[Joint Statement]
Let Us Overthrow US Imperialism, the Main Culprit of War, Which Is Forcing Through Freedom Edge!
The war crisis on the Korean Peninsula is escalating rapidly. Chloe Morgan, spokesperson for the US Pacific Command, officially confirmed that the US-Japan-‘ROK’ multidomain joint military exercise Freedom Edge will be forced through as scheduled from September 7 to 11 in international waters to the east and south of Jeju Island. If the 2023 Camp David agreement represented the political completion of an “Asian version of NATO,” Freedom Edge is a stage of military actualization in which the forces operate like a single integrated military under the unified control of the US Pacific Command, advancing their preemptive strike capabilities. The Joint Chiefs of Staff’s excuse on September 1 that it is a “defensive exercise” cannot conceal its essential nature as an invasion exercise and war provocation targeting the entire region, including the DPRK. The implementation of Freedom Edge is the worst act of aggressive provocation, driving the situation toward catastrophe.
Is the Lee Jae-myung regime volunteering to become the “dagger” of the US imperialist aggressor forces? It speaks “peace” only in words, but in reality it is no less belligerent than the warmonger Yoon Suk-yeol. In June and July, it carried out the world’s largest-scale exercise “RIMPAC” and the US-‘ROK’ joint aerial exercise “Buddy Squadron” in mid-July. Taking the NATO Ankara summit on July 7 as a turning point, it reduced the ‘ROK’ to NATO’s principal supplier of weapons. At the trilateral meeting of the chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff of the USA, Japan, and the ‘ROK’ on July 15, they agreed to raise the level of real-time information sharing and command-and-control interoperability by another stage. And with this Freedom Edge exercise, the regional situation has been driven toward its worst point. Dark clouds of war are gathering over the Korean Peninsula as a result of the Lee Jae-myung regime’s belligerent maneuvers.
The crisis of war in the ‘ROK’ originates from the stationing of US troops. The US imperialist aggressor forces are fabricating an “Asian version of NATO” under the pretext of the “threat from the DPRK,” using the ‘ROK’ as a forward base and Japan as a rear base. Above all, the push for the deployment of tactical nuclear intermediate-range missiles—which, together with Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO, was a direct cause of the Ukraine war—is being repeated in East Asia as well. Having massively depleted advanced conventional weapons on the West Asian and Eastern European fronts, the imperialist aggressor forces are integrating the US, Japanese, and ‘ROK’ militaries and pushing ahead with the deployment of tactical nuclear intermediate-range missiles in order to fill the military power vacuum in East Asia. It is an extremely dangerous situation in which the conditions in Eastern Europe on the eve of the Ukraine war are being reproduced in East Asia today.
The imperialism that is the main culprit of war must be brought to an end. The declining approval ratings of the pro-US, pro-NATO Lee Jae-myung and Takaichi are the result of their acting against the will of the people. The problem is that Lee Jae-myung and Takaichi are exploiting the war situation in order to divert their internal crises outward. This is intertwined with the world-war maneuvers of the imperialist aggressor forces and is turning East Asia today into the region’s greatest hotspot. As long as imperialism, whose nature is aggression and plunder, exists, war will not cease. Let us overthrow US imperialism, the main culprit of war, which is forcing through Freedom Edge exercise! Our people will rise up in the anti-imperialist popular struggle, bring imperialism and its lackey forces to an end, and hasten the realization of a new world of peace and people’s democracy.
September 5, 2026
In front of the US Embassy, Gwanghwamun, Seoul
Anti-US Struggle Headquarters · 21st Century Che Guevara · People’s Democracy Party
