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61. Overcoming the Cold War Legacy in Korea? The Inter-Korean Summit One Year Later

Author:
Young Whan Kihl
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The move toward rapprochement between the leaders of North and South Korea, symbolized by their well-documented embrace at the June 2000 summit, gave reasons for hope and new expectations for reconciliation between the two Koreas. The enthusiasm and euphoria generated by this summit, however, failed to move forward to concrete steps toward genuine peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. The reason has less to do with the enthusiasm of the summer as the hard realities of the political and economic issues confronted by each Korea and the geopolitical situation surrounding the Korean peninsula. So far Seoul's engagement policy toward North Korea has given an impression of one side giving and yielding without due reciprocity by the other side. This work will address the post-summit developments in inter-Korean relations, marking the one-year anniversary of the June 2000 Korean summit. It will reassess the meaning and significance of the summit talks by reevaluating the sunshine policy of ROK President Kim Dae Jung, analyzing the progress and problems for implementation of the June 15, 2000, joint declaration, and speculating about the DPRK's possible opening and its reform policy measures.
Political Geography:
South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

62. Russian Policy toward the Korean Peninsula, 1991-2001

Author:
Jane Shapiro Zacek
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
In July of 2000, Russian Federation (RF) President Vladimir Putin spent two days in Pyongyang, North Korea, the first Russian (or Soviet) head of state ever to visit that country. Newly elected President in his own right in March 2000, Putin wasted no time promoting his East Asia foreign policy agenda, including presidential visits to South Korea, China, and elsewhere in the region within the past year.
Political Geography:
Russia, China, East Asia, South Korea, North Korea, Soviet Union, Korea, Sinai Peninsula, and Pyongyang

63. The Making of the Korean Financial Crisis: Financial Liberalization without Regulations

Author:
Shalendra D. Sharma
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
In 1950, Korea was among the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of under US$150.1 Ravaged by a brutal war between 1950-53, a divided Korea was predicted to remain a "basketcase" for the foreseeable future. However, South Korea (hereafter Korea), defied the dire predictions — becoming in less than a generation the quintessential developmental success story — and a model for other developing countries to emulate. With the exception of a relatively short-lived recession in 1979-80, Korea enjoyed continuous economic growth between 1960 and 1997. With the economy expanding at an annual rate of over 8%, Korea's per capita income grew to US$10,973 by mid-1997, earning it membership in the exclusive OCED (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) group of nations.2 Already the world's eleventh largest economy in 1996, Korea publicly stated its ambition to outperform Japan technologically in the new millennium. Indeed, as the world's largest supplier of computer memory chips, the second largest shipbuilder, the third largest producer of semiconductors, the fourth largest maker of electronics and the fifth largest automobile maker, Korea hardly made an idle boast in its ambition.
Political Geography:
Japan, South Korea, and Korea

64. The Role of U.S. Forces in a Unified Korea

Author:
Ralph A. Cossa
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The geopolitical landscape in East Asia has changed dramatically, and one would hope permanently, as a result of last year's sudden and largely unexpected thaw in North-South Korean relations. The appearance of North Korea's formerly reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, in the international spotlight through the much-heralded June 2000 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang and his high-profile meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing and Shanghai and with Russian President Putin in Pyongyang have resulted in a remaking of both the North Korean leader's and his nation's international image. As one senior U.S. official noted at the time, North Korea has gone, almost overnight, from the "hermit kingdom" to the "hyperactive kingdom."
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Shanghai, Beijing, East Asia, North Korea, and Korea

65. The Korean War after Fifty Years: Challenges for Peace and Prosperity

Author:
George H. Quester
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The Korean War, as a model for the possibilities of limited war which hovered in the background for the entire Cold War, has inevitably drawn conflicting interpretations. Now that the Cold War is over, now that a half-century has passed since the Korean War, we ought to be able to sort and evaluate these interpretations.
Political Geography:
Korea

66. The North Korean War Plan and the Opening Phase of the Korean War: A Documentary Study

Author:
Kwang-Soo Kim
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
No war in modern history is so obscure about its beginning as the Korean War. From the very first day of the war, both the North Korean and the South Korean governments accused the opponent of being guilty of an invasion. In the early morning of June 25, 1950, the North Korean government charged that the South Korean Army had made a surprise attack into its territory by 1-2 km across the 38th parallel at four points, the west of Haeju (Ongjin), the direction of Kumchon (Kaesong), the direction of Chorwon (Yonchon and Pochon), and Yangyang, and announced a counterattack to repulse the attack.1 The South Korean government announced on that day that the North Korean Army had invaded all along the 38th parallel at dawn. Based on the South Korean Army's reports, Ambassador Muccio reported to the U. S. government that the North Korean Army invaded the South by bombarding Ongjin around 4 o'clock in the morning and began to cross the 38th parallel at Ongjin, Kaesung, Chunchon, and the East Coast. In the United Nations, the U. S. government condemned the North Korean government for unlawfully invading South Korea and made a move to admonish North Korea to take back its army.
Political Geography:
United States, South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

