Mr. Lee’s June 4 acceptance speech focused on reviving South Korea’s ailing economy, while remaining mindful of security, peace and democracy. He emphasized: “Reinforcing the Korea-U.S. alliance, strengthening trilateral cooperation with the U.S. and Japan and approaching relations with neighboring countries through the lens of practicality and national interest.” Mr. Lee also spoke about the importance of inter-Korean dialogue, the provision of humanitarian assistance to North Korea and economic cooperation with the goal of peaceful Korean unification. China is South Korea’s leading trading partner. The U.S. is a distant second major trading partner with South Korea. But it’s more than trade ― and tariffs ― that truly reflects U.S.-South Korea relations. It goes back to the Korean War and the 1953 Armistice Agreement that brought an end to the fighting and gave rise to the subsequent Mutual Defense Treaty between the two countries. Indeed, it’s the U.S. military presence that serves as the trip wire that deters North Korea from provoking or invading South Korea. Mr. Lee also noted in his acceptance speech that South Korea “[w]ill expand Korea’s diplomatic reach, raise our international stature and enlarge our economic territory.” The U.S. has made it abundantly clear that the U.S. is pivoting to the Indo-Pacific region. At the recent Shangri-la Defense Forum, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said: “China seeks to become a hegemonic power in Asia … It hopes to dominate and control too many parts of this vital region. … China’s behavior towards its neighbors and the world is a wake-up call.”

North Korean hackers used to rely on virtual private networks and aliases to hide their true identities in order to get information technology jobs. Now, according to reporting from Politico and Wired, AI-generated deepfakes are becoming key to Pyongyang’s success, rendering existing screening tools increasingly irrelevant. North Korean operatives create fake LinkedIn pages using stolen information and pirated or AI-generated profile pictures. In March, Pyongyang launched Research Center 227, an effort within its overseas intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, to focus on AI-enabled cyberattack capabilities. According to cybersecurity firm DTEX, Research Center 227’s objectives are to use AI to neutralize defenses, steal information and money, and automate information collection and analysis. Although the IT worker scheme long predates this center, the capabilities and skills it develops will enhance this operation and the other vast criminal enterprises that fund the regime. Chinese support is critical. A report from cyberintelligence firm Strider said at least 35 Chinese companies have supported North Korean IT workers’ plot. Large Chinese and Russian firms often provide day jobs for North Korean hackers. North Korea not only sends its hackers abroad but also creates companies in China and Russia to facilitate its cybercriminal activities. North Korea is deploying its hackers around the world and tasking them with bringing back funds for the regime. American companies need, at the very least, more robust guidance from their government if they hope to stand a chance at detecting and thwarting Pyongyang’s advances.

The poorest state in the United States, as measured by gross domestic product per capita, is Mississippi, at about $53,000. That compares with the EU’s average per capita GDP of about $41,000. As the Ukraine experience shows, European militaries cannot project power even a few miles beyond their borders. The world we have known for the past 1,000 years or so ? where Europe set the tone and led the way in science and technological advances, such as weapons, building, agriculture, seafaring and exploration ? has passed away in a single lifetime. For those of us in the United States, this dissolution of once mighty peoples will require us to think about the world in new ways, create new alliances and, most importantly, avoid sentimentalism about our native lands. It also requires us to understand that our responsibilities will often require us to be more concerned about the slaving genocidal regime in China and the immediate risk it poses to our partners in India, Australia, Japan and the Philippines. The challenge from communist China also reminds us that our initial and most important theater of action is the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine is and needs to remain foremost in our strategic thinking. We also need to be cognizant that our peaceful neighbors to the north and south are strategic blessings and whatever disagreements we might have are trivial compared with the challenges we will face together. If we are going to successfully counter communist China, we are going to need the healthy nations in our immediate neighborhood to be firmly committed to our efforts. In short, as the Old World wanes, the New World we build will require American leadership.

