In January 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson articulated a controversial geographic line that placed the Korean Peninsula on the communist side of the early Cold War conceptual boundary. With the outcome of the South Korean election on June 3, this line may have reappeared.
After the official results were announced, the White House expressed concern about Chinese interference.
“The US-ROK Alliance remains ironclad. While South Korea had a free and fair election, the United States remains concerned and opposed to Chinese interference and influence in democracies around the world,” a White House official said in response to an emailed question from Reuters about the outcome of the South Korean presidential election.
The unusual caveat of concern over Chinese interference brought sharp responses in Korean media.
Despite large and frequent rallies in South Korea by conservatives and populists for the People Power candidate Kim Moon-soo, the Democrat Party candidate Lee Jae-myung won. It took me some work to find the Lee Jae-myung rallies.
Rallies are not the only measurement of energy, but they are noticeable.
Watching the election returns from the Myul Gong Bahn Jeom (Anti-Communist Restaurant) in southern Seoul along with several Americans and South Koreans, one thing was noticed. The initial results released in South Korean media were “exit polling,” a political metric tool that has subsided in use in the United States.
One report on exit polling is titled “Exit Polls: A Tool for Propaganda, Narrative Building, and the Normalisation of Electoral Doubts,” which is what the initial exit polling in South Korea appeared to be. With one of the final screenshots of exit polling showing Lee winning 52 percent to 39 percent, much of the international media ran with the exit polls and announced Lee the decisive winner. Within about an hour of the last exit polling, South Korean media announced that actual counting of the ballots had begun.
The final official results showed 48 percent to 42 percent, a much closer 6 percent spread.
New President Favors Withdrawal of US Forces From Korea
Lee said in his inaugural speech that he would bolster U.S.–Japan ties. Lee’s remark was a bit orthogonal from his past comments and behavior. In the past, he has referred to the U.S. military presence in South Korea as an “occupation force.”
In an article for the East Asia Research Center, Tara O, a retired Air Force officer and noted Korean Peninsula expert, had this to say about Lee: “Lee Jae-myung also has made anti-U.S. statements, casting the U.S. in a negative light calling the U.S. an occupation force, when he said ‘In fact, the pro-Japanese faction (Koreans), whom the U.S. was not able to liquidate, joined with the U.S. occupation forces, retaining the control system, didn’t they?’ at the Yi Yuk-sa Cultural Center on July 1, 2021.”
The withdrawal of U.S. forces and the ending of the long-standing U.S.–South Korea alliance has been the goal of left-leaning thought in the country.
When I was in South Korea during the presidential election, there arose a rare opportunity to meet with a senior-ranking North Korean defector, Kim Kuk-song. When I asked Kim which candidate was preferred by North Korea and China, he said it was likely Lee Jae-myung, so it would be easier to have the United States expelled from the Korean Peninsula.
Burgeoning Tripartite Alliance Now on Shaky Ground
Former President Yoon Suk-Yeol set aside long-standing grievances between Korea and Japan lingering from World War II and sought a much stronger three-way relationship with Japan and the United States in a coordinated, trilateral military arrangement.
Despite years of a U.S. military presence in South Korea and Japan since the end of the war, in June 2024, the first-ever trilateral military exercise was held. The exercise, called “Freedom Edge,” was multi-domain, meaning air, sea, land, space, and cyber domains were included in the game play.
The exercise significantly rattled North Korea and China. O wrote: “Lee met with the then-Chinese Ambassador to South Korea, Xing Haiming, displaying notable deference. When Xing issued a thinly veiled threat, warning that South Korea would ’regret betting on China’s defeat’ in response to the Yoon administration’s pro-Western foreign policy, Lee offered no rebuttal.”
The South China Morning Post reported that Lee said U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) could play a “critical role for the United States policy of containment against China.”
When read carefully, the operative part of Lee’s view is that the U.S. military and the tripartite arrangement were “for the United States”—while Lee didn’t include South Korea as benefiting from this arrangement.
Need for a Permanent US Ambassador
One of the most exasperating matters during the South Korean 60-day “snap” election process was the absence of a Trump-nominated ambassador in place in South Korea.
The outgoing secretary of state, Tony Blinken, announced on Jan. 10 that Ambassador Joseph Yun had been appointed Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim, at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
Previously, Yun had “retired” from the State Department in 2018 in what was characterized as dissatisfaction with U.S. President Donald Trump’s leadership in his first term. Yun returned to service in 2022 during the Biden administration.
A confirmed ambassador is critical to providing direct and clear articulation of the policies and positions of the U.S. president.
The South Korean crisis since December has been one of the most tumultuous in the history of the country, and there has been very little input from the United States despite a massive call for Trump’s support from many influential South Korean personalities on social media.
Hopefully action will be taken soon. If not, Lee’s track record and American indifference may inadvertently reestablish Acheson’s 1950 folly, with disastrous results.
All viewpoints are personal and do not reflect the viewpoints of any organization.
This article first appeared in Epoch Times and was reprinted with permission, with minor editorial adjustments for clarity and formatting.
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