Abstract:

This paper has been published by the George Washington University's Central Asia Program and was presented during the annual World Korea Forum in Stockholm, Sweden in 2022.

It encompasses my recent decade of research on the overseas Korean diasporas in Central Asia (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) and Russia as well as in Mexico and Cuba. Their history in each of the recipient countries is different as are the circumstances of their original migrations in various periods of time, starting from the mid-19th century all the way to mid-20th century. However, the notion of ethnic and historical belonging as well as cultural similarities of the overseas Korean people in each country and region have genuinely interlinked them globally and so did the politics.

South Korea has been exercising its soft power in each corresponding region where the respective countries top its major economic and political partners list (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia as well as Russia in Eurasia and Mexico in Latin America) through the outreach to the ethnic Korean diasporas in each country and all regions in very similar ways.

By having learned its lessons of building strong connections with each respective country in Central Asia and Eurasia through the decades of successful economic and cultural support of the local Korean diasporas and political promotion of their leaders to the national governments in each country, South Korea has mastered its soft power and diplomacy in Eurasia and has been recently applying the same tactics in Latin America that have as a result culminated in the successful promotion of the bilateral free trade agreement with Mexico in 2022 and sealed its leading cooperation with this country in the whole Latin American region.

The history of the arrival and successful assimilation although through a lot of trouble of the Korean diasporas in each respective country - Russia in Eurasia and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia as well as Mexico and Cuba in Latin America - still has an extremely deep influence on the modern day politics and economic and cultural cooperation not only of these local Korean diasporas but the respective countries and regions as a whole with North East Asia in general and South Korea particularly.

Thus the Korean diasporas in each respective country have become global players in their diplomatic relations with South Korea and their role in global politics has been sealed through their original history in Eurasia.