The Two Koreas

Cold War Conflicts HIST 1301 | History The Two Koreas The country of Korea, which had been a Japanese colony for many years prior to being captured by Japan during World War II, was split in half along the thirty-eighth latitude line on August 15, 1945. The Soviet Union was tasked for disarming the northern half of the Korean peninsula, while the United States was responsible for the southern half. Korea was to be jointly governed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and China for five years until it was reunified and granted freedom. This agreement was reached during the Moscow Conference in December 1945. The rejection of the split of their country and its submission to foreign domination by the people of Korea was disregarded. Negotiations on the best way to reunite Korea fell out between the US and the USSR not long after the Moscow Conference. Because of their extreme ideological differences, the United States gave the United Nations (UN) authority over the Korean reunification issue in 1947. The UN General Assembly established a Temporary Commission on Korea and demanded that elections be held in Korea. But in the years after the country's first split, the Soviet Union helped the Communist Party of North Korea gain strength, and it now appears that they are hesitant to give it up. For this reason, North Korea declined to take part in the election. Owing to this resistance, only South Korea held elections for a Constitutional Assembly in May 1948. In July, authoritarian anticommunist Syngman Rhee was elected president after a constitution was established. Rhee declared the Republic of Korea (ROK) to be established in August. Ten days later, North Korea held elections and created a new government for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, led by communist Kim Il-sung. The Soviet Union withdrew its soldiers from Korea, and the United States removed the majority of its troops as well, with the result that the nation appeared to be permanently split and that troops were needed elsewhere. Between 1948 and 1950, there were border conflicts between South and North Korean troops in the absence of the armies of the two superpowers, who had each desired to avoid inciting the other. While South Korean forces struggled to keep Northern soldiers out in order to avoid the collapse of the South's government, North Korean forces wanted to incite communist uprisings in the South. With the expectation of a warm reception, the Korean People's Army (KPA) of North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, fell in two days because the ROK army were unable to stop their assault. The United States was not expecting it. It was not believed that South Korea was crucial to US security. But Japan was, and President Truman felt that, in accordance with the domino theory, Japan needed to be protected by a stable, non-communist Korea. Not only did he not want to see another Asian nation succumb to communism, but he also thought that the United States' hesitation to move would give the Soviet Union the impression that it could act forcefully in Europe, which was the country's main area of interest. As a result, Truman addressed the UN, pleading for a denunciation of North Korea's conduct and for member states' support in defending South Korea. The UN Security Council took swift action. Following a brief debate, it denounced North Korea's invasion of South Korea and on June 27, it published Resolution 83, urging all UN members to thwart North Korean aggression. A veto from any one of the Security Council's five permanent members—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—could have stopped the Council's operations. However, the Soviet Union boycotted council meetings in protest because the United States insisted that Taiwan, not the People's Republic of China, should have China's seat on the council following the Nationalists' defeat in the Chinese civil war. Therefore, it was unable to prevent the resolution from passing. The United States believed that the Soviet invasion of South Korea was a ruse to see how the United States would react to a communist military onslaught. However, Stalin had really advised Kim against it. He counselled Kim to turn to Mao, whose CCP troops North Korea had supported in the Chinese civil war, rather than Moscow, since he was unwilling to ignite a conflict with the United States in Asia. As a result, the Soviet Union sent no air or naval forces to Korea whereas the United States did. Kim did not initially require support, though, since North Korean forces quickly occupied almost the whole Korean peninsula, with ROK, UN, and US forces holding onto the region around the port of Pusan in the south. The KPA-held territory at Incheon was breached by US forces under General Douglas MacArthur in September 1950, reversing the situation. In little time, Seoul was recaptured, and Rhee took back control. After achieving his first aim, MacArthur was assigned a second one: if at all feasible, and provided that the endeavour did not result in Chinese or Soviet participation, to bring Korea back under Rhee's authority. With UN approval, MacArthur's forces crossed the 38th parallel, pursuing KPA soldiers northward towards North Korea's border with China, the Yalu River, despite China's threat to send in its forces should the 38th parallel be crossed. Mao supported aiding Kim, even though several major members of the Chinese Communist Party were against sending troops to fight in Korea. China had been assembling forces in Taiwan with the goal of overthrowing the island nation's Nationalist government, but China missed the chance when the US manoeuvred its Seventh Fleet into the straits separating Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. On October 19, 1950, its forces—which would have otherwise gone to Taiwan—crossed the Yalu River and joined the battle in Korea. UN and US soldiers were forced to retire by December, back across the 38th parallel into South Korea, after being driven by Chinese and North Korean forces. Fighting lasted through the hard Korean winter when the Chinese soldiers rejected a cease-fire proposal from the UN. The battle had descended into a deadly standoff close to its starting point, along the thirty-eighth parallel, by July 1951. Tired, both sides started talking about peace on July 10. Before a cease-fire was eventually declared, negotiations dragged on for two years as the two sides battled to seize as much land as they could. The Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. A Korean Demilitarised Zone was created, roughly along the 38th parallel, to be monitored by North and South Korean forces in order to avoid the repeat of hostilities. U.S. soldiers continued to remain in South Korea in order to discourage future North Korean invasion. The Korean War was pointless, much like many of the Cold War's proxy conflicts, in which the armies of countries aligned with the US and the USSR engaged in combat rather than risking a direct confrontation between the superpowers. The three-year battle claimed the lives of almost three million people, the majority of whom were Korean civilians who were either caught in the crossfire or succumbed to famine and illness. All of Korea's cities were left in ruins. Neither side gained any land, and neither the North nor the South saw any political upheaval. The nation remained split, with North Korea isolating itself from the West through an isolationist stance. The Korean War had a toll on China as well. It, too, found itself isolated and reliant on the Soviet Union for support. It was now considered an aggressor nation by the United States and Western Europe. The start of the war in the United States forced President Truman to enact the NSC-68 strategy, which called for more defence spending among other things and was advocated by the State Department. Despite his initial reluctance, Truman increased U.S. defence spending by over threefold in order to combat Chinese forces on the Korean peninsula. Korea has persuaded the nation that it was imperative to maintain the capacity to combat communist troops at all times. The United States' determination to defend Taiwan's Nationalist government and take dramatic measures to halt the spread of communism across Asia was further strengthened by China's activities in Korea. To stop communism from spreading throughout Southeast Asia, the United States, Britain, France, Thailand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) in 1954. However, because to its inability to raise military levels, the organisation concentrated mostly on raising living conditions in the area in the hopes of deterring people from supporting communism. Alarmed by the founding of SEATO, in September 1958 the PRC proceeded to assault Jinmen (Quemoy), Mazu (Matsu), and Dachen, islands off the coast of China that Taiwan claimed as territory belonging to the Nationalists, in what was termed the First Taiwan Strait Crisis. The United States signed a Mutual Defence Treaty with Taiwan, guaranteeing the country of American help in the case of a conflict with China, despite the fact that the country had no intention of going to war with the PRC. The PRC bombed Jinmen and Mazu once more in 1958, which led to the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. The shelling stopped when the United States started supplying the Nationalist forces positioned on the islands. It was not until the United States and the PRC had more harmonious ties with one another in the 1970s that the matter was finally settled.