South Korea’s Strategic Drift Under the Lee Jae-myung Government and the Internal Risk to the U.S.–ROK Alliance
By Jean Cummings
Co-Editor and Senior Columnist, The Korea Signal
Washington’s policy community and most think tanks still tend to view South Korea as a stable U.S. ally.
According to public statements released around his Washington visit, Lee Jae-myung described the U.S.–ROK alliance as “a central pillar of peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” In meetings with the Trump administration, he pledged to raise defense spending to roughly 3.5 percent of GDP, purchase $25 billion in U.S.-made military equipment by 2030, and provide a comprehensive $33 billion support package for U.S. Forces Korea. On the surface, the alliance appears solid, and Seoul’s self-promoted image as a “pragmatic government” has gained considerable traction in Washington circles.
But that surface is precisely where the most dangerous misreading begins.
The problem with the Lee Jae-myung government is not that it openly denies the U.S.–ROK alliance when speaking to American officials. It does the opposite. When it meets the United States, it stresses the alliance, promises purchases of American weapons, and presents hard numbers on defense spending and support for U.S. troops stationed in Korea. If Washington looks only at official statements and budget figures, South Korea may still appear to be a reliable ally standing firmly with the United States.
But the message being delivered inside South Korea by the ruling party, its allied media, and supportive civic groups is entirely different.
When Washington asks Seoul to contribute more to defense costs, the Lee government and its surrounding political forces immediately frame it as “American exploitation.” When the United States reshapes supply chains and pressures Korean companies to reduce their dependence on China, they describe it as an attempt to bind Korean companies to American interests. When they discuss China, they emphasize economic cooperation and market access before they address Chinese military threats, intelligence theft, and technological penetration. When they discuss North Korea, they speak first of dialogue and cooperation rather than how to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missiles or how to confront the human rights crisis facing the North Korean people. Old anti-American claims that blame the United States for the Korean War and the division of the peninsula have not disappeared.
In the end, Lee Jae-myung has not truly abandoned his earlier view that “the United States is an occupying force that exploits weaker countries.” He stirs distrust and resentment toward America before the Korean public, then travels to Washington when necessary and performs the role of a leader who values the U.S.–ROK alliance. This is the gap Washington must see. What the Lee government says to American officials about the alliance is not the same as the political message it delivers to the Korean people at home. The United States must not look only at what Seoul says in Washington. It must also examine how Lee explains America to his own citizens.
A Double Standard: Silence on North Korean Human Rights, Outrage Toward America’s Allies
Lee’s double standard is just as visible on North Korea.
On April 10, 2026, one day before Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Lee Jae-myung posted a video on social media. He shared footage claiming that Israeli soldiers had tortured Palestinians and then thrown them from a building, and he said this was no different from “the massacre of Jews or wartime killings.” But the video had already been exposed as fake, according to reports surrounding the Israeli government’s response, and the Israeli government strongly objected. Lee still did not offer a sincere apology. Instead, on May 20, he went even further and made remarks suggesting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested.
Yet he takes an entirely different posture when it comes to North Korean human rights. The North Korean regime crushes its own people through political prison camps, public executions, and forced labor. Even so, the Lee government does not describe the North Korean regime as a target that must be pressured. It calls Pyongyang a partner for “dialogue and cooperation.”
In June 2025, South Korean police reports and media coverage described the arrest of six Americans in Ganghwa County, Incheon. They were caught attempting to send rice, Bibles, dollars, and USB drives into North Korea and were arrested in the act on charges of violating the Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety. The incident came shortly after Lee ordered a strict response to such activities. When asked about South Koreans detained in North Korea, Lee once answered, “I don’t know whether such cases exist.”
That is the core of the problem. On Israel, Lee was willing to use an unverified video to issue a fierce condemnation. But when the North Korean regime actually imprisons, starves, executes, and blocks outside information from reaching its own people, he remains silent. He applies the law to those trying to send Bibles, USB drives, dollars, and rice to North Korean citizens, while speaking of “dialogue” and “cooperation” with the regime that commits the crimes.