Team Trump decided to tell Europe some truths recently. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered the most unremarkable truth: Ukraine can’t win its war with Russia, so it will need a negotiated settlement. Vice President J.D. Vance was a bit more provocative and said attempts to impede artificial intelligence are a modern-day version of book burning and the United States would not be a party to it. The Europeans, as always, were defiant, with the German prime minister insisting that Europeans would decide the fate of Ukraine. That’s great news. The Germans should get on it right away. But first, maybe they can let us know why they haven’t done that at any other point in the past three years. It’s understandable. Europe is in decline just about everywhere. The French, the first daughter of the Church and for 1,000 years the greatest warriors in Europe, are unable to keep their churches from being burned. The Germans, masters of order and discipline, could not stay either in their own nation or Mitteleuropa. Even the English, who built and sustained an empire that ruled the world and brought literacy, the rule of law and Christianity to billions, are reduced to watching television shows depicting how great they used to be. Europe is losing its will to live. Not a single nation on the continent has a fertility rate above the replacement level. They are all growing older. In 1990, the American and European Union economies were approximately the same size. Now, the U.S. economy is about 50% larger.

China has assiduously worked on its outreach to developing countries, especially in Africa. Its Belt and Road Initiative, despite its many faults, does provide development assistance to several countries. Russia and China work closely with the BRICS, an intergovernmental organization that focuses on economic and geopolitical coordination. Many Global South countries ― and others ― are interested in joining BRICS. Unfortunately, it is this type of outreach that the U.S. has neglected since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. There was a perception that with the end of the Cold War, the U.S. system of governance became widely recognized as effective compared with other forms of governance. We closed the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in October 1999 and cut back on cultural exchanges while closing some of our cultural facilities and libraries abroad. In retrospect, I believe this was an unfortunate mistake. Our form of governance is competing with China’s and Russia’s autocracies. These autocracies appeal to both developing and developed countries for various reasons. In 1991, when the Soviet Union imploded, it appeared that liberal democracies, which ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for their citizens, were a desirable form of governance. We know it is far superior to dictatorships and autocracies, but this is part of the competition we’re having with China and others. To succeed, we must clearly convey our story and values. President Trump has an opportunity to tell this story to the world. An opportunity to contribute to ending the conflicts in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and other regions experiencing turmoil.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent observed early this week that the U.S. and China found common ground on trade in talks and neither side wants a divorce. More specifically, Mr. Bessent said: “The consensus from both delegations this weekend was neither side wants a decoupling. We concluded that we have shared interests and we both have an interest in balanced trade.” What he said probably comes as a surprise to most Americans, who view communist China as what it is: a slaving, genocidal regime. Mr. Bessent’s declaration flies in the face of that widespread bipartisan sentiment. How about stopping Chinese espionage in the U.S., especially the theft of intellectual property? Restrictions on China buying farmland, natural resources, technology and anything else in the United States? Chinese investment in American companies? The good news is that not everyone in the Cabinet is a globalist. During his confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that China has “lied, cheated, hacked and stolen” its way to global superpower status “at our expense.” He called China “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” I suspect that about 80% of the American people agree with all that. They understand, almost certainly with more clarity than their “leaders,” that decoupling from the slaving, genocidal, communist regime in Beijing is not only warranted but also essential. The People’s Republic of China means us no good, nor does it have friendly intentions toward the remainder of the world. That is obvious to anyone willing to see it.

Western customs, such as the sexes socializing in a park or restaurant or street, and respect for Jews, are being challenged by an increasingly belligerent Muslim population bolstered by yearslong mass immigration. “The Europeans have learned the hard way that mass migration of Muslims without assimilation leads to submission of their own cultures,” Jim Hanson, chief editor for Middle East Forum, told me. There are news stories on Muslim “grooming” gangs who kidnap non-Muslim girls and rape them. Muslims have staged aggressive street protests and taken over public spaces such as bridges and town squares to pray. Britain is considered the Western capital of Shariah courts, which hand down rulings based on Islamic, not national, laws. In Germany, waves of Islamists invaded Christmas markets to disrupt the sacred holiday. There is pushback. In Dublin in late April more than 10, 000 marched demanding an end to the mass immigration of thousands of so-called asylum-seekers, some homeless and living in tent cities. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni campaigned in 2022 on stopping the mass influx of foreigners at Italy’s southern sea border. In 2018, she said, “I believe that Islam certainly presents incompatibilities with our values and our civilization, and what happens in Islamic centers demonstrates this.” Ms. Meloni is virtually alone among European chiefs of state in condemning any aspect of Islamic culture. President Trump’s senior aides are not so shy. On Feb. 14, Vice President J.D. Vance scolded European leaders for allowing a foreign invasion. 오성환 외신전문위원 suhwo@segye.com

