📰 Arirang Culture Connect | Editorial

The world today is witnessing a dangerous regression. The promise of international norms and collective security is increasingly overshadowed by brute force, coercion, and the revival of imperial reflexes—the unmistakable signs of a return to the law of the jungle.

The prolonged Russia–Ukraine war stands as the most tragic symbol of this descent. A conflict that has devastated civilian lives, displaced millions, and destabilized global food and energy systems demonstrates how power politics, once unleashed, erode not only borders but the moral foundations of the international order.

More recently, controversy surrounding Venezuela’s leadership—including reports and counterclaims involving the alleged abduction or coercion of its president—has further underscored a grim reality: political violence and extrajudicial actions are once again being normalized in parts of the world. Regardless of competing narratives, such episodes reflect a broader collapse of respect for sovereignty, law, and human dignity.

At this critical moment, the Spirit of Byeokrando, emphasized by President Lee Jae-myung during his recent visit to China, offers a clear and compelling alternative to the world’s current trajectory.

President Lee Jae-myung poses for a commemorative photo using a smartphone he received as a gift from President Xi Jinping during the Gyeongju summit last November. Photo courtesy of News1.

Byeokrando was not a space of domination or conquest, but a gateway of exchange and circulation. Shaped by rivers and seas, it symbolized an order in which civilizations were connected through openness rather than force. In this historical paradigm, exchange prevailed over conquest, and coexistence proved more powerful than coercion.

By recalling the Spirit of Byeokrando, President Lee challenges today’s global drift toward imperial behavior and advances a civilizational choice rooted in openness, cooperation, and peace.

For decades, the United Nations and the international community have worked to institutionalize global human solidarity—an understanding that humanity shares a common destiny beyond borders and power blocs. Alongside this, the concept of a Culture of Peace has emerged: peace not as a temporary ceasefire, but as a way of life cultivated through education, culture, dialogue, and everyday cooperation.

The Spirit of Byeokrando resonates directly with this vision. It reminds us that peace is sustained not by fear and force, but by shared stewardship, cultural connection, and mutual respect.

To prevent a descent into barbarism, countries with the will and capacity to play a responsible role in the international community must now step forward and assume leadership. At the same time, not only states but also citizens and intellectuals must firmly reject the normalization of violence and work together to advance a new international order grounded in human dignity and solidarity.

Arirang Culture Connect believes this choice is urgent.

Humanity must decide whether to remain trapped in the wild logic of empire—or to return, decisively, to the culture of peace.