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The Two Koreas: What Lies Ahead?
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13263 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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10 / 1987 |
3,288 Words |
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Daryl M. Plunk
Daryl M. Plunk is a visiting fellow at the Asian Studies
Center of the Heritage Foundation and vice president of the
Richard V. Allen Company, an international consulting firm in
Washington. |
"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
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