Rebuilding Korea Party floor leader opposes expanding Cheonghae Unit's operational zone

Kim Jun-hyung, floor leader of the Rebuilding Korea Party and a former president of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy under the Moon Jae-in administration, came out against the government's plan to expand and strengthen the Cheonghae Unit's operational zone and submit the proposal to the National Assembly. "We cannot send a unit deployed to stop pirates into a sea of war," Kim said.

Speaking at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Thursday, Kim said the government was seeking to expand the Cheonghae Unit's operational area and deploy additional maritime patrol aircraft to a war that even the American public had turned its back on. "Why is South Korea trying to set foot in that war?" he said.

"The moment Iran views our presence as a hostile act, we become a party to the war," Kim said. "Who can guarantee that an expanded operational scope will not lead to demands for further troop deployments?"

Kim said the timing could not be worse. "Even Donald Trump said he held back from a full-scale attack on Iran because of the election — and now that election is over," he said. "Expanding the operational zone at a time like this is nothing more than pushing our own troops into danger."

Kim also took aim at what he described as American pressure on South Korea. "The United States extracted investment commitments through tariff threats, and now it is asking us to shoulder the risks of war as well," he said. "If we comply with that demand too, will the South Korea-US relationship truly improve? Will it genuinely serve the national interest?"

Kim added that a sovereign state should command its own military. "That is precisely why the government is pursuing the reacquisition of wartime operational control," he said. "If a government that champions defense self-reliance bends even its decision-making authority over the Cheonghae Unit — already in our own hands — to suit American needs, can the public accept that?"

Kim called on the government to demonstrate its commitment to defense autonomy through sovereign decisions rather than slogans. "Now is the time to show, through the Cheonghae Unit, the principle of non-involvement in war that President Lee Jae-myung has stated," he said. He urged the government to stop bundling operational zone expansions and mission changes into the Cheonghae Unit deployment extension bill, and to reassess tariff agreements, investment commitments to the United States and security issues shaped by Donald Trump's unilateralism through the lens of the national interest.