The Spanish government boasted that it had become a global leader in fueling its economy with windmills and solar panels. Among leftists, there is no higher virtue to signal than replacing nuclear, gas and coal plants with these in-vogue alternatives. Shortly after achieving this green energy miracle, Spain and Portugal’s 60 million citizens were plunged into darkness not experienced since medieval times, when, not coincidentally, windmills were widely used as a power source. NASA satellite imagery captured the blackout stretching across the Iberian Peninsula. Modern Europeans brag about the superiority of their electric train network, but some Spanish passengers may have entertained second thoughts when powerless locomotives left them stranded for hours. Even gasoline-fueled cars slowed without traffic lights to guide the chaos on the streets of Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon. Those stuck in dark, high-rise elevators had no way to summon help when cellphone towers stopped transmitting. The public resorted to cash or barter to pay for what food or drink remained in markets swiftly emptied by panic buying. The responsible authorities in Spain haven’t been forthcoming about what caused the disruption. Ordinarily, “renewable” systems reliant on sun and wind power run out of juice on cloudy and windless days, but the situation here appears more complex. Common sense suggests that such things happen when one relies on volatile power sources dependent upon Mother Nature’s whims. Many on the left would rather blame the catastrophe on climate change. Madrid’s socialist government is obsessed with achieving “net zero” carbon dioxide emissions. Spain didn’t bother accounting for the downside of this strategy.

Real rejuvenation requires intellectual freedom, civic dignity and historical honesty, all of which the CCP ruthlessly suppresses. Instead, the party offers a zombie version of nationalism: giant parades, loud slogans and censorship masquerading as pride. In truth, the CCP’s version of “rejuvenation” means returning China to its rightful place, not as a beacon of civilization but as a plantation farmed for the benefit of the party elite. China is not rising because of the CCP. It is rising in spite of it, with chains still rattling around its ankles. The CCP’s one true objective is painfully clear: to perpetuate its rule at any cost. Everything else is negotiable. The real enemies of the Chinese people are not foreign corporations or imaginary Western conspirators. They are the gray-faced men in Zhongnanhai who fear books more than bombs, who fear questions more than armies, and who have turned one of the world’s oldest civilizations into a police state draped in red. The CCP has betrayed China and blamed the world for the consequences. It has stolen the blood, sweat and hope of the Chinese people. It has humiliated them more thoroughly than any imperialist ever dreamed. And it has the audacity to wave the flag of patriotism as it does so. The real rejuvenation of China will begin the day the Chinese people realize the truth. Their enemy is not overseas. It is seated at home, cloaked in red banners, and speaks the language of “liberation” while building its prison. Until then, the party will continue to wage its greatest campaign: the cover-up of its crimes under the banner of the nation’s glory. And the real century of humiliation will continue.

The Cultural Revolution: The burning of temples, the smashing of traditions and the executions of teachers were conducted not by invaders but by zealots in Mao jackets. Tiananmen Square: The massacre of Chinese youths in 1989 was not ordered by Queen Victoria. It came from the Politburo. Today’s mass surveillance state, censorship, forced labor camps in Xinjiang and the constant purging of dissenters are modern extensions of this internal war against the Chinese people. The “Century of Humiliation” never ended; it was merely nationalized and maximized by the CCP. The CCP understands a simple principle: It’s much easier to rule if you can keep people angry at outsiders instead of you. Thus, every failure is blamed on “foreign hostile forces.” Economic slowdown? Western sabotage. Popular discontent? CIA plots. Hong Kong protests? American “black hand.” Uyghur resistance? Foreign infiltration. Meanwhile, the party’s real crimes - corruption, nepotism, jailing journalists, and summary execution, land seizures, environmental disasters - are swept under the rug with the magic words “foreign threat.” It’s an old trick, beloved by tyrants across history: Invent external enemies to justify internal oppression. The irony is breathtaking. The CCP crushes the Chinese people and then accuses the world of oppressing China. The party claims its “primary strategic goal” is the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” A beautiful phrase-vague enough to mean anything, sentimental enough to discourage questions. A rejuvenated China would be open, confident, creative and respected. The CCP’s China is paranoid, brittle, stagnant and feared.