National Strategies: A North-South Dialogue

The development of the cultural industries: Economic objectives/cultural objectives

Yang, Ki-hwan

Director of Executive Committee. KCCD

General Director, CDMI

Good afternoon. I am honored to participate in this conference, and to make my speech in Korean, which is a beautiful language. We came to Cape Town after more than 24 hours of transportation. Arriving here in South Africa, I have been overwhelmed by the dynamic lives of the African people. I came to realize that Africans, Americans, Asians, and Europeans are all united through their thirst for cultural diversity, and anger toward cultural hegemony.

Before going into the main speech, allow me to briefly deliver a few social issues in Korea.

Korea is the only country on this earth, where families are separated because their land is divided into North and South. And at the present, there are more than 35 thousand US forces stationed in Korea, wherein they occupy thousand acres of land where civilians make their daily livings; and those military troops are causing several problems.

Three months ago, 2 schoolgirls died after being run over by a US heavy vehicle. Of course, this was not the first of such cases. There are many violent crimes, such as rape and murder, related to the US militaries in Korea. Moreover, poisoned wastewater from the US military stations are being thrown away into the rivers, from which the Koreans get their water supply.

Recently, the US embassy announced that they will build an apartment building for their staffs working in Korea, inside a land that is part of a historic palace site, which is almost 600 years old.

However, the more serious problem is that the Korean people are forced to abandon their visual tools to express themselves. The US is pressuring the Korean government to abolish the screen quota system and broadcasting quota system. The result will lead to the domination of Hollywood movies and dramas. We have been fighting against this pressure since 1997, and we will keep on our struggle. We ask for your concern and support on our activities.

Considering the past experience of Korea, it is understandable that developing nations, unlike advanced nations, are more focused on their economic development and basic right to live rather than ‘quality of life’ improvement through cultural activities or the right to enjoy cultural aspects. Because they need to place economical issues as their top priority, developing nations are generally experiencing difficulties in framing public cultural policies and have very weak industrial bases for cultural development. Naturally, developing nations produce much different cultural products and services from those of advanced nations in terms of their productivity and resources. Also, they have distinctive perspectives, values and importance about cultural industries and gain different economic profits from them. To build the relations between developing and advanced nations based on coexistence and exchange, it is essential that advanced nations do not unilaterally invade the cultural markets of developing nations with their cultural products. First and foremost, advanced nations must offer developing nations with cultural support in order to build continuing relations for the development of cultural industries.

Today, many developing nations are facing the endangerment of their cultural identities and diversities as their cultural markets are being encroached by those of advanced nations. Unless these cultural products are actively distributed in domestic markets or exported to other nations, the universal value of cultural diversity cannot be preserved. The cultures of developing nations must not only be able to survive but also expand worldwide including penetrating into advanced nations.

Some international organizations including BIT(Bilateral Investment Treaty), FTA (Free Trade Agreement) and WTO put restrictions on the activities member nations in regards to their encouraging the production of cultural products and services and the promotion of their distribution. Also, various international trade agreements have been signed in order to apply the principle of market economy to cultural products and therefore interfere with the regulations or measures of each member nation to preserve and develop their respective cultural industries. The activities of these organizations and agreements will cause the cultural identities of developing nations to be jeopardized by the invasion of cultural products by a few nations that monopolize the world’s cultural market. As a result, the unique lifestyles, values, ideas and worldviews of the developing nations will be seriously damaged by those few cultural products, furthering the movement toward unity of all cultures and the destruction of cultural diversity.

Because of such international trade agreements, artists and professionals of the cultural industries of these nations are experiencing restrictions on their cultural activities and their freedom of expression. In the current circumstance where a nation’s regulations or measures to avoid cultural uniformity have become powerless, it is impossible for a nation to establish a cultural policy for the development of its cultural industry.

The destruction of cultural identity and diversity by these international trade agreements is not a problem only for developing nations. Many advanced nations except for a few cultural products manufacturers also are facing the situation in which their cultural identities are endangered by these international trade agreements. Hence, both developing and advanced nations must make a collaborative effort to build measures to exclude the cultural industry from the range of free trade. These collaborative measures must carry with them the legal binding power to achieve their objective. It is crucial to make an international cultural agreement under international law that ensures the roles of individual nations for preserving their cultural identities without being limited by any international trade agreements. Cultural agreements with legal force will enable the logic of cultural development to take precedence over the principle of free market economy and therefore narrow the gap created by the unfair competition between advanced and developing nations in the cultural industry.

Furthermore, it is necessary to frame co-production agreements between advanced and developing nations, and to expand the range of such agreements. The co-production practice must embrace as many genres of the cultural industry as possible, including films, broadcasting, animation and performances. The agreement between two nations on collaborative production will promote the exchange of their cultural products and services and permit the expansion of potential markets and technological cooperation, while respecting the cultural policies of both nations. Such agreement will be effective measures for preserving the cultural identity of a nation and improving the cultural diversity of the whole world.

The cultural and civil organizations in Korea are looking forward to be informed and to share the result of the INCD and INCP conference.