Internet Diplomacy
I recently watched one of the oddest ads I’ve ever been shown. I was about to watch a video, and this really peculiar and completely unrelated ad popped up: it was published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and was talking about the name of the Sea of Japan.
The video first makes its points about the Sea of Japan being called the Sea of Japan and only explained at the end that they wanted us to know this apparent truism because Korea wanted to call it the East Sea instead. I won’t take a side in this debate because I couldn’t care less about it, but the phenomenon it exhibits is rather interesting.
The most interesting thing about this video is its existence: that is, the fact that countries are overtly using the internet to settle international disputes now. Why Japan should be wasting money on this rather than more important matters is a mystery to me, although I do have a hunch. My theory is that Japan is testing this technique on an unimportant issue (in case anything goes wrong) just to see if it works. If these videos do work, I imagine governments will be sure to adopt them at lightning pace, and international disputes will be fought on our computer screens.
Another thing worth noting is that I, of all people, was shown the ad. Clearly people with far more knowledge than I think that the geopolitics community has a sufficiently large role to play in shaping and resolving these disputes that it’s worth investing in. This not only gives me a pretty big ego boost – being considered an influencer of sorts by the Japanese government doesn’t happen every day, but also means policymakers think that the court of public opinion is a viable means of advancing policy.
This appeal to public (even specialist public) influence poses many risks, not least the fact that almost all the big internet advertising companies such as Google and Facebook are based in the U.S., which would give the U.S. a huge advantage in any international dispute. Not only that, but these companies aren’t neutral (their whole purpose is seeking profit), so using their platforms to settle disputes gives them a huge amount of power: it’s easy to imagine the companies helping their preferred side win. This would in turn lead to governments having to essentially prostitute themselves to huge corporations to win disputes, which is certainly not a world we’d like to live in.
If you want to see the video talked about in this article it’s available here: The Issue of the Name of the Sea of Japan | Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (mofa.go.jp), along with many other propaganda pieces.
