KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study compared cultural diplomacy strategies of China and Japan toward Africa, focusing on both governmental policies and media representations between July 2023 and June 2024. China has expanded its influence through state-led initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Confucius Institutes, and Luban Workshops, emphasizing educational cooperation and cultural infrastructure development. Conversely, Japan promotes cultural diplomacy through the “Cool Japan” initiative and an “All-Japan” approach, engaging public, private, and academic actors to strengthen mutual understanding and regional development. By analyzing articles from the People’s Daily and the Asahi Shimbun, this research highlights how each country's discourse reflects distinct diplomatic logics: China’s top-down strategic outreach versus Japan’s community-based, soft power-oriented engagement. Findings revealed not only differing conceptions of cultural influence, but also broader implications for East Asian diplomacy in Africa. This comparative analysis offers insights into how cultural diplomacy can shape long-term international partnerships in a multipolar world.

Africa is often described as the continent with the youngest population, the last blue ocean on Earth with the most abundant untapped resources, and the continent with the most vibrant cultural hybridity and dynamism. While the ‘2024 Korea-Africa Summit’ has indeed heightened national and public interest in Africa within Korea, Africa still largely remains a continent of mystery with a strong negative image among Koreans. This study focuses on the cultural dynamism of Africa, aiming to illuminate the historical development of Korea and France's cultural policies related to the continent. It seeks to compare and analyze the policy orientations of major public institutions, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The primary goal of this research is to understand the historical background and current status of Korea and France's cultural policies towards Africa. Although the historical context is completely different, France's effort to redefine its relationship with this continent through culture offers us significant insights. Having moved away from its imperialistic past, France has since 2017 promoted an ‘equal partnership’ policy goal. It is time for us to establish a cultural policy based on mutual understanding, equality, respect, and co-prosperity.

Death is the most painful and fearful concept regardless of culture or era. However, Africans have characteristics that distinguish them from other cultures regarding death. Although Africans also have a fear of death, they share relatively positive ideas compared to other cultures. These positive perceptions are deeply rooted in everyday life. Traditionally, for Africans, the death of an individual is not the end of a life engraved in linear time, but rather a point in the systematic, circular, and repetitive flow of time, being merely an event that occurs in the cycle of life. In traditional Africa, the world of the living and the world of the dead coexist. In the African worldview, the dead are not simply symbolic beings, but actually exist. African myths can be the easiest and only way to understand Africans’ imagination of death. Reasons for death that appear in origin myths can be divided into three types. The first is the view that death is a gift from God to humans. God sends death with good intentions or tells us how to avoid death so that we can avoid suffering or sorrow. However, due to the mistake of the intermediary, God’s will is distorted and transmitted. Thus, humans cannot avoid death. The second type is the view that God gives humans a choice, but death cannot be avoided due to humans’ wrong choice. God or the intermediary is merely an intermediary. The responsibility for death falls on humans. The third type is the view that it appears due to human desire. This shows that humans are not beings who live only with reason, but rather beings who live their lives influenced by personal desires and emotions. For Africans, God is not an absolute being who is omnipotent and completely controls human life, but rather a being who surpasses humans with certain limitations. This familiar concept of God is connected to Africans’ attitude toward death. For Africans, death is not the end of life, but rather a meeting with gods who protect them. Africans see the death of a family member as the birth of another ancestral god. These ancestral gods have a greater influence on everyday life than absolute gods. Not all the dead will become ancestral spirits. Only those who have lived a full and meaningful life with a ‘good death’ can become ancestral spirits.