35.3.5: A Divided Korea

Korean Demilitarized Zone

The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean People’s Army, and the Chinese People’s Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953 to end the Korean War fighting. The Armistice also called upon the governments of South Korea, North Korea, China, and the United States to participate in continued peace talks. The war is considered to have ended at this point although there was no peace treaty. North Korea nevertheless claims that it won the Korean War.

Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, United States, and Joint UN Commands. The Demilitarized Zone runs northeast of the 38th parallel and to the south, it travels west. It is a de facto border barrier that divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, running 160 miles long and about 2.5 miles wide. Within the Zone, there is a meeting-point between the two nations in the small Joint Security Area near the western end of the zone, where negotiations take place. There have been various incidents in and around the Zone, with military and civilian casualties on both sides.

A map of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, produced by the CIA in 1969. Relief shown by contours and spot heights. Depths shown by contours. Oriented with north toward the upper right. Owing to the theoretical stalemate (no peace treaty has been signed) and genuine hostility between the North and the South, large numbers of troops are still stationed along both sides of the line, each side guarding against potential aggression from the other side. The armistice agreement explains exactly how many military personnel and what kind of weapons are allowed in the DMZ. 

Social Landscape After the War

After the war, Operation Glory, which involved the effort to transfer the remains of United Nations Command casualties from North Korea, was conducted from July to November 1954 to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The remains of 4,167 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead and 546 civilians dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the South Korean government. From 4,167 containers of returned remains, forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944 were identified as American and all but 416 were identified by name.

There were numerous atrocities and massacres of civilians throughout the Korean War committed by both the North and South Koreans that impacted the social landscape after the war. Many of them started on the first days of the war. South Korean President Syngman Rhee ordered what would be known as the Bodo League massacre in June 1950, initiating the killing of more than 100,000 suspected leftist sympathizers and their families by South Korean officials and right-wing groups. In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia by executing academics, government officials, and religious leaders who might lead resistance against the North. When the North Koreans retreated north in September 1950, they abducted tens of thousands of South Korean men. The reasons are not clear, but the intention might have been to acquire skilled professionals .

Large numbers of people were displaced as a result of the war and many families were divided by the reconstituted border. In 2007, it was estimated that around 750,000 people remained separated from immediate family members, and family reunions have long been a diplomatic priority.

The exact number of South Korean POWs who were detained in North Korea after the war is unknown, as is the number who still survive in North Korea. In its report to the legislature in October 2007, the South Korean Ministry of Defense reported that “a total of 41,971 South Korean soldiers were missing during the Korean War. 8,726 were repatriated through POW exchanges after the Armistice of 1953. Some 13,836 have been determined to have been killed based on other information. To date, the status of 19,409 soldiers has not been confirmed. Most of these unconfirmed were believed to have been unrepatriated POWs. Other estimates of South Korean POWs held by the North Koreans at the Armistice have been higher. Yi Hang-gu, a writer and North Korea expert currently in South Korea who served in the Korean People’s Army, has testified that he commanded former South Korean POWs who had been enlisted into the Korean People’s Army during the Korean War. He has estimated the number of South Korean POWs who survived in North Korea at the end of the fighting at about 50,000-60,000. The South Korean government estimates that 560 South Korean POWs still survive in North Korea.

After the war, a large number of mixed-race “G.I. babies” (offspring of American and other UN soldiers and Korean women) were filling up the country’s orphanages. Because Korean traditional society places significant weight on paternal family ties, bloodlines, and purity of race, children of mixed race or those without fathers are not easily accepted in South Korean society. International adoption of Korean children began in 1954. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1952 legalized the naturalization of non-whites as American citizens and made possible the entry of military spouses and children from South Korea after the Korean War.

After the war, the Chinese forces left, but U.S. forces remained in the South. Sporadic conflict continued between North and South Korea. The opposing regimes aligned themselves with opposing sides in the Cold War. Both sides received recognition as the legitimate government of Korea from the opposing blocs. In 1953, the United States and South Korea signed a defense treaty and in 1958, the United States stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea. In 1961, North Korea signed mutual defense treaties with the USSR and China.