Many South Koreans who value the U.S.–ROK alliance are furious at this scene. But the Korean media does not report this issue with sufficient seriousness. When Lee government officials go to Washington, they portray these criticisms as claims from a small group of far-right voices. They make the real anger growing inside South Korea appear marginal, while telling the United States that there is no serious problem in the alliance.
This trend did not suddenly appear under the Lee government. Since the Korean War, certain forces inside South Korean society have repeatedly described military cooperation with the United States as “exploitation by a great power,” while presenting economic cooperation with China as a “realistic choice.” These claims have circulated for decades in schools, media, and civic groups. Under the Lee Jae-myung government, that current is simply moving faster and becoming more explicit.
China’s Influence Has Entered South Korea
This issue can no longer be explained as merely an internal Korean political choice. As the Lee government tilts toward China, the consequences are showing up as direct risks to South Korean security, U.S. Forces Korea, U.S.–ROK intelligence cooperation, and the deterrence structure against North Korea.
The United States itself spent many years using China as a low-cost production base and vast consumer market, while tolerating a structure that pulled U.S. allies deeply into economic dependence on China. As a result, China grew rapidly through access to American markets, capital, and technology transfers. Many U.S. allies, including South Korea, came to accept China as an “unavoidable economic partner.”
The Trump administration is now trying to counter China through manufacturing reshoring, supply-chain realignment, and advanced technology controls. But it was past U.S. policy, American corporations, and Western capital that helped turn China into the factory of the world. The dangerous structure of China dependence now facing the United States is partly the result of what America itself built and expanded. That structure also pulled allies such as South Korea into China’s sphere of influence.
Look, for example, at Chinese capital and real estate purchases inside South Korea. Beijing’s influence over neighboring countries can no longer be treated as a simple investment issue.
According to South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, foreigners owned 100,216 homes in South Korea as of the end of 2024, and Chinese nationals held the largest share at 56.6 percent. In land ownership, China accounted for 7.9 percent of foreign-held land.
There are even more sensitive cases. According to South Korean media reports, the Chinese government purchased roughly 1,256 pyeong of land near the former U.S. military base in Yongsan, Seoul. The site is close to the planned relocation area for the U.S. Embassy and overlaps with one of South Korea’s most sensitive security zones, near the former presidential office and the Ministry of National Defense. On Jeju Island, Chinese capital has also purchased large amounts of land and buildings under the banner of tourism and investment. Recent South Korean reporting has also stated that about 70 percent of foreign criminals arrested on Jeju over the past three years were Chinese nationals. In a strategic area that includes the Jeju civilian-military port and naval base, the expansion of Chinese real estate holdings cannot be viewed merely as investment.
Chinese influence does not stop at real estate.
Questions have repeatedly been raised about the excessive exposure of South Korean security facilities and core government sites on Chinese-linked map services and online platforms. Military facilities, intelligence agencies, the presidential office, and areas around U.S.-related facilities have been exposed through foreign platforms. This is not simply a matter of technical convenience. It means South Korea’s security space is entering China’s intelligence-collection environment.
The same thing is happening in the information space.
According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, intelligence authorities in 2023 identified 38 Korean-language fake news websites operated by a Chinese public relations company. These sites disguised themselves as Korean media outlets and distributed content favorable to China and critical of the United States. In February 2024, the NIS identified an additional 178 sites linked to the same Chinese publicity firm, bringing the total to more than 200. In April 2025, the NIS identified seven more fake sites operated by another Chinese company, Quanmeishe, which had copied the names of real Korean media outlets such as Seoul Shinmun, Jeju Ilbo, and Maeil Shinmun.
As of 2026, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and international research organizations such as the U.S.-based Graphika continue to report that China-linked actors are using fake websites impersonating local media outlets not only in South Korea, but also in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. The methods have become more sophisticated, and the objective has become clearer.
China has long used South Korean media and online platforms to make China appear favorable and to deepen distrust toward the United States. On social media, it uses comment attacks and fake news to widen divisions inside South Korea, then turns those divisions into tools to weaken the U.S.–ROK alliance.
