Japan's Cabinet Office last week released the results of  an opinion poll that considerably raised tensions with it's neighbor South Korea.  Tokyo's  first opinion poll on South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, showed that six out of 10 Japanese view Dokdo as Japanese territory in terms of history and international law. Dokdo is also referred to as the Liancourt Islands or as Takeshima by the Japanese.

The survey is among Japan's numerous recent PR and strategic communications initiatives to publicize Japan's territorial claims at home and abroad. It was commissioned by PM Shinzo Abe who set up a new government agency tasked with such publicity initiatives.

                    
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While it may not have created too much of a furore in media internationally - important regional publications of Asia Pacific like The ChosunIlbo, Yonhap News, The Hankyoreh, People's Daily, The Global Times etc. dedicated considerable space to the findings of the opinion poll.

It is said to be the Japanese government's first such opinion poll. Until now surveys were simply restricted to the Japanese media houses. This is the most significant takeaway from this development - the adoption of tried and tested PR tools and techniques to influence media and public opinion by a government. The sample size was not too significant, restricted to 1784 people - but the sensitivity of the subject and being commissioned by the government itself is what I guess made it newsworthy. 

The wisdom of carrying out such a survey can be debated, and this might be more targeted towards domestic political interests.  Nonetheless, media houses got what they wanted with tensions rising high between both the countries and the Japanese government got the eyeballs it was hoping for. South Korea, in the meantime, registered its protest and in a strongly worded statement, Seoul's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said,

“We sternly protest the Japanese government’s decision to use a opinion poll commissioned by the Japanese Cabinet Office as a pretext for yet another provocation regarding Dokdo, a territory that is clearly South Korean on historical and geographical grounds and by international law, and strongly urge it to halt such actions at once. It is deplorable for the Japanese government to continue coming out with these absurd claims about Dokdo. Such ahistorical behavior will pose a serious obstacle to the future-oriented development of South Korea-Japan relations and reconciliation in Northeast Asia.” 

I would be interested to find out about the reaction on social media. Readers help!

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The Global Post reported the launch of the first civilian diplomatic corps by South Korea last month. The article stated,

"The corps with five groups as well as 30 individual adolescents and 20 senior citizens plan to push for diverse projects with the government's support to improve the national image abroad and to help increase its influence on the international arena"

Among Asian countries, South Korea is quite innovative in its approach to PD as seen over the last few years. This information is significant because,

1. The PD corps not only includes civilians from diverse backgrounds but also non-Koreans 
2. This development is associated with the securing of a PD budget of nearly USD 5.99 billion; as per the report in the Global Post. Now this should easily be among the highest PD budgets in Asia reflecting the growing importance of soft power in managing international relations. Note that South Korea's PD program is relatively recent - 2010 was when it formally began.
3. This also means coming together of the government and the people on foreign policy. Foreign policy can finally come down from its ivory tower of 'geo-strategy' & 'security' and acquire a human dimension - nations, after all, are an imagined community of people. Nations exist in people's minds and that's where foreign policy should begin. Quite interesting actually, something that I have been writing quite frequently in this blog.
4. The South Korean experiment seems like an institutionalization of informal/formal citizen groups & networks by the government. Now this is open to debate since the possibility of co-option by the state may exist. 

I remember being a member of the Pakistan India People's Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD) as a student of Delhi University. An experiment in Track II diplomacy, initiated by prominent citizens, with blessings from the government it was complementary to the peacemaking efforts of the Government of India. Numerous such 'people to people' programs are currently underway in India and there is definitely a diverse network of civilian diplomats working behind the scenes.

 

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