North Korea presented itself as a champion of orthodox Communism, distinct from the Soviet Union and China. The regime developed the doctrine of Juche or self-reliance, which included extreme military mobilization. In response to the threat of nuclear war, it constructed extensive facilities underground and in the mountains. The Pyongyang Metro opened in the 1970s with capacity to double as bomb shelter. Until the early 1970s, North Korea was economically the equal of the South.

Tensions between North and South escalated in the late 1960s with a series of low-level armed clashes known as the Korean DMZ Conflict. In 1968, North Korean commandos launched the Blue House Raid, an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee. Shortly after, the U.S. spy ship Pueblo was captured by the North Korean navy. In 1969, North Korea shot down a US EC-121 spy plane over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew on board, which constitutes the largest single loss of U.S. aircrew during the Cold War. In 1969, Korean Air Lines YS-11 was hijacked and flown to North Korea. Similarly, in 1970, the hijackers of Japan Airlines Flight 351 were given asylum in North Korea. In response to the Blue House Raid, the South Korean government set up a special unit to assassinate Kim Il-sung, but the mission was aborted in 1972. In 1974, a North Korean sympathizer attempted to assassinate President Park and killed his wife, Yuk Young-soo.

In the 1970s, both North and South began building up their military capacity. It was discovered that North Korea dug tunnels under the DMZ which could accommodate thousands of troops. Alarmed at the prospect of U.S. disengagement, South Korea began a secret nuclear weapons program which was strongly opposed by Washington. In 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter proposed the withdrawal of troops from South Korea. There was a widespread backlash in America and in South Korea and critics argued that this would allow the North to capture Seoul. Carter postponed the move and his successor Ronald Reagan reversed the policy, increasing troop numbers. After Reagan supplied the South with F-16 fighters and after Kim Il-sung visited Moscow in 1984, the USSR recommenced military aid and cooperation with the North.

Post-Cold War Relations

As the Cold War ended, North Korea lost the support of the Soviet Union and plunged into economic crisis. In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung initiated the Sunshine Policy, which aimed to foster better relations with the North. However, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush did not support the policy and in 2002 branded North Korea as a member of an “Axis of Evil.” The Sunshine Policy was formally abandoned by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak after his election in 2007. Meanwhile, in response to its increased isolation, North Korea redoubled its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. In 2006, North Korea announced it had successfully conducted its first nuclear test.

At the start of the 21st century, it was estimated that the concentration of firepower in the area between Pyongyang and Seoul was greater than that in central Europe during the Cold War. The North’s Korean People’s Army was numerically twice the size of South Korea’s military and had the capacity to devastate Seoul with artillery and missile bombardment. South Korea’s military, however, was assessed as technically superior. US forces remained in South Korea and carried out annual military exercises with South Korean forces. These have been routinely denounced by North Korea as acts of aggression. Between 1997 and 2016, the North Korea government accused other governments of declaring war against it 200 times. In 2013, amid tensions about its missile program, North Korea temporarily forced the shutdown of the jointly operated Kaesong Industrial Region The zone was shut again in 2016. In 2016, amid controversy, South Korea decided to deploy the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system. After North Korea’s fifth nuclear test in September 2016, it was reported that South Korea had developed a plan to raze Pyongyang if there were signs of an impending nuclear attack from the North.

The Korean Peninsula at night, shown in a 2012 composite photograph from NASA. According to a 2014 BBC World Service Poll, 3% of South Koreans view North Korea’s influence positively, with 91% expressing a negative view, making South Korea, after Japan, the country with the most negative feelings about North Korea in the world. However, a 2014 government funded survey found only 13% of South Koreans viewed North Korea as hostile and 58% of South Koreans believed North Korea was a country they should cooperate with. 

Attributions

• A Divided Korea
  • “Sunshine Policy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Policy. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Operation Glory.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Glory. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Korean conflict.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_conflict. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Division of Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Korea. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “North Korea–South Korea relations.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea%E2%80%93South_Korea_relations. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Bodo League massacre.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Korean War.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Korean Demilitarized Zone.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Korean War POWs detained in North Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War_POWs_detained_in_North_Korea. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “KoreaAtNight20121205_NASA.png.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KoreaAtNight20121205_NASA.png. Wikimedia Commons Public domain.
  • “Korea_demilitarized_zone_map_-_1969.jpg.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone#/media/File:Korea_demilitarized_zone_map_-_1969.jpg. Wikipedia Public domain.