How can South Korea turn its COVID-19 control success into a successful soft-power asset for health diplomacy? The RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy hosted a public webinar to convene a multidisciplinary group of public health professionals, international relations experts, and academics to engage in a high-level discussion. It was designed to promote the sharing of innovative ideas and best practices.

Here we are. We are all here. Good morning and good evening to everyone. On behalf of the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy of the RAND Corporation, welcome to the webinar on "Can South Korea Help the World Beat the Next Pandemic?" Given our panelists are from Seoul, Geneva, and Washington, D.C., we had to choose a time that's quite early for Washington, D.C., on a rainy day and quite late for Seoul and impossible for the West Coast. Therefore, we are recording this session, and we will send the video to everyone that's registered for this event.

So my name is Jennifer Bouey. I'm an epidemiologist and a policy researcher at RAND Corporation. I'm also serve as a department chair for Global Health at Georgetown University.

Well, now, as the world is emerging from this devastating COVID-19 pandemic, we are acutely aware of the fragile public health and global health system that we are in. So we see the stark inequalities in public health capacities and lack of regional and global strategies facing these devastating crisis. So now is the time for both countries and international organizations to consider how to build a safer environment and for effective defense. So in this context, our team at RAND has recently published a research report titled Public Health and Soft Power: The Republic of Korea's Initial COVID-19 Response and Its Implications for Health Diplomacy. So during the early days of the COVID-19 disease's pandemic in 2020, the ROK, South Korea, had one of the highest success rates in adopting an effective defense, especially with the non-pharmaceutical interventions to counter the sudden assault of COVID-19. Without a national lockdown, the South Korea's government, their very practical strategy for adopting these interventions, has received the global attention for its success. So today's webinar is really to summarize some of these success and see whether other countries can adopt these strategies and understand how South Korea built its capacity and pandemic response capabilities. We are also discussing, asking the question, What is soft power and to what advantage, limitation, and risks are associated with building soft power on a public health success? And we are asking whether South Korea's successful pandemic response and foundations can be turned into soft power assets for South Korea and doing so, what are the limitations we should keep in mind, and what are the common risks associated with health diplomacy and the lessons we have learned from this?

So today we have three distinguished panelists to join us. They are the experts in many of these areas that we have talked about, and we have posted the full bio, a little longer bio, on our event site, on the RAND website, and sent to everyone who has registered. And here, given the time limits, we will just do a very, very short recap. So we have Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, who is the president and the CEO of the Korea Economic Institute. She will have— she has a long and distinguished career in diplomacy from 1978 to 2015 and served as the U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 2008 to 2011.

And we have here Dr. Youngmee Jee. Dr. Jee is the chief executive officer of Institut Pasteur, Korea, and also served as the special representative for health diplomacy at the Korea Foundation. Dr. Jee has brought experience in collaborating with WHO and international public health partners. And currently, Dr. Jee is a member of the WHO International Health Regulation Emergency Committee on COVID-19 and of the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Blueprint on Research and Development on Preparedness. Actually, she's right now in a conference with WHO, so she has to leave a bit early today.

And finally, but not last, Professor Tikki Pang. Professor Pang has been a visiting professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore since 2012. He was previously the director of research policy and cooperation, evidence and information for the public policy cluster of the WHO in Geneva. And he's joining us from Geneva today.

So with no further ado, we will start the panelists's statement, and then hopefully we'll have enough time for a discussion. So I will invite our panelists to start with Dr. Jee. Maybe you can say a few words about your understanding of the strengths and weaknesses that relates to the public health system, to COVID-19, South Korea. And then I will invite Ambassador Stephens and Professor Pang to comment, to give your statements. Please, the floor is yours, Dr. Jee.

The full presentation and this recording are accessible on https://www.rand.org/pubs/presentations/PTA2800-1.html