This study compares and analyzes the perspectives on the goals and themes of global citizenship education reflected in the middle school physical education curricula of China and South Korea. The findings are as follows. First, while both curricula emphasize the socio-emotional and behavioral domains of global citizenship education, there are differences in focus. In China, the curriculum highlights “multiple dimensions of identity” within the socio-emotional domain and “individual and collective action” within the behavioral domain. In contrast, the South Korean curriculum not only emphasizes “individual and collective action,” but also includes “ethical and responsible behavior” and “participation and engagement.” This suggests that South Korea’s physical education curriculum is more conducive to realizing the ideals of global citizenship education through physical education classes. Second, both countries’ curricula reveal similarities and differences in the perspectives of global citizenship education. In China, the curriculum reflects a nationalist perspective in its stated nature, and a neoliberal perspective in its goals and achievement standards. On the other hand, the South Korean curriculum strongly reflects a global justice and governance perspective throughout its nature, goals, and achievement standards, while also incorporating elements of neoliberalism. Notably, the Korean curriculum explicitly presents key components of global citizenship education—such as democratic citizenship, ecological transition, and sustainable development—especially in the achievement standard explanations and teaching-learning sections. It also emphasizes the cultivation of creativity and character, which is a distinct feature of South Korea’s physical education curriculum. Unlike South Korea’s curriculum, which explicitly incorporates “citizenship education,” China’s curriculum only implicitly contains the potential for global citizenship education. Therefore, China’s curriculum needs to make more explicit efforts to reflect the aims and ideals of global citizenship education in physical education. Likewise, South Korea’s curriculum should go beyond emphasizing a few elements and strive to incorporate a broader range of global citizenship education content more actively.