한국국제교류재단

Martin Fryer, Director of the British Council Korea
Martin Fryer, Director of the British Council Korea, has led the United Kingdom's cultural relations efforts in Korea since 2013, but is adopting a long-term approach. “I'd say a lot of public diplomacy work can be long term,” the expert in public diplomacy explains. Fryer explains that both the Korean Foundation and the British Council look to the long term. Whether it’s linking schools together or providing scholarships for young academics, all efforts focus on investing in the future of promising individuals.

Promoting British values in the world
Founded in 1934 and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1940, the British Council aims, in the words of its charter, to “promote cultural relationships and the understanding of different cultures between people of the United Kingdom and other countries.” Fryer points out that the organization was founded during a time of economic depression, when high unemployment and social unrest fed the rise of fascism and other dangerous ideologies in various regions of the world. “We were set up in order to promote British values to those countries we felt were likely to be strongly influenced by other ideologies.”
In the aftermath of World War II, the British government quickly recognized that culture would play a vital role in Britain's relations with the post-war world. “People didn't use the term 'soft power,' and probably didn't use the term 'public diplomacy,’” says Fryer. “But it was recognized that as part of Britain's post-war relations with nations around the world, particularly Commonwealth countries, work in culture, education and promotion of the English language would build bridges between the more modern UK, the post-colonial UK, and countries around the world.”
By the 1990s, the British Council has been operating in over 100 countries; it currently has operations in 110 nations, where it facilitates exchanges between artists, writers and other cultural figures and promotes the United Kingdom as a place to study. Of course, the organization also offers English language education, for which it is best known in Korea.

Facilitating exchanges in language, education and the arts
As one of the UK's major public diplomacy apparatuses, the British Council naturally works together with other like-minded organizations, including the Korea Foundation. One such joint effort is the UK-Korea Catalyst, a program focusing on social enterprises and the creative industries that brings together the British Council, Creative England, a non-profit organization that fosters creativity and innovation in startups, and the Korea Foundation.
Through the program, which was launched in 2014, 10 Britons visited Korea and eight Koreans went to the UK for a series of meetings, exchanges and workshops with their counterparts. The meetings have sparked some interesting partnerships, especially when Korean and British startups collaborated on smaller projects involving developing nations. UK startups engaged with developing countries in fields like fair trade, assisting African small business and social enterprises accessing UK markets, for instance, formed links with similar organizations in Korea. “That, we hope, will lead to working with the Korea Foundation to develop capacity-building in developing countries,” explains Fryer.

Providing new perspectives
Fryer is keen to see the British Council and Korea Foundation work together in what is referred to as “thought leadership.” “We are a very well established and old organization, and the Korea Foundation is much younger, but we have very similar aims, particularly in countries that are the recipients of overseas development aid,” he says. He explains that public diplomacy doesn’t directly alleviate problems in developing regions but helps establish necessary institutions and education systems. Fryer also emphasized the importance of the concept of global citizenship.
Korea's public diplomacy is especially welcome as organizations such as the Korea Foundation and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) bring fresh perspectives different from those of older Western agencies such as the British Council, Alliance française and the Goethe-Institut. Fryer says such perspectives are valued because an Asian country may be more culturally attuned to an Asian neighbor than to a European country, and this sparks a multi-country discussion about various issues.

Building bridges
The British Council Korea's public diplomacy initiatives engage a wide range of cultural and educational fields. Its main operation involves English language education and the training of Korean teachers of English. It currently runs five centers in Seoul, teaching around 4,000 students. Fryer says the center sets the bar high to introduce methodologies that may be new or innovative, acting as a leader in the field of language teaching and language assessment.
The British Council extensively promotes artistic exchange, particularly in the performing arts and literature. “We try to support capacity building amongst performing arts, visual arts, and literature,” Fryer says. The British Council also shares British traditions and contemporary work, while encouraging dialogue between practitioners in the arts in Korea and the UK, which can spark collaboration. Literary exchanges have been especially successful. The London Book Fair had a market focus on Korea, and British Council Korea – together with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea - designed a program of visits, lectures and workshops with leading Korean authors for British audiences. British authors and editors, meanwhile, visited Korea to glimpse the Korean literary scene. These efforts helped generate interest in Korean literature, an area that had been virtually inaccessible to British readers.

Establish friendly relations at the person-to-person level
Fryer explains that public diplomacy is aimed at a wider public and operates outside the “hard end of international relations,” such as political and military affairs. “A lot of public diplomacy aims at showing a wider, softer view of a country,” he says.
Through public diplomacy, you're not trying to fix short-term problems, but rather build long-term people-to-people contacts and relations that can survive troughs in political relations between states. A classic example, says Fryer, is the Cold War, when the British Council operated in all of the countries of the Eastern Bloc. Despite operating under considerable restrictions, the British Council nevertheless provided an opportunity for individuals to see the United Kingdom “as it really was.” In this way, links were built that could develop very rapidly once the Iron Curtain fell.
Korea's public diplomacy efforts have also come a long way since the Korean War, a conflict that deeply colored Seoul's international relations. Fryer explains that Korea's public diplomacy efforts are admired because there's been a major investment by the Korean government and by Korean organizations in taking a more international perspective. “While the priority after the war was to rebuild the nation through industry, in the last couple of decades, there's been a conscious effort to build relations with neighboring countries and then beyond the neighborhood through culture and educational exchange.”