Claim. Loyalty to a nation is necessary but not terminal; the saint is the patriot who has extended love beyond race and nation to all humankind.
Elaboration. SMM presses Koreans not to settle for national loyalty: “If you ask Koreans, ‘Do you want to become saints or only become loyal patriots?’ they might answer, ‘Well, the way of loyalty and filial piety is at the center of Korean thought, so I am not sure about being a saint. I will just become a loyal patriot.’ This would be wrong” (CSG 14.1 §2, 101-16, 1978.10.28). The differentiator is scope: “A son or daughter of filial piety is someone who brings blessings only to the family” — the patriot brings blessings to a nation, and “if there’s a people determined to go the path of the saint, they will be able to bring global blessings to humankind.” The implication is that Korean Confucian-virtue inheritance is a launching pad, not a ceiling: a person who refuses to scale loyalty up to world-love is choosing a smaller obedience than what is offered.
See also. csg-saints-transcend-race-and-nation-for-god · csg-filial-piety-must-extend-to-three-countries