Direction of Humanities Exchange for the Development of Friendly Relations between Korea and China

South Korea should continue its friendly relations with China for economic, geopolitical and security reasons. As China continues to compete with the United States for global hegemony, it is in its interest to maintain friendly relations with South Korea. In line with these interests, under the Park Geun-hye administration, China and South Korea issued a joint statement on the future vision of Korea and China, formalizing active bilateral exchanges centered on humanities. However, there is a subtle difference between the two countries in terms of the humanities exchange agreed upon in the statement. While Korea views the concept of humanities as a broad approach to human exchanges that encompasses traditional and popular culture, China focuses on traditional culture and is opposed to popular culture exchanges. The two countries have not been able to come to a mutual agreement on this issue. For friendly relations with China, Korea should continue humanities exchanges through a public diplomatic approach rather than a hard power competition. If so, it would be easiest to approach humanities exchanges based on traditional culture in the same flow as China's internal and external policies. Of course, there is a risk of cultural appropriation. However, humanities exchanges are an inevitable part of China-ROK diplomacy. In that case, we should start with traditional cultural exchanges that China can easily accept and gradually expand the scope. And it would be better to allow Korean pop culture-based content to penetrate China naturally, not through a policy approach.