South Korean media has repeatedly reported U.S.–China clashes in ways favorable to Beijing. It barely covers China’s military threats, intelligence penetration, and technology theft, while portraying U.S. responses as provocations against other countries. As a result, many South Koreans are led to see the United States as a country exploiting Korea, rather than seeing the real danger China poses to South Korean security.
The same pattern appeared on the United States and Iran. Lee Jae-myung emphasized negotiations with Iran and, in effect, defended Tehran’s position, while failing to cooperate actively with the demands of South Korea’s ally, the United States.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis followed the same pattern. According to South Korean media reporting on the Strait of Hormuz crisis, after Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, 26 South Korea-related vessels were trapped, and as many as roughly 186 Korean crew members, including those aboard foreign vessels, were stranded. Even then, the Lee government did not focus on cooperating with the United States to secure the safety of Korean ships and citizens.
Instead, the Lee government and its supporters repeated only one line: “Why should Korea be used in America’s fight?” They spread anti-American sentiment while ignoring Iran’s nuclear threat and the Iranian regime’s slaughter of its own citizens. They focused on planting in the Korean public the belief that the United States was dragging Korea into its own war. They then portrayed Lee not as a leader abandoning an ally, but as a president defending Korean sovereignty against American pressure.
South Korean media also covered U.S. operations against Iran by repeating claims of “American failure.” Rather than calmly analyzing the Trump administration’s strategy and America’s military response, they focused on coverage that fed resentment toward Trump. Had it not been for conservative YouTubers and social media users, many South Koreans would have believed that the United States had been badly damaged by Iranian attacks and that American military power had been shaken.
In this way, the Lee government is hiding behind the word “pragmatism” to justify policies that move South Korea closer to China. It covers the Chinese Communist Party’s threats to South Korean security and public opinion with the language of “cooperation,” preventing the Korean public from recognizing the expansion of communist power through China, North Korea, and Russia as a serious national security threat.
Pressure on American Companies, Silence Toward Chinese Companies
The Lee government’s double standard is also clear in corporate regulation.
After the 2025 Coupang personal data leak, South Korean parliamentary coverage showed the Democratic Party effectively putting Coupang’s CEO on public trial during an open hearing. Lawmakers shouted at the CEO, cut off answers before they were finished, and behaved in a publicly humiliating manner. The scene was less about identifying the cause of the data breach and preventing a recurrence than about politically attacking and publicly shaming an American company.
The more serious problem is that this standard has not been applied consistently. In South Korea, major domestic platforms and telecommunications firms such as KakaoTalk and SK Telecom have faced repeated personal data leak controversies in the past. But the Korean left did not turn those hearings into witch hunts the way it did against Coupang’s CEO. In the Coupang case, an American corporate executive was publicly humiliated and politically attacked, while domestic platforms and telecom companies did not face the same level of political pressure.
The same pattern appeared during the Starbucks “Tank Day” controversy. According to South Korean media coverage of the controversy, Lee Jae-myung personally used the authority of the presidency to pressure Starbucks. Instructions were issued not to use Starbucks products at government events, and even the suspension of Starbucks gift cards on military bases was discussed. This was not a simple matter of consumer protection or corporate ethics. It was a case in which the president directly intervened in the market by targeting a specific American company. At the same time, Chinese coffee and tea brands were rapidly expanding their stores across Seoul.
For that reason, many Korean citizens have raised sharp criticism, asking whether the Lee government was politically weakening Starbucks, the largest American competitor, in order to help Chinese brands enter and expand in the Korean market.
If privacy protection and consumer protection were truly the goal, the standard would have to be the same. Whether the company is American or Chinese, the same problem should trigger the same investigation and the same level of accountability. But the Korean government is directly pressuring American companies, even using the president himself, while refusing to apply the same blade to Chinese companies.
This is political coercion against American companies. It is also Lee’s blatant market intervention, creating a favorable environment for Chinese companies.
