In a global pandemic, public health outcomes are not the only variables at stake. Also at stake are countries’ nation brands and influence, which hinge on how a country responded to the crisis. Based on a case study of a middle power, South Korea, one of the more successful COVID-19 national responses so far, we offer an exploratory conceptual explication of pandemic public diplomacy that is grounded in a normative framework of substance, information, trust, collaboration, and mutual benefit. Sentiment analyses of social media and international news media suggest that the country is perceived as a model on how to cope with the pandemic by international audiences. Unlike other public diplomacy contexts, pandemic public diplomacy challenge conventional assumptions about public diplomacy and nation branding. As nation-states confront a common enemy, how public diplomacy and nation branding play out in COVID-19—arguably the most socially disruptive event in modern history—helps to shed light on the dynamics of mutual interdependence in an interconnected yet competitive world fraught with fear, uncertainty, and information deficiency.

在全球大流行中，公共卫生结果并不是唯一的变数。同样受到威胁的是国家的民族品牌和影响力，这取决于一个国家如何应对危机。基于对中等强国韩国的案例研究，韩国是迄今为止较成功的 COVID-19 国家应对措施之一，我们提供了基于实质、信息、信任、合作，互惠互利。社交媒体和国际新闻媒体的情绪分析表明，该国被国际观众视为应对大流行的典范。与其他公共外交环境不同，流行病公共外交挑战了关于公共外交和国家品牌的传统假设。当民族国家面对共同的敌人时，