Paper Title
Nation Brand Images Of East Asia In The World: Economic, Political, Social And Cultural Perspectives Of Japan, China And Korea

Abstract
In recent years, some attention is paid to nation brand indices since a good country reputation improves the soft power of a nation in the political-diplomatic arena while also resulting in fewer economic opportunity costs is terms of inbound tourists, international exports, and foreign investments. The purpose of this research is to investigate the reputation of the three core nations in East Asia— Japan, China and Korea – drawing on the inaugural Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index which measured the global image of countries in six key areas: people, products, culture, government, tourism, and immigration. This study finds that Japan has one of the top reputations in all six key areas, whereas China and Korea are rank below average. This comes as a surprise since Japan and Korea have the same income per capita, which is commonly considered as the best proxy for the developmental status of a nation. Moreover, despite Korean products excelling in design, technology and quality, goods “Made in China” have the same reputation as Korean ones. China only scored low in the key area of government, yet astonishingly, it was ranked as one of the top nations in the world in the key area of culture. While this descriptivestudy exclusively focused on the “how much” question, future research will have to address the more powerful “why” question. Index Terms—East Asia, Nation Brand Image, Socioeconomic Development, Public Diplomacy.