The upcoming concerts of BTS in front of Gyeongbok Palace and Blackpink at the National Museum of Korea are milestones for basically the world’s most successful national branding strategy. The culmination of K-pop’s bond between public bodies and private companies, these concerts demonstrate how the persistence of successive governments is reaping dividends for the country both culturally and financially. Alongside masterpieces such as "KPop Demon Hunters" and "Culinary Class Wars," the concerts hint at what’s next for Korea’s apparently endless cultural expansion across the world. The choice of these two venues reminds us that the post-war physical development of the nation came hand-in-hand with government-sponsored cultural projects. As such, hallyu has been as much a politically-driven national project as the development of Korea’s heavy and light industries building ships and computers. As far as I have seen, the many recent successes abroad of Korean products have been met here with nothing but pride, tinged with perhaps a touch of the inevitable nationalism. Less notic