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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 17KB | 329 lines

<text> <title> Korea, North: History </title> <article> <hdr> Background Notes: Korea, North History </hdr> <body> According to legend, the god-king Tangun founded the Korean nation in 2333 B.C., after which his descendants reigned over a peaceful Kingdom for more than a millennium. By the first century A.D., the Korean Peninsula, known as Chosun ("morning calm"), was divided into the kingdoms of Silla, Koguryo, and Paekche. In A.D. 668, the Silla kingdom unified the peninsula. The Koryo dynasty (from which derived the Western name "Korea") succeeded the Silla kingdom in 918. The Yi dynasty, which supplanted Koryo in 1392, lasted until the Japanese annexed Korea in 1910. Throughout most of its history, Korea has been invaded, influenced, and fought over by larger neighbors. Korea was under Mongolian occupation from 1231 until the early 14th century and was devastated by a large number of Chinese rebel armies in 1359 and 1361; Hideyoshi launched major Japanese invasions in 1592 and 1597. To protect themselves from such frequent buffeting, the Yi kings finally adopted a closed-door policy, earning Korea the title of "Hermit Kingdom." Although the Yi dynasty paid nominal fealty to the Chinese throne, Korea was, in fact, independent until the late 19th century. At that time, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian competition in Northeast Asia led to armed conflict. Having defeated its two competitors, Japan established dominance in Korea. The Japanese colonial era was characterized by tight control by Tokyo and by ruthless efforts to replace the Korean language and culture with those of the colonial power. Japan formally annexed Korea in 1910. At the April 1945 Yalta Conference, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to establish a joint trusteeship for Korea. The trusteeship was intended as a temporary administrative measure, pending democratic elections of a Korean Government. To effect the Japanese surrender after the war the United States proposed--and the Soviet Union agreed--that Japanese forces surrender to U.S. forces south of the 38th parallel and to Soviet forces north of that line. In the North, the Soviets initially transferred the administrative powers of the former Japanese colonial government to "people's committees," and later to a five-province administrative bureau, under the nationalist, Cho Man-Sik. Cho was later purged for opposing the decision of allied foreign ministers at the Moscow Conference for a 5-year trusteeship, during which a Korean provincial government would prepare for full independence. The joint Soviet-American commission provided for by the Moscow Conference met intermittently in Seoul but deadlocked over the issue of free consultations with representatives of all Korean political groups for establishment of a national government. In September 1947, the United States submitted the Korean question to the UN General Assembly. Korean Conflict The Soviet Union and the Korean authorities in the North refused to comply with the UN General Assembly resolution of November 1947, which called for UN-supervised elections throughout Korea. Elections, nonetheless, were carried out under UN observations in the south, and on August 15, 1948, the Soviet Union established the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north under Kim Il Sung, a former guerrilla who, after fighting against the Japanese in Manchuria during the 1930s, served with the Soviet Army in the Far east during World War II. Although Kim claimed authority over the entire peninsula, the UN General Assembly, on December 12, 1948, declared the Republic of Korea the only lawful government in Korea. Sporadic guerrilla fighting between South and North Korea intensified during the spring of 1948. After the United States withdrew its military forces from Korea in the spring of 1949, border clashes commenced. On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. In response, the United Nations, in accordance with the terms of its Charter, engaged in its first collection action, establishing the UN Command (UNC), to which 167 member nations sent troops and assistance. At the request of the UN Secretary General, the United States, which contributed the largest contingent, led this international effort. UN forces initially fell back to the Pusan perimeter but, after a successful surprise landing at Inchon, rapidly advanced up the peninsula. As the main UN force approached the Yalu, large numbers of Chinese"people's volunteers" intervened, forcing UN troops to withdraw south of Seoul. The battle line fluctuated back and forth until the late spring of 1951, when a successful UNC offensive was halted to enhance ceasefire negotiation prospects. The battle line thereafter stabilized north of Seoul near the 38th parallel. Armistice negotiations began in July 1951, but hostilities continued until July 27, 1953. On that date, at Panmunjom, the military commanders of the North Korean People's Army, the Chinese people's volunteers, and the UNC signed an armistice agreement. Neither the United States nor South Korea is a signatory of the armistice per se, although both adhere to it through the UNC. No comprehensive peace agreements has replaced the 1953 armistice pact, which remains in force. Thus a condition of belligerency still exists on the divided peninsula. A Military Armistice Commission composed of 10 members, five appointed by each side, supervises implementation of the armistice. The armistice called for an international conference to find a political solution to the problem of Korean's division. This conference met at Geneva in April 1954 but, after 7 weeks of futile debate, ended without agreement or progress. Reunification Policy North Korea has pursued its goal of reunification by regular and irregular military measures, by terrorism, and by negotiations. Military Measures. North Korea took no military action during the political turmoil in the South in the early 1960s, but subsequently perpetrated a number of violent acts directed both at U.S. and South Korean forces and South Korean Government officials. These efforts included the 1968 infiltration into Seoul by a 31-agent team, which attempted to assassinate President Park Chung Hee; the seizure 2 days later of the U.S.S. Pueblo in international waters and the subsequent imprisonment and torture of its crew; and the shooting down in 1969 of an unarmed U.S. EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace. In 1976, North Korean troops wielding axes wrested from an UNC work party, killed two U.S. Army officers in the DMZ. In the early 1970s, as the North scaled back its sabotage and infiltration efforts against the South, it began a major long-term conventional military buildup. The extent of this buildup went undetected until the late 1970s. The disparity between the North and South Korean forces, which resulted from this military expansion, led the U.S. Government in mid-1970 to cancel further planned withdrawals of U.S. ground combat forces from South Korea. The comparative military balance continues to favor the North. The North has more than 1 million armed personnel, compared to about 630,000 in the South. North Korean forces are well equipped and have a substantial advantage (approximately 2 or 3 to 1) in several key categories of offensive weapons--tanks, long-range artillery, and armored personnel carriers. The North has perhaps the world's second (after the Soviet Union) largest commando force (55,000) designed for insertion behind the lines in wartime. North Korea now has the fifth largest army in the world. It also has more than twice as many combat aircraft as the South, although South Korean-U.S. forces have a slight qualitative edge. North Korean exercises suggest an impressive sophistication in terms of joint and combined forces operations. In ad