Beyond K-Pop: South Korea’s Airport Diplomacy and the Making of a Hub State

South Korea is quietly expanding its airport diplomacy.

BTS sells out Wembley. Netflix’s Squid Game becomes the most watched drama in the platform's history. While K-beauty brands, cuisine and fashion continue their steady march into shopping districts from Paris to Jakarta. Over the past two decades, South Korea has achieved what many middle powers could only aspire to - transforming itself into a global cultural phenomenon.

The success of the K-Wave - or “Hallyu” - has become one of the defining stories of the twenty-first century. It has reshaped South Korea's international image, boosted tourism, increased exports and strengthened Seoul's diplomatic influence. Yet while the world's attention has been captivated by K-pop idols and Oscar-winning films, another Korean export has quietly spread across continents with far less publicity.

By Airport governance.

Over the past two decades, South Korea has emerged as an increasingly influential player in the management, planning and operation of overseas airports. Through the Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC), South Korea has participated in airport projects spanning Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe. These projects range from operational consulting and digital management systems to public-private partnerships (PPPs) and long-term airport operations.

According to official IIAC data, the Overseas Business Team, established in 2007, secured its first consulting project for Iraq’s Erbil New Airport in 2009 and has since expanded to 39 projects across 18 countries, totaling USD 4.2399 billion in contracts.

Unlike France's VINCI Airports or Germany's Fraport, which built their international reputations through acquiring long-term concessions and equity stakes in airports, South Korea's approach has been more gradual. It has largely exported knowledge, management and operational expertise before capital and ownership.

South Korea's airport strategy represents an emerging model of middle-power diplomacy in which infrastructure management becomes a source of international influence. Rather than projecting power through military bases or territorial expansion, Seoul has increasingly sought to expand its presence through networks—connecting countries, sharing governance models and embedding Korean expertise into critical transport infrastructure.

To understand why airport management became strategically important to South Korea, one must first understand the country's geography.

South Korea occupies the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, a position that has historically been both an advantage and a constraint. While its coastlines opened opportunities for maritime trade, the unresolved division of the peninsula after the Korean War effectively severed South Korea's land connection with the Eurasian continent. Unlike continental powers, South Korea cannot send freight trains directly to Europe or Central Asia. Every overland route north is blocked by the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

This geographic reality has profoundly shaped South Korea's economic development.

Its territory is relatively small, its northern border remains closed. The country's export-driven growth has depended almost entirely on maritime shipping and air transport. As one of the world's leading exporters of semiconductors, automobiles, batteries and consumer electronics, South Korea relies on efficient logistics to remain competitive. In an economy where products often move across multiple borders before reaching consumers, connectivity (Khanna, 2016) has become a strategic necessity rather than a commercial convenience.

South Korea’s prosperity depends on remaining connected to global flows of trade, investment and people. Most importantly, it sits between three major powers—China, Japan and Russia—while relying heavily on its alliance with the United States for security. This dependence has encouraged Korean policymakers to think differently about national power.

Ways to Become a Hub State

Building an airport is relatively straightforward. Running one successfully is far more complicated. Modern airports require integrated management systems capable of coordinating airlines, immigration authorities, customs agencies, baggage handling, commercial retail, cybersecurity, emergency response and passenger services—all while maintaining profitability and international safety standards. This complexity created demand for experienced operators rather than merely experienced builders.

Behind the airport governance export stood IIAC. The company gradually developed expertise across airport planning, commercial management, digital operations, passenger flow optimisation, security systems and international consulting. Its greatest asset was the knowledge accumulated through operating one of the world's most efficient aviation hubs.

Consulting projects allowed IIAC to establish relationships without committing large amounts of capital. Besides, successful consulting projects helped build trust and allowed South Korea to develop an international reputation based on competence rather than financial power.

By the early 2020s, this evolution had transformed IIAC from the operator of a single world-class airport into an increasingly recognised exporter of airport governance. It quietly placed South Korea inside one of the world's fastest-growing sectors of infrastructure diplomacy.

Targeting the New Markets in Central Asia and Eastern Europe

Rather than concentrating on mature aviation markets in North America or Western Europe, South Korea has focused on regions where aviation demand is expected to grow rapidly during the coming decades.

In the Philippines, IIAC has participated in projects involving Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport, one of Southeast Asia's busiest and most congested aviation hubs. Needless to say, the Philippines occupy strategically important positions along major maritime and aviation routes linking Northeast Asia with Southeast Asia, Australia and the wider Indo-Pacific.

Further west, South Korea has steadily expanded into Central Asia. Projects in Uzbekistan, including airports in Urgench, reflect growing Korean interest in a region that is rapidly becoming more connected through trade, logistics and infrastructure investment. Historically located along the Silk Road, the region once served as a crossroads linking East Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Today, renewed investment in transport infrastructure has once again increased its strategic importance as governments seek to diversify trade corridors across Eurasia.

A similar logic is evident in Central and Eastern Europe. Poland's ambitious Central Communication Port (CPK) project represents one of Europe's largest planned transport investments, aiming to integrate aviation, rail and logistics into a single regional hub. South Korean participation as an advisory partner signals Seoul's growing engagement with a region increasingly viewed as an economic gateway between Western Europe and the wider Eurasian continent.

Increasingly, international relations scholars argue that power in the 21st century is exercised not only through military strength or economic size, but also through “connectivity“—the ability to shape the movement of people, goods, capital and information across borders. This idea, often described as “connectivity geopolitics“, suggests that strategic infrastructure has become an important source of national influence. Airports, ports, railways and digital networks are no longer merely public utilities; they are critical nodes linking regional and global economies. Countries that help build, manage or shape these networks can acquire influence disproportionate to their territorial size. For a middle power like South Korea, this perspective is particularly relevant.

The structural reality is where the concept of the Hub State (Farrell and Newman, 2019) becomes significant for South Korea. The basic idea is that South Korea should position itself as a connector—a country that links regions, markets and institutions rather than dominating them. Instead of competing directly with larger powers, Seoul could increase its strategic value by becoming indispensable to the movement of trade, investment, technology and people. Through the nodes aggregated, South Korea can create panopticon and chokepoint effects.That is, when necessary, monitor and extract intelligence from data or transactions flowing through the network, and to selectively block, control, or weaponize access to the network.

Park’s Silk Road Express along China’s BRI

This geographical pattern echoes a broader strategic vision advanced during the presidency of Park Geun-hye. In 2013, Park introduced the Eurasia Initiative, an ambitious proposal aimed at strengthening economic and logistical links across the Eurasian continent. One of its most symbolic elements was the vision of a Silk Road Express, a railway network that, if political conditions allowed, would eventually connect the Korean Peninsula with China, Central Asia and Europe.

The initiative reflected a long-standing aspiration in Korean strategic thinking: to overcome the country's geographic isolation by reconnecting it with the Eurasian landmass. Many elements of that vision ultimately proved difficult to realise. Relations between North and South Korea deteriorated, making cross-border rail connections politically impossible. Yet while the overland vision stalled, another form of connectivity continued to expand.

References:

Incheon International Airport Corporation. (n.d.). Incheon International Airport. https://www.airport.kr/co_en/4399/subview.do

Kim Taehwan. (2015, February 16). Beyond geopolitics: South Korea's Eurasia Initiative as a new Nordpolitik. The Asan Forum. https://theasanforum.org/beyond-geopolitics-south-koreas-eurasia-initiative-as-a-new-nordpolitik/