By Xu Aiying and Kim Young Shin

The Moon Jae-in administration unveiled its vision for a new cultural policy with 37 major tasks across nine agendas, including “the expansion of cultural cooperation for the future and peace,” “actualization of gender equality” and “the protection and distribution of cultural diversity.”

Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism Do Jonghwan announced the "Culture Vision 2030 – Culture With People" new set of policies at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul on May 16.

Minister Do stressed that for “the expansion of cultural cooperation for the future and peace,” the ministry plans to expand exchanges between the two Koreas, help establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through the arts, and open a new chapter in the history of Korean exports of cultural content, like pop music and TV shows.

In detail, the ministry will push forward an agreement with North Korea covering musical and cinema exchanges, as well as similar projects, and build a legal basis for support to the North in terms of the culture, sports and tourism sector.

The ministry plans to launch a joint project to research cultural heritages across the Korean Peninsula, schedule regular meetings among religious leaders and expand joint businesses in related fields. It also seeks ways to expand sports exchanges between the two Koreas, such as forming joint teams at international events or jointly hosting global competitions. The projects to restore cultural homogeneity, including the joint publication of a unified Korean language dictionary, are also on the list.

The ministry is designing a big data system for the export of Korean cultural content, like movies, video games or TV shows, and will study the reception of such cultural content in overseas markets.

Korean Cultural Centers around the world will be reorganized as the forward bases in this drive to promote cultural exchanges.

All of these plans are part of the Moon administration’s five-year policy agenda, which includes “mutual cultural exchange” and “actualization of good Hallyu.”

“Everybody has the right to not be under observation, to not be under censorship and to not be discriminated against,” said Minister Do. “We launched our ‘Culture Vision 2030’ to establish an environment where anybody can freely express oneself.”

“This is the first policy vision led by the public and supported by the government,” Do said. “By 2030, we expect our daily lives to be the priority of the people and of their lives, with respect and cooperation, with break times, with human sensitivity, with autonomous decentralization, with gender equality and with fairness and coexistence,” Do concluded.

xuaiy@korea.kr