Fractures in Public Opinion and the Danger of the “Self-Reliance” Line
A majority of South Koreans still consider the U.S.–ROK alliance important. But many citizens are increasingly anxious as the Lee government tilts toward China, prioritizes dialogue over pressure on North Korea, selectively pressures American companies and U.S. Forces Korea-related issues, and Washington still fails to issue a clear warning. Inside South Korea, concerns are already growing that the alliance is being shaken, yet the United States appears to be merely watching.
According to a Nira Data poll reported by Stars and Stripes, as of May 2026, Poland and South Korea ranked among the foreign countries with strong public support for the presence of U.S. military bases. Poland recorded 51 percent support and a net support rating of +27, while South Korea recorded a net support rating of +14. Support for the necessity of the U.S.–ROK alliance reached 96 percent, and support for the continued presence of U.S. Forces Korea was also high at 80.1 percent.
Those numbers show that the Korean public still supports the U.S. military presence and the alliance. But Washington should not take comfort from those numbers alone. South Korean support for the alliance remains high, but the character of that support has become more unstable than in the past.
A 2024 survey by the Korea Institute for National Unification showed that trust in the U.S. nuclear umbrella fell from 72.1 percent in 2023 to 66.9 percent in 2024. On paper, South Korea still looks like a country that supports the United States. But underneath, doubts are growing about whether America’s security commitments would actually work in a real crisis.
South Korean politicians are exploiting this anxiety, and that makes the situation more dangerous. One side argues for South Korea’s own nuclear armament. The other says Korea must reduce its dependence on the United States. But North Korea still threatens South Korea with nuclear weapons and missiles, while China pressures South Korea through economics, information, and military power. Under these circumstances, if the United States steps back or takes an ambiguous posture, citizens will inevitably become more anxious about whether South Korea can withstand pressure from North Korea and China on its own.
The security issue is even more direct.
Inside South Korea, slogans such as U.S. troop withdrawal, transfer of wartime operational control, and self-reliant national defense have been repeated for a long time. Self-reliant defense is a legitimate goal for any sovereign state. But self-reliant defense cannot be achieved by political declaration. It requires satellite intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, missile defense, nuclear deterrence, cyber, space, and electronic warfare capabilities, combined operational command capacity, and the strategic judgment to deal with North Korea and China at the same time.
According to Lee’s own public remarks, he has said that “self-reliant national defense is no longer a choice, but a core foundation for protecting the survival of the state and the safety of the people,” and he is actively pushing for early transfer of wartime operational control and strengthened security sovereignty. But many South Koreans know that South Korea is still not prepared to handle the North Korean nuclear threat and Chinese pressure on its own without the U.S. nuclear umbrella, strategic assets, missile defense, intelligence, and reconnaissance capabilities. That is why they view Lee’s argument with concern.
The bigger problem is the possibility that the United States may accept Lee’s demands and actually step back from South Korea’s defense.
Pushing wartime operational control transfer as a political achievement before all necessary conditions are fully met is less a careful security policy than a dangerous strategic gamble. This is especially true at a time when North Korea is advancing its nuclear and missile capabilities, China is expanding military pressure in the Taiwan Strait and the Western Pacific, and Russia–North Korea military cooperation is strengthening. Changes to the U.S.–ROK Combined Forces Command structure cannot be treated as a matter of nationalist rhetoric or sovereignty slogans.
Wartime operational control is not a question of pride. It is a question of capability. If it is pursued according to a political timetable before South Korea has sufficient satellite intelligence, strategic reconnaissance, missile defense, nuclear deterrence, cyber and space warfare capacity, real-time battlefield awareness, and combined command capability, it could become a security vacuum disguised as the restoration of sovereignty.
The same logic applies to management of the DMZ. The Demilitarized Zone is not merely the military demarcation line between North and South Korea. According to the United Nations Command’s own description of its post-armistice role, the DMZ is a central space in an international security structure that combines the armistice system and the role of the United Nations Command. The South Korean government may seek a larger role in DMZ management. But if that effort leads to weakening the authority of the UNC or politically reinterpreting the armistice system, it could create unnecessary uncertainty across the entire security structure of the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea’s left-wing political forces explain this issue as a matter of national self-reliance or restored sovereignty. But the most dangerous illusion on the Korean Peninsula is to ignore real security conditions and rely on slogans that sound good to the public. The UNC, U.S. Forces Korea, the Combined Forces Command, and extended deterrence are not simply traces of a foreign military presence left behind in Korea. They are core security instruments that have deterred North Korean military provocations, prevented China from easily pressuring South Korea, and allowed South Korea to grow as a stable liberal democracy.
