"The Land of the Morning Calm," the ancient name for the Korean peninsula, certainly seems a misnomer for this region of the world, which today is well known for its increasingly complex and, in some cases, highly volatile economic, political, and strategic characteristics.
Scarcely 100 years ago, Korea was an agrarian society fiercely proud of its ethnic homogeneity and clinging to the mores and traditions acquired during its two millennia of recorded history. It so shunned contact with the outside world, the turbulence of the modern industrial revolution, and the social change that dominated the nineteenth century that it entered this century with a reputation as the "Hermit Kingdom."
Today, the peninsula and its homogeneous people are separated into two heavily armed camps that embrace competing and mutually exclusive political and social ideologies. The everyday lives of the opposing people are as different as night from day, and rival national leaders have made no significant progress in negotiations aimed at narrowing their differences over the last several decades. The rival governments are involved in a high-stakes game of diplomatic one-upmanship that each side views as a zero-sum battle - victory for one would spell absolute defeat for the other. Complicating these inherent tensions, vital superpower interests converge on the peninsula, making it one of the world's prime candidates for serious military confrontation.
Historical background
How is it that this calm hermit nation was so rapidly transformed? While the history of the transformation is exceedingly complicate, one simple and sad reality is clear: The division of the Korean peninsula, the stark contrasts between the rival societies, and the threats to world peace that exist there today are the products of foreign intervention and manipulation.
In 1910, growing Japanese militarism led to the annexation of what was at that time a united Korea. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union agreed that, following the surrender of Japan, "Korea should be independent in due course." When Japan surrendered in August 1945, Soviet troops had moved into the northern part of the peninsula. Fearing that the Soviets would occupy the entire country before U.S. forces could move into Korea, Washington proposed that the Soviet Union accept the surrender of Japanese forces north of the 38th Parallel. It was a military arrangement and was never intended as a political solution.
Moscow, however, immediately began to consolidate its political influence by purging moderate Koreans from the civilian administrative apparatus in its sector and favoring those who supported establishment of a communist system on the peninsula. Joint U.S.-Soviet negotiations aimed at resolving ideological differences and paving the way for an independent and unified Korea failed. In the southern sector, UN-supervised elections were held, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) was established on August 15, 1948. When the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the north one month later, Korea's political division was complete. Kim Il-Sung, a Korean who had served as an officer in the Red Army, became the president of North Korea. His rule continues
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