67. The South Korean Military and the Korean War

Author:
Chang-Il Ohn
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
Immediately before the Japanese surrender in the Pacific War (1941-5), there was one Korea, though it had been under Japanese colonial rule for 36 years. The 38th parallel, which the American policymakers hastily picked out as the operational boundary between U.S. and Soviet troops in the Far East at the last stage of the Pacific War, divided one Korea into the two, North and South.1 Soviet troops occupied North Korea, Americans entered the South, and the two sides began military occupation in the two Koreas. The latitude, which Washington policymakers conceived to be a temporary line to halt the further southward advance of Soviet troops and thereby physically eliminate the possibility of Soviet participation in the Japanese occupation, and to facilitate the process of establishing a Korean government "in due course," however, began to embrace new political and military connotations. The two Koreas, even on a temporary basis, thus appeared. The status of and situations in the two Koreas were almost the same at the beginning of the military occupations. In both parts of Korea, people were very poor mainly because of the harsh Japanese mobilization for conducting the Pacific War. There were neither major factories, nor organized indigenous troops, nor influential political groups except the strong popular desire to establish a Korean government right away. Almost every well-informed Korean had a distinctive idea about the future of Korea and the nature of its government. As a result, "too many" political organizations and parties were formed, and, especially, the American military government judged that the Koreans were "too much" politicized. All in all, the situations in the two parts of Korea were almost identical as much as the status of being the occupied. The policies and strategies of the two occupiers—the United States and the Soviet Union—toward Korea, however, were different. Despite the wartime agreement with the United States that Korea should be independent "in due course," which meant that a Korean government should be established after the period of multinational trusteeship, the Soviet Union was not enthusiastic about the idea of multi-tutorship for Korea. Instead, the Soviet authority was busy in communizing the northern half of Korea, trying to make it a stronghold for securing the entire Korean peninsula. The Chief Soviet Delegate, Colonel General T. F. Shtykov, made it clear, at the Joint Commission convened in Seoul on March 20, 1946, that Korea should be "loyal to the Soviet Union, so that it will not become a base for an attack on the Soviet Union" in the future.2 This Soviet position was directly contrary to the primary objective of the United States in Korea, that is, "to prevent Russian domination of Korea."3 Unable to find a compromised solution on Korea through the Joint Commission, the United States internationalized the Korean issue by turning it over to the United Nations. The Soviet Union, however, did not accept the U.N. resolution that a Korean government would be established through holding a general election throughout Korea, and the Soviet authority in North Korea rejected the entry of U.N. representatives. As a result, the two Korean governments were created, one in the South blessed by the United Nations and the other in the North brewed by the Soviet Union, in August and September 1948 respectively.
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Washington, South Korea, North Korea, Soviet Union, and Korea

68. American Strategy and the Korean Peninsula, 1945-1953

Author:
William Stueck
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
"By strategy," John Lewis Gaddis wrote in his seminal book Strategies of Containment, "I mean quite simply the process by which ends are related to means, intentions to capabilities, objectives to resources."1 My intention here is to employ this definition in examining the American course in Korea from the origin of the war there in the country's division in 1945 to the aftermath of fighting in 1953. My approach is to analyze a series of key US decisions, from the one to divide the peninsula at the 38th parallel in August 1945 to the ones to conclude a military pact with the Republic of Korea and to issue a "greater sanctions" statement immediately following an armistice in July 1953. My argument is that it took a destructive war before US policymakers successfully matched ends and means in Korea in a manner that ensured future stability. Unfortunately, though, that congruence also ensured indefinite division.
Political Geography:
United States, America, Korea, and Korean Peninsula

69. The Impact of the Korean War on the Korean Economy

Author:
Jong Won Lee
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The three-year long Korean War (June 25, 1950 - July 27, 1953) devastated both South and North Korean economies. It broke out when the two Koreas barely managed to maintain socio-economic stability and restore pre-WWII industry production capability to some extent. The distorted and exploited economy by Imperial Japan was demolished by the brutal war. It started out as the appearance of a civil war, but in effect was carried out as an international war. Thus, it was a severe and hard-fought one between UN forces (including South Korea and 16 other nations) and North Korea and its allies (China and USSR). Although it took place in a small country in Far-Eastern Asia, it developed into a crash between world powers, East and West, and left treacherous and incurable wounds to both Koreas. Nearly four million people were presumed dead, and much worse were the property and industrial facility damages.1 Its impact on the Korean economy was so immense that consequential economic systems and policies re-framed the course of economic development in the following years. In spite of such enormous impacts of the Korean war on the economy, few studies exist. Of those that do, most are centered around describing or estimating war-related damages, while some focus on the long-term effects of US aid on the Korean economy.
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, East Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

70. Theorizing The Untheorizable: The Korean War and Its Impact on Korean Politics

Author:
Thong Whan Park
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
Like all major wars of attrition, the Korean War brought devastation to the natural and human landscapes of the entire Korean peninsula. Not only did the individuals suffer, but also the social fabric that had held the nation together was irreparably damaged. Not exempt from the ravages of the war, politics also had to undergo transition. It hence makes sense to ask the question of what impact the war made on Korean politics. Seen from a short-term perspective, the war forced each side to taste the governing style of the opposite side—albeit with a strong military touch in both. During the first three months of the war, for instance, the South was occupied by the northern forces and ruled in "people's democracy." In the subsequent few months of northward march after the Inchon landing, the allied forces controlled the restored areas under "liberal democracy." In the period immediately following the 1953 armistice, the politics of each Korea saw post-war adjustments, the most pronounced of which was the bloody purge in the North of potential challengers to Kim II Sung.
Political Geography:
Korea and Korean Peninsula