The self-reliant defense promoted by the Lee government may sound, on the surface, like an effort to strengthen South Korea’s security sovereignty. In reality, it can function as a path toward reducing America’s role and pulling South Korea away from U.S.–ROK cooperation aimed at checking China. This is exactly what many citizens fear. It is not self-reliant defense. It is South Korea moving itself away from the U.S.–ROK alliance and tilting toward China.
At a time when cooperation among China, North Korea, and Russia is strengthening, the fact that South Korea has a government that appears to move closer to those three countries than to the United States cannot be treated lightly. South Korea has one of the world’s top-five military forces, and most male citizens are subject to mandatory military service. In such a country, when the government appears to value relations with China, North Korea, and Russia more than the alliance with the United States, the anxiety felt by Koreans who lived through the Korean War and their families is not a matter of partisan politics. It is a matter of survival.
That is why the voices of concern among South Koreans continue to grow.
Many citizens are using social media to send direct warnings to the United States and to repeatedly ask for help to prevent the U.S.–ROK alliance from collapsing. They do not see this as a domestic political dispute. They see it as a direct threat to South Korea’s security when, at the same time, the North Korean nuclear threat, Chinese pressure, and Russia–North Korea military cooperation are all expanding and the South Korean government is distancing itself from the United States.
The U.S.–ROK alliance is not sustained by treaties, weapons purchases, and defense-cost figures alone. Its real strength depends on how the Korean people view the United States, how politicians and the media explain China and North Korea, and how the government describes American demands and Chinese pressure to its own citizens. That is the part of the alliance now being shaken.
What Washington Must Do Now
Washington should no longer ask the Lee Jae-myung government vague questions. Will South Korea stand with China, or will it remain an ally of the United States? That question must be asked publicly and clearly.
Alliances do not collapse suddenly on the day a treaty is terminated. They begin to collapse when the public is conditioned by anti-American claims from politicians and the media, when Chinese information warfare causes citizens to doubt the United States, when Chinese pressure is accepted as exchange rather than treated as a threat, and when North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles are no longer viewed as immediate security dangers. By that point, the alliance is already weakening from within.
If Washington truly values the U.S.–ROK alliance, it must strictly evaluate the South Korean government’s actual behavior, not its formal diplomatic language. There are several points Washington must examine closely.
First, Washington must verify whether pledges to increase defense spending and purchase U.S.-made weapons are reflected in the actual budget and implemented in a way that genuinely strengthens combined U.S.–ROK operational capability. If South Korea pushes wartime operational control transfer, Washington must also examine what responsibilities Seoul is actually prepared to assume afterward in missile defense, strategic reconnaissance, cyber and space warfare, and operation of the nuclear umbrella.
Second, if South Korea says it will cooperate with the United States on semiconductors, batteries, and rare earths while continuing to delay concrete plans to reduce dependence on China, that is closer to buying time than to cooperation. Washington must demand a specific roadmap from the Korean government for supply-chain decoupling from China.
Third, Washington must confirm how much responsibility South Korea is prepared to take in Indo-Pacific security. A Taiwan contingency, the South China Sea, advanced technology controls, maritime routes, and energy security are all directly tied to South Korea’s economy and security. South Korea’s semiconductors, shipbuilding industry, export routes, and energy imports all depend on order in this region.
In particular, the U.S.–Japan–ROK security cooperation structure painstakingly built after Camp David is a core link in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy. If the Lee government distances itself from the Taiwan issue and China deterrence, and treats trilateral security cooperation with the United States and Japan as a domestic political burden, Beijing can shake that link at little cost. Lee’s past campaign remark about Taiwan — “Why should we care about another country’s affairs?” — is exactly the kind of signal Washington must take seriously.
