idols’ performances, despite it being their first time exposed to K-pop.

However, some people have criticized the Korean Wave for being similar to American cultural imperialism. The Chinese government has restricted the streaming of Korean dramas as a way of “restricting the inflow of capitalist culture,” which is thought to be “a threat to socialist ideology and national security” in the eyes of the CCP. One example of this was during the US-South Korean cooperation of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in 2016, which China responded by blocking streaming services that provided Korean dramas, as well as stopping the partnership of making Korean dramas. Because China is a major consumer of Korean dramas, this hurt Korea’s film industry severely.

Despite its criticism, Korea’s abundant success in promoting its popular culture is evident even in mainstream media today. However, Japan’s own entertainment industry is not far behind either.

Although Japan’s promotion of popular culture began even before its defeat in WWII, its main purpose was “to soften anti-Japan perceptions, notably in Southeast Asia” after the war. During the late 1980s, it was realized that Japanese TV programs were gaining popularity, which were then broadcasted for free in many Asian countries in hopes of strengthening soft power.

In the early 2000s, Japan looked for ways to break into the Western world with a “Cool Japan” policy. The term “Gross National Cool,” or GNC, was coined as Japan capitalized its media to gain power across the globe. This popularity came through mainly anime and manga, and was managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, of MOFA. Characters such as Doraemon and Hello Kitty were named as “Ambassadors of Cute” in 2008 and 2009, respectively. These characters can be seen in multiple industries, from childhood television shows to makeup and skincare products.

Apart from characters like Hello Kitty, other forms of entertainment like anime, J-fashion, and J-pop have become popular as well. New and classic shows such as Jujutsu Kaisen and One Piece are now found on apparel in American stores such as Urban Outfitters and Newbury Comics.

However, some argue that this has had unintended consequences, such as Hayao Miyazaki, the founder of Studio Ghibli, who claims that soft power has made Japan “forcibly unify” their cultural diversity into one image. According to anime producer and author Toshio Okada, “Japanese way of life, which is embodied in the mu-kokuseki (racially, ethnically, and culturally unembedded) imagery of animation.” He explains that the Japan seen in animation is a “monological illusion,” which is caused by “the consumption of cultural commodities,” which is also the very Japan that Western viewers yearn for.

And Japan’s success in providing its fans a “monological illusion” has proven to be true. Japan’s tourism rates have increased by 9.6% since 2019, and with the value of the yen dropping, the country has seen its record number of visitors this year, totalling to 17.78 million.

However, in contrast to Japan and Korea’s success, China’s soft power strategies still seem to be in the works. Because of China’s reputation as a communist country, the country takes on two strategies when utilizing soft power towards other countries. Offensive strategies are often targeted towards African countries, in which they give aid in developing the countries, notably through infrastructure development. China’s offensive strategy grows in power when they respect cultural differences of the countries they are targeting, which appeals to many of the developing countries with their history of colonization from Western countries.

Additionally, China employs a defensive strategy towards Western nations because their offensive strategy, which mainly focuses on providing aid, is not effective towards the favor of developed countries. Consequently, using investments and entertainment to protect their image is the priority. To keep Western countries interested in collaborating with them, China uses economic strategies to deter their attention away from political disagreements. Furthermore, China’s recent advances in the gaming industry has resulted in tremendous growth. Many game developers have extended overseas, and China currently is responsible for 47% of the global mobile gaming revenue. With a strategy of protecting the country’s image, the industries of movies, video games, and technology play a big part in growing China’s soft power and economy.

While this offensive strategy has worked, the defensive has faltered. Many from Western countries, Japan, and South Korea still have negative views of China. So what has allowed South Korea and Japan to gain these positive views from the West, maybe even to the point of fetishization, whereas China is still demonized?

Though much of this ideology is rooted in history, netizens also contribute to this problem. Many Chinese trends that gain popularity in the West are often rebranded as Korean or Japanese. Douyin makeup, known for its exaggerated under-eye fat and manhwa (Chinese comics) lashes, has been repeatedly named as Korean beauty trends, despite there being differences between the makeup styles. Tanghulu, a snack originating from the Song Dynasty and traditionally made with a sour fruit called hawthorn, was mistakenly called Korean as well. These instances are often influenced by subtle anti-Chinese rhetoric, as there may be an inherent belief that something cute or positive could not be associated with China.

While soft power in Japan, South Korea, and China all differ from each other, they provide examples of how soft power is used and of it in success. Though soft power can increase the likability of a country's people, it can also trap them under a monolith, creating stereotypes that may harm people of that country. And because soft power thrives off of the entertainment industry, it creates a fragile foundation to relationships formed solely off of it. Even if the government of a certain country did no harm, if the representatives of the soft power within that country did cause an issue, the superficiality of soft power relationships or alliances can be seen. Although soft power is an increasingly popular way to gain global dominance in today's world, it is still part of unknown territory, and seen as a double-edged sword.