Female foreign minister

In international relations, diplomacy or diplomatic power makes another country move in a direction that hurts a country’s national interest. When Western powers occupied the East, they resorted to gunship diplomacy and strong military power to secure their national interests. Traditional coercive diplomacy, in which a country threatens to use its military might to force another country to accept its demands, is still used occasionally, but the use of diplomacy of persuasion and compromise is growing. Soft power is a way for a country to enhance its national charm for greater leadership in the international arena.

The U.S. appointed its first female foreign minister, Madeleine Albright, in 1997. She served as secretary of state (1997-2001) under the Clinton administration. Four years later, Condoleezza Rice took the post and was followed by Hillary Clinton. Japan appointed its first female foreign minister, Makiko Tanaka, in 2001. In France, Christin Lagarde broke through the glass ceiling of the French Foreign Ministry in 2005. Around 20 countries now have female foreign ministers.

The planned visit to India by Pakistan’s first female foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, is making headlines. The two neighboring countries have fought two full-fledged wars since Pakistan’s independence in 1947 and have yet to stop firing at each other. Related to the conflict is the fact that the two countries became the world’s sixth and seventh nations to go nuclear. According to foreign news reports, India is fascinated by the “young, pretty and stylish” Khar. Both countries have reportedly agreed to resume peace negotiations that have stalled since the Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008.

Kim Dal-jung, an honorary professor at Yonsei University, says the essence of diplomacy is to persuade others to move the way one wants them to. In that sense, Khar is doing what her male predecessors in Pakistan failed to do by winning over 1.2 billion Indians. Experts say one advantage of having a female foreign minister is she can show more flexibility in seeking a middle ground for compromise rather than showing rigidity in trying to win a zero-sum game.

Though women’s rights have improved in Korea to the extent that ruling Grand National Party Rep. Park Geun-hye is considered the favorite to win the next presidential election, there has been no talk about who is the best candidate for Korea’s first female foreign minister.

Editorial Writer Ha Tae-won (triplets@donga.com)