Sullivan "The key is whether the democracy will survive even if it breaks down...Korea, I'm holding out".

Regarding South Korea's emergency martial law, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, "The real test is whether we will hold out until the end of the day even if the democratic system is broken," adding, "South Korea is holding out."

Asked about the recent situation in Korea at a meeting hosted by an American cultural organization in New York on the 17th, Sullivan said, "It is important to acknowledge that dramatic things can happen in a highly advanced and solidified democratic society, just as the January 6 incident happened to us."

Sullivan called it a "dramatic moment," saying "protesters pushed out the guns of soldiers deployed to block the National Assembly with the aim of preventing the adoption of a resolution to lift the martial law."

"I don't think we are completely out of the crisis until everything is decided through the Constitutional Court because the process is still ongoing," he said, adding, "But Korea's democratic system is holding up."

Senior U.S. government officials have evaluated the resilience of Korean democracy several times since the martial law crisis in Korea, and Sullivan's remarks are interpreted in the same vein.

The January 6 incident refers to the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6 of the following year by supporters of then-U.S. President Donald Trump, who objected to the 2020 presidential election defeat, to interfere with the congressional process of certifying the results of the presidential election.

After diagnosing that the world has passed the post-Cold War period and entered an era of challenging and fluctuating competition, Sullivan said dramatic events such as emergency martial law "can happen not only in places like the Middle East, but also in South Korea and the United States."

"The key is whether the U.S. has the fundamental element of power and capacity to deal with geopolitical competitors and respond to the huge trends of our time," he stressed.