Translation result.
The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed warning of cracks in the U.S.–South Korea alliance and criticizing the Lee Jae-myung administration’s radical leftward tilt. Titled “Korea Turns Left and Turns Its Back on America,” the piece was coauthored by Nicholas Eberstadt, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Lawrence Peck, an adviser to the North Korea Freedom Coalition.
The authors deliver sharply worded criticism of the Lee administration. Citing what they describe as the current state of the alliance, they say government officials, ostensibly conducting an investigation, forced their way into a command-and-control center at a U.S. base in South Korea and demanded U.S. Air Force flight-related materials. Lawmakers and prosecutors opened criminal probes into an accidental data leak at the American company Coupang. And a minister publicly referenced what appears to be classified information on North Korean nuclear facilities, effectively exposing intelligence the U.S. had trusted and shared with Seoul to North Korea.
They argue the alliance is now contending with an unpredictable variable — a hard-left government in Seoul — a thinly veiled reference to President Lee and the Democratic Party. The authors accuse hard-left leaders in the Democratic Party of showing a tendency to scorn liberalism. They also allege those leaders attended the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th-anniversary event in Beijing in 2021 and displayed the Democratic Party flag alongside the CCP’s and other communist or authoritarian parties’ banners.
The op-ed concludes that South Korea under the Democratic Party is far less friendly to the U.S. alliance than Americans expect and prefers scaling back security cooperation with Washington rather than expanding it. The authors warn that, if Washington does not confront this reality, threats to the U.S.–Korea alliance will continue to grow.
Most Commented