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OPINION:
South Korea held its presidential election on June 3, and Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party was declared the winner. As a result, the left wing now controls a supermajority in the National Assembly and the presidency.
South Korea remains an invaluable ally to the United States. It is an economic powerhouse with the fourth-largest Asian economy and a gross domestic product of about $1.89 trillion. The world knows South Korean automaker Hyundai as a leading manufacturing giant. South Korean culture is found around the world thanks to its delicious cuisine, K-dramas and K-pop. The South Korean military is the fifth-largest in the world. South Korea is formidable and remains, along with the U.S. military, a force for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Together, South Korea and the U.S. can address the threats they confront today.
These dangers include North Korea, whose belligerence has not once wavered since the end of the Korean War. North Korea poses a significant threat because of its conventional and cyber capabilities, as well as its nuclear forces, nuclear infrastructure and biological and chemical weapons, all of which compel vigilance. Its leadership remains focused on unification by war, and so it is incumbent upon South Korea and the U.S. military to maintain a robust deterrent against the North.
South Korean and U.S. capabilities together help ensure that Kim Jong-un wakes up each day and decides it is not the day to attack the South.
The Chinese Communist Party’s support for the North Korean regime ensures that the Kim tyranny remains in power. Beijing’s willingness to interfere in the domestic politics of South Korea also demonstrates that China is a threat to Seoul through its political warfare weapons, such as election interference.
The threat of aggression from the CCP through political or kinetic warfare remains the greatest challenge to the independence of South Korea. There is great concern that the CCP has successfully penetrated the South Korean educational system, labor unions, the electoral system and even the judiciary. This danger requires that the South Korea-U.S. alliance sustains its great strength and adds new capabilities while recalling the shared history, ideals, interests and sacrifices that unite the two countries.
The CCP’s relentless efforts include the employment of TikTok and the interference in South Korea’s economy and politics. Seoul and Washington should evaluate how well they have countered these messages and what they must accomplish to trump the CCP’s efforts.
As the CCP’s pressure increases, so, too, must the South Korean and U.S. military forces to meet the threat. In response, measures not taken in the past, such as joint exercises on Taiwan with Taipei’s military, might be considered, as might a greater presence in the South China Sea.
The U.S. and South Korea are democracies and share the same economic system that has provided the greatest freedom and standard of living in history. Each day, the people of South Korea demonstrate how the North Koreans might live if it were not for the North Korean regime. The South Korean people and government must labor ceaselessly with their American ally to ensure that the CCP’s aims are defeated. Unfortunately, there is the danger of CCP election interference, which was evinced most palpably in the recent election.
In fact, the election last month was the largest fraudulent election in South Korean history. To be sure, CCP influence interference was significant. However, the corruption, opacity and lack of accountability of the South Korean National Election Commission, which conducted the election, also contributed to the problem. The NEC has contemptuously dismissed strong evidence of fraud. Moreover, the Lee administration is persecuting brave South Koreans who are calling attention to the fraud.
In a dangerous world, where North Korea and the CCP would like to destroy the great alliance between the U.S. and South Korea, it is incumbent upon the Korean and American people to remember what unites us. South Korea won its freedom at tremendous cost and with the strong support of the United States. What the CCP was not able to achieve by bullets during the Korean War, it should not be able to seize today by fraudulent ballots or other forms of election interference.
• Morse Tan was ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice in the first Trump administration.
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