Seminar & Forum TCS Secretary-General OU Boqian Delivered Keynote Speech at Busan Public Diplomacy Forum
2021-12-09
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On December 9, 2021, Amb. OU Boqian, Secretary-General of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (hereinafter referred to as “TCS”) delivered a keynote speech at 2021 Busan Public Diplomacy Forum at the invitation of Busan Foundation for International Cooperation (Hereinafter referred to as “BFIC”). Themed “Digital Public Diplomacy and ROK-China-Japan Cities Cooperation”, the Forum gathered senior diplomats, local government officials, media professionals, scholars and experts from China, Japan and the ROK of more than 10 persons in online-offline hybrid format.
Citing the recent spotlight that a number of Ambassadors embraced the live-streaming e-commerce for the promotion of their products of origin as well as the anecdote of “blind men and elephant effect” that is shared by the three countries, Amb. OU gave analysis on both advantages and side effects of the fast development of the cyber technologies. Using the term “a tale of two worlds”, she pointed out that, we are now living in two parallel worlds: the real one and the cyber one. Different from the real world, the people’s negative affections could be accumulated with extremely rapid speed in the cyber space, which is an important catalyst of the decline of mutual perceptions of the people of the three countries in recent years, amidst others. She strongly advocated a closer cooperation on public diplomacy to uphold the shared values of human society and therefore improve mutual understandings and recognitions among peoples. She also highlighted the importance of the reinforcement of morality and rule of law in the cyber world.
Amb. OU briefed the progress of the Trilateral Cooperation among China, Japan and the ROK over the past 10 years, underscoring that the Trilateral Cooperation is to date the only inter-governmental mechanism in Northeast Asia, and has developed into a comprehensive cooperation platform with widest coverage of areas, highest level of institutionalization, richest outcomes, and strongest endogenous dynamics. She numbered a series of TCS signature programs in the area of public diplomacy, such as the “Trilateral Common Vocabulary Dictionary” as well as the upcoming Trilateral Statistics Hub, International Forum for Trilateral Cooperation, Young Ambassador Program, Trilateral, Trilateral Youth Speech Contest, CJK Virtual Marathon, reaffirming that the TCS is committed to improving people’s mutual perceptions in the three countries and beyond. She also extended expectation on TCS’s collaboration with institutions of the three countries for cultivating a spirit of “lasting peace, common prosperity and share culture”, so as to lay a solid foundation for the development of future-oriented relations among the three countries.
Scholars and experts from the three countries shared their observations on the trend of digital public diplomacy from the aspect of local government exchanges and cooperation, stressing out that the online communication has been playing more and more important role since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. They suggested to fully utilize the digital economy opportunities for a closer cooperation among cities of the three countries, so as to secure a steady recovery and development of each country’s economy in post-pandemic era, while taking strong countermeasures against fake news and other negative effects of the cyber space.
The Busan Public Diplomacy Forum was initiated by Busan Foundation for International Cooperation in 2020 and held the first edition in the same year with participation of China and the ROK. The 2021 Forum was expanded to three countries with Japan newly involved.
▲Participants discussing about the digital public diplomacy
▲TCS SG OU Boqian delivering keynote speech
▲Group photo of online and on-site participants
