Gyuyeon Kwon World History 10 Robert Givich Oct 25, 2015 Imperialism in South Korea Is it possible to say that Japan gave Korea some advantages during Japanese colonial rule? From 1910 to 1945, Korea was under Japanese rule, and it is often said that “Japanese colonial rule was a deeply ambivalent experience for Koreans”(CENTURY). Moreover, some people might think Japan definitely gave some positive effects to Korea, because Korea in nowadays is developed after undergoing Japanese colonial era. However, it is hard to determine Japan helped Korea to develop thanks to their invasion and practices. The reason why it is not completely proper to say Korea was supported by Japan is, even though Korea became advanced and modernized, they were terribly
Korean went from a mostly agricultural economy to one that had free markets and an economy that was becoming rapidly industrialized by the day. The reason that Japan was successful at this was in part due to the policies introduced by Kazushige Ugaki and also because Japan needed the raw materials that Korea would provide. Because Japan had industrialized and modernized Korea so much, by the time 1940 was over, Korea was the second most industrialized country in all of Asia, second only to Japan. Today, the effects of Japan’s occupation of Korea are prevalent. Korea has the 4th largest economy in Asia, 11th in the world, and leads in industries such as electronics and
To many people, the Korean War was considered to be the fight between the two sides of the country: North and South, which started due to the fact that North Korean leader at the time, Kim Il Sung, wanted to influence South Korea, and make it a communist country. But these two sides were not the only ones fighting in this conflict, two communist countries and a capitalist country were also involved in the warfare. It is safe to say that communism played a huge role in the Korean War because of the Soviet Union’s influence on the North, making the area full of communism, and the fact that it was the reason why the U.S. decided to intervene the moment North Korea attacked the South. For instance, the north side of Korea became communist shortly
Firstly the Korean War was a Cold War conflict was the manifestation of the Cold war through a proxy. This moved the rivalry of the superpowers , fighting from Europe to Asia, and became a direct conflict. Syngman Rhee (South Korea) under USA’s support, was a strategist who claimed to “produce a victorious end to the wars in Korea … would swing the balance of power so strongly against the Soviet Union that it would not dare risk war with the United States”. Kim Il Sung (North Korea) was emboldened by both China and USSR and said “the liberation of the Korean people in the south is next in line”. It would seem that North Korea had plans to unify Korea and USSR supported the unification.
Nowadays, many of the characteristics of both the Korean and Japanese cultures are traced back to Chinese influences. China was seen as a model society by growing nations because of large size and historic success in all sectors of the country. China played a crucial role in the maturity of Japan and Korea since they were able to advance both culturally and politically. In most cases, the cultural interworking’s of the three countries are
One of the major reasons which lead to the failure of the attempt to reunify Korea was some external influence which came from some other countries who feared that the reunification of Korea would result in a very strong economy which would outdo theirs. There have been several other attempts to reunite Korea but these attempts have always failed due to some external influence which emanates from some other countries. One of the countries which have been playing great roles to hinder the reunification of Korea in the fear that their economy might be overtaken if Korea reunites is China which is enjoying a very good economy in Asia (Hao and Qubing, 1992). China is a great supporter of North Korea but does not support the idea of reunification between North and South Korea as the reunification would offer a great competition in terms of the economy which will automatically lower the economy of China significantly. Another major reason which has been making China oppose the reunification of Korea is the fact that China values the buffer role which is played by North Korea and the United States (Tang,
Unlike Korea, Japan at this point has been heavily modernized and really started viewing and embracing western ideals as practical, applying it to their nation as a whole. Already holding negative views toward the west, and by signing a treaty with Japan who is a nation that has embraced their ideals and way of life is distressing to Ikhyon. It is no better than creating relationships with the western nations that Korea has isolated themselves from for so long. Viewing from this perspective, it would allow the Japanese to eventually have power over Korean society. Their western-taught ways could heavily affect many Koreans, especially through their products, and possibly other western things such as religion could leak in.
Thinking of a country, limiting and separating itself from the others, living in its own bubble may seem too mainstream and unrealistic. Shockingly, this country exists and keeps its presents in East Asia: North Korea. Since the ancient times, numerous compelling kingdoms occupied Korea, including China. In the late nineteenth century, Korea declared its independence and created the Korean Empire, which lasted until Japan had dominated the countries economical actions and mutated its culture in 1910. After the World War 2, Korea experienced a schism, which resulted with two hostile countries: North and South Korea.
Recognizing the danger that North Korea and its neighboring country China represented to South Korea the United States kept a tradition that had been going since 1944 and kept over 100,000 of its soldiers on the Korean peninsula. Many believe this led to Korea getting a larger taste of the western culture which is now part of current Korean culture. This also helped give a needed boost to Korean economy as establishments were built up around military bases to provide additional food and entertainment to the many soldiers stationed there. While that number has dwindled over time, the benefits have only increased for both nations. South Korea has benefitted from the sharing of military technology, especially in its air defense program, which now boasts the United States PATRIOT missile technology in response to the growing number of Theatre Ballistic Missiles (TBM) North Korea has developed.
Regardless, there ensued a civil war in Korea. The Korean war can be regarded as civil war because not very long ago Korea was one political entity and both North Korea and South Korea considered the Korean peninsula to be under one authority and wanted unification of Korea. However the extent of military force employed by North Korea soon made it clear that it was a full scale military attack on South Korea. Americans had not heavily armed the South Koreans because, as NCS-68 document points out, Eastern part of Asia was of leeser concern to United States and to some extent they realized the obsession of Rhee to unify Korea could make him take military action if provided with enough resources. It was imperative from the perspective of United States to counter this aggression because it was highly unlikely for North Korea to have acted without the support of its Allies, namely, PRC and USSR.