Korea should recognize the potential asset ethnic Koreans overseas represent for promoting the country's interests on the global stage and strengthen efforts to integrate them into a worldwide network, a former top diplomat said yesterday.
Kwon Byong-hyon, chairman of the Overseas Koreans Foundation, said past governments failed to see the significance of overseas Koreans.
"In a sense, our governments have had no set policy and no measures as far as overseas compatriots are concerned," Kwon said in an interview with The Korea Herald.
"As a result, we have made little use of the valuable human resources abroad and left our fellow compatriots feeling deserted."
He stressed the government should pursue an active policy incorporating Koreans at home and the nearly 6 million ethnic Koreans scattered around the world in order to serve the interests of the Korean community in a global context.
Terming the 21st century the "Diaspora Age," Kwon said Korea is well poised to prosper with ethnic Koreans all over the world.
He said the traditional concept of national boundaries will become less and less relevant as the pendulum swings more in favor of economic and cultural bodies disseminated around the world yet that are bound by a common national identity.
In such an era, the establishment of a worldwide network made up of Koreans at home and all the ethnic Koreans living abroad is invaluable, he said.
"We should integrate overseas Koreans and what resources they have into a network to promote the well-being and interests of the global Korean community," said Kwon, chairman of the foundation in Seoul.
Kwon, 65, a retired career diplomat who served as ambassador to Australia and China, has led the foundation since October 2000. It was created three years before as a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to carry out programs for overseas Koreans.
Kwon said he is pleased that public awareness of the importance of ethnic Korean communities abroad has increased in recent years.
He expressed reserved hope that the incoming government of President-elect Roh Moo-hyun will try to build bridges with overseas Koreans, noting Roh addressed "overseas compatriots" along with Koreans at home at the start of his first post-election speech.
Kwon suggested incrementally giving voting rights to qualified overseas Koreans, and revising a law on ethnic Koreans abroad, which has been under fire for discriminating against those in China and the former Soviet republics.
"The profits we could gain will exceed our expectations when we apply more attention and energy to forming a proper policy on overseas Koreans," stressed Kwon.
His foundation has focused on expanding the "Hanminjok Network," a cyber community for overseas Koreans to foster a sense of national identity, and building a worldwide network to serve as an effective channel for information exchanges between Korean businessmen at home and abroad.
The foundation has also pushed for the construction of the Overseas Koreans Center, which will provide services for ethnic Koreans abroad when they visit their motherland.
(khkim@koreaherald.co.kr)
By Kim Kyung-ho Staff reporter
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