Have You Always Wondered?

Korea Explained

The Korean Peninsula. A place where it is 100% likely for a bomb to go off. Why? Because of the split Korea. Why is there a split Korea? And what happened to Korea? Well if you read the Japanese Power chapter you should know that in 1910 the Korean Peninsula was annexed by Imperial Japan because of the great tensions between Korea and Japan. The Japanese had control of Korea for 35 years until Japan adopted a new Constitution in 1945 after losing WW2, restricting invasion of other nations. And unlike most of the Japanese invaded land, Korea was split by the 39th Parallel by order of the United Nations. The Soviet Union controlled Northern Korea and the United States controlled Southern Korea. The reason the UN split Korea was to recover the Korean government from the invasion from Japan and to reunite Korea over time. In the South, Syngman Ree was elected and the Republic of Korea was established taking over for the U.S Military. In the North, the Soviets refused to give free elections and The "Democratic" People's Republic of Korea was established as Kim Il-Sung as the Supreme Leader, forming a Communist state. In 1950 the Soviet Union and the U.S withdrew from Korea. The Soviet Union and Communist China has heavily armed North Korea with weapons, tanks, aircrafts, a warships, and billions of dollars in funding. The Americans weren't really generous to South Korea, leaving them unequiped for a war. In 1950 (again), North Korea invaded South Korea and cornered the South Koreans. General McArthur and many U.S and S. Korean military officials knew that the North Koreans sent supplies to their troops across the 39th Parallel, which General McArthur thought he could exploit. The South and Americans had flanked the North Koreans and took the city of Seoul and eventually stopped the shipment of supplies. Over time, South Korea had 80% of the Korean Peninsula. Until Communist China, whom have been neutral pushed the South over the 39th Parallel and over time the control for Korea almost ended exactly how it started. In 1953 the Koreas signed an Armistice Agreement which ended the Korean War. Disclaimer an Armistice Agreement is NOT a Peace Treaty so technically the Korean War is still going. When the Koreas joined the United Nations, they both almost immediately unrecognized each other believe that one of the Koreas are the true Korea. Today S. Korea and N. Korea are completely different. South Korea is a Capitalist Economy with free rights and a population of 66,000,000 people. North Korea describes itself as a Socialist Republic but technically it abandoned it's Communist roots and became an isolated Totalitarian Dictatorship, with their people having almost no rights. While S. Korea has an estimated 1.2 trillion USD in GDP while N.Korea has 15 billion USD in GDP. Today many people across the globe fear of another Korean War and make fun of the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un. While Korea be unified again? Well we just have to wait and see.