Why are there two Koreas?
Well, Korea wasn’t always split between the totalitarian North and the democratic
South as it is today; for hundreds of years, up until 1910, it was ruled by the Joseon dynasty,
who were loyal to the Emperors of China. But in 1895 after the first Sino-Japanese war,
which saw Japan assert itself as the new East Asian powerhouse,
Korea was uncoupled from China. The Joseon King, Gojong, declared a new Korean Empire in 1897,
with himself as it’s Emperor. His plan was to build a powerful, independent Korea,
that could resist foreign influence, but that is not at all what would come to pass.
With China gone, another empire, Russia, attempted to exert influence over Korea,
but in 1905 the Russian’s were defeated by Japan in the Russo-Japanese war,
marking the first time that a European power had been beaten by an Asian one.
Russia was driven out of Korea, but far from resisting foreign influence,
it became a Japanese puppet state in 1905 and was annexed into the Empire of Japan in 1910.
Korea remained a Japanese colony up until 1945, the end of WW2,
when it was split into occupation zones along the 38th parallel. They were controlled by the US,
which had fought Japan across the Pacific, and the Soviet Union which had fought them
in mainland Asia. The original Western plan, laid out in the Cairo declaration of 1943,
called for a “free and independent” Korea after the war but the Soviet Union had other plans.
In their occupation zone, the north, they installed Kim Il-Sung as a Communist dictator
while in the south, the US set up a provisional government under Syngman Rhee.
In 1948 the American occupation zone became the Republic of Korea - South Korea,
with Rhee as its first President, while the Soviet zone became the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea - North Korea. Both governments claimed sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula.
From this point forward I’ll be focusing on South Korea,
but if you want to know more about the Northern situation you can check
out a video on just that from my fellow history YouTuber, History With Wolves;
link down below. You’ll hear a little bit more about his channel at the end of this video.
So, it’s important to note that while the South may be the democratic and economically prosperous
Korea today (its population is twice as large and its GDP is forty times larger
than that of the North) that wasn’t always the case. Syngman Rhee was a right-wing dictator and
his support from the US and the United Nations was not contingent on him supporting democracy,
he didn’t, instead it came because with WW2 over, the Cold War had begun,
and Rhee ardently opposed Communism. Of course, he didn’t have much of a choice.
On June 25th 1950, with support from the Soviet Union, the Communist North crossed
the 38th parallel and invaded the South. By June 29th, Seoul, the Southern capital,
was in northern hands and by mid-August Syngman Rhee’s government was left in
control of only the land within Pusan Perimeter in the south-east.
Though the South did have the support of the UN, though only because the Soviets
refused to show up to any votes because the UN refused to recognize newly Communist China.
The UN sent roughly 400,000 troops from 22 nations to aid the South over the course of
the Korean War. 326,000 of them were Americans. On September 15th UN forces under the command of
General Douglas MacArthur attacked the city of Inchon after an amphibious landing, far
north of the Pusan perimeter. Within two weeks, Seoul was back under the South's control and the
Korean People’s Army, North Korea’s armed force, had it’s supply routes into the South cut off.
In October, MacArthur mounted an invasion of the North and he managed to make it almost all
the way to the border with China. That caused some distress within the Chinese leadership;
the Communist People’s Republic of China had only just been proclaimed in 1949
and the last thing they needed were Western forces invading them through a unified Korea,
so they sent in 300,000 troops and effectively took over the war for the north.
With China’s help, over a million more Chinese soldiers would eventually fight in the war,
the UN forces were pushed all the way back through North Korea and across the 38th parallel;
by early January 1951 they had lost Seoul, again. MacArthur, who had argued that the Chinese
wouldn’t interfere, but then, when they did, wanted to nuke the Chinese mainland, was fired by
President Truman. But the UN and South Korea would be back at the 38th parallel by the end of March,
and by mid-June the two sides settled into a stalemate that would last for two years.
It was on July 27th 1953 when an armistice, though not a peace treaty, was signed between
the two sides; the border between the two Koreas, which became a Demilitarized Zone,
changed only slightly and still straddles the 38th parallel.
Technically, the North and South have remained at war ever since.
In the decades following the armistice South Korea was a politically turbulent,
economically wretched country. Until the 70’s, when the South’s economy began to kick off,
it was just as poor as the North, though they were being propped up by China and the Soviets.
Syngman Rhee ruled as an autocrat: he executed tens of thousands of suspected Communists
and collaborators, imprisoned opposition politicians and demonstrators, and rigged the
1960 Presidential elections. He didn’t get away with it though and directly after the election,
which he won by a landslide, Rhee was forced out of power by student revolutionaries.
His ousting ended the first Republic of Korea but four more would follow,
some autocratic, some less so, until a new constitution created the democratic,
6th republic in 1987. It continues in the now-prosperous South, to this day.
To talk more about North Korea, here’s Wolves from the channel, History With Wolves,
take it away: Thanks James, over on my channel you'll find a video about the same topic,
on why there's two Koreas, but you'll see it from the North Korean perspective.
I'm sure James will leave the link in the description so why don't you come on over
and if you like what you see, please do feel free to subscribe. Thanks again James, see you.
If you enjoyed this video don’t forget to subscribe and hit the
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and as always, I’ve been James and thank you for watching Look Back History.