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China's state media said Wednesday the worldwide boom of Korean pop music, films
and TV dramas, known as "hallyu," was backed by the South Korean
government.
China Economic Weekly, a magazine managed and sponsored by
the state-run newspaper People's Daily, reported in its latest issue that the
South Korean government played a pillar role in the country's so-called "soft
power."
Noting the success of Korean pop songs such as Psy's "Gangnam
Style" and the Wondergirl's "Nobody," the magazine suggested China could learn
from the experience of the neighboring country.
It explained in the
report that South Korea has set the cultural industry as one of its key national
strategies in the late 1990s, introducing a gradual deregulation process and
encouraging the inflow of private capital into cultural industries.
The revitalization of the cultural industry has not only brought benefits to the
industry itself but also to the national economy as a whole, the magazine
said.
The article also cited Shin Jong-pil, the senior deputy director
on the popular-culture industry team at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and
Tourism of South Korea, saying the most important point for the government is to
only provide resources.
"The government should minimize its
interference, and let the sector develop freely through private capital and
strength," Shin was quoted as saying.
Chinese political leaders have
been stressing China's need to boost its "soft power" in a bid to remake the
country's international image, which is more inclined toward the "hard power" of
politics and economic size.
In 2007, Chinese President Hu Jintao
defined "soft power" development as a key national strategy.
Confucius
Institutes, which promote Chinese language and culture across the world, were
seen as one such initiative for advancing China's cultural influence
internationally.