Fourth, even as North Korea advances its nuclear and missile capabilities and expands military and economic cooperation with Russia and China, the South Korean government remains stuck on the phrase “restoring peace.” That is a signal that weakens alliance deterrence. Worse, Lee has suggested that North Korea is actually worried about provocations from the South, framing South Korea and the United States, rather than North Korea, as the parties threatening peace on the peninsula.
Washington must not take at face value Lee’s statement at the U.S.–ROK summit that if Trump becomes a “peacemaker,” he will support him as a “pacemaker.” According to South Korean National Assembly reporting, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, long criticized for his pro-North Korean leanings, publicly referred in the National Assembly to Kusong, North Pyongan Province, as the location of a North Korean uranium enrichment facility. Kusong was a sensitive site that the United States and South Korea had not officially confirmed and that Washington had treated as core intelligence. Chung’s statement was not a simple mistake. It directly damaged trust in U.S.–ROK intelligence cooperation.
Fifth, Washington must strengthen U.S.–ROK intelligence sharing and joint responses to Chinese information warfare and influence operations. If Chinese-linked fake news sites, public opinion manipulation, and websites impersonating Korean media outlets are being repeatedly uncovered inside South Korea, this is not merely a Korean domestic issue. It is a matter of alliance defense.
Conclusion
In August 2025, two white-hat hackers released materials through Issue 72 of Phrack, a hacker magazine distributed at DEF CON 33 in Las Vegas. Their names were Saber and cyb0rg. According to the Phrack 72 release and subsequent cybersecurity reporting, they hacked a workstation believed to belong to a member of Kimsuky, a North Korean hacking organization, and released roughly 8.9GB of data.
According to the released materials and subsequent analysis, the data included South Korean defense-related email accounts, government domains, source code for a Ministry of Foreign Affairs email platform, target materials related to the prosecution service and the Ministry of Unification, materials linked to the National Police Agency, lists of university professors, and materials related to South Korean government certificates and passwords. The exposure of internal South Korean government work systems, communications networks, and data related to major institutions showed that this was not a simple hacking incident. It suggested that South Korea’s national systems may have been penetrated for an extended period.
The more serious problem is that the materials did not reveal only North Korean hacker activity. Cybersecurity analysis following the Phrack 72 release also pointed to signs of China-based activity and traces of Chinese-language use. Subsequent analysis raised the possibility that the operation may have been conducted from China and that North Korean hacking groups and Chinese hackers may have shared tools and techniques. The fact that South Korean government agencies, the National Police Agency, court and prosecution-related systems, foreign affairs and unification ministries, communications networks, and university researchers’ emails were all targeted by outside actors is a serious matter for the U.S.–ROK alliance.
The fact that outside actors may have accessed systems and materials related to U.S.–ROK combined military exercises is especially grave. This is not a simple personal data breach. It is a matter that could undermine South Korea’s ability to respond to North Korea, U.S.–ROK intelligence cooperation, and even the operational security of the Combined Forces Command. If North Korea and China were able to look not only into South Korean government networks but also into information related to U.S.–ROK combined exercises, then this goes beyond a South Korean cybersecurity failure. It means that military secrets of the U.S.–ROK alliance may have been exposed.
Yet the Lee Jae-myung government did not strongly criticize North Korea and China over this issue. It used public hearings and even the president’s open denunciations to pressure American companies such as Coupang and Starbucks. But when it came to suspected North Korean and Chinese cyber intrusions targeting South Korean government networks, the National Police Agency, defense-related accounts, and materials related to U.S.–ROK combined exercises, it issued no serious public response. It raised the blade against American companies while remaining silent about North Korean and Chinese provocations that directly threaten South Korean security.
This is exactly what Washington must see.
A government that takes a hard line against American companies while staying silent toward North Korean and Chinese provocations now controls Seoul.
If Washington fails to read these signals coming from inside South Korea, the next crisis in the U.S.–ROK alliance may not begin at the DMZ. It may already be underway inside the presidential office in Seoul and in the public-opinion warfare now shaking South Korean society.
