Korea in the 20th century
Turmoil and uncertainty were dominant motifs in East Asia during the post–WWII era. Although
caught up in World War II to a lesser degrees, Korea was embroiled in civil war that prolonged the
wartime destruction for many years.
Intervention and War
Korea's postwar adjustment period was troubled, perhaps even more so than China’s. The leaders
of the great Allied powers during World War II had agreed in principle that Korea should be
restored as an independent state. But the United States' eagerness to obtain Soviet help against
Japan resulted in Soviet occupation of the northern part of the peninsula. As the Cold War intensified, American and Soviet authorities could not agree on unification of the zones, and in 1948 the
United States sponsored a Republic of Korea in the south, matched by a Soviet-dominated
People's Democratic Republic of Korea in the north. North Korea's regime drew on an earlier
Korean Communist party founded in exile in the 1900s. North Korea quickly became a communist
state with a Stalinist-type emphasis on the power of the leader, Kim Il-Sung, until his death in 1994.
The South Korean regime, bolstered by an ongoing American military presence, was headed by
nationalist Syngman Rhee. Rhee's South Korea developed institutions that were parliamentary in
form but maintained a strongly authoritarian tone.
In June 1950, North Korean forces attacked South Korea, hoping to impose unification on their
own terms. The United States reacted quickly. In an extension of the Cold War, President Truman
insisted on preventing the spread of communism, and he orchestrated U.S. intervention in support
of South Korea. In the resulting Korean War, South Korean and the United States forces pushed
North Korea back, driving on toward the Chinese border. This action roused Chinese concern and
brought communist China in the war on behalf of North Korea. Sending U.S.-led forces back to
south, the front finally stabilized in 1952 near the original north–south border. The stalemate
dragged on until 1953, when a new American administration was able to agree to an armistice.
Korea remains divided today between the communist North and capitalist South continuing its dual
pattern of development. North Korea produced an unusually isolated version of one-man rule as
Kim Il-Sung concentrated his powers over the only legal political party, the military, and the
government. Under such rigid communism and isolation, North Korean economic development
lagged far behind global standards, particularly as South Korea saw rapid growth. Today, North
Korea is one of the world's most centrally directed and least open economies, which faces chronic
economic problems of shortages in such necessities as food, farm tools, and car parts. The
emphasis on large-scale military spending has consistently diverted funds from industry, which has
led to decades of stagnation. Frequent weather-related crop failures had aggravated shortages by
adding widespread starvation. As a result of rigid communist leadership, the North Korean
population has continued to suffer from prolonged malnutrition and poor living conditions.
South Korea
Following the Korean War, South Korea became the most obvious example of economic growth
outside of Japan. On the still divided Korean peninsula, tensions between the two Koreas
continued to run high, with many border clashes and sabotage, but outright warfare was avoided.
South Korea and the United States concluded a mutual defense treaty in 1954, and the United
States poured economic aid into the country. Seeking stability, the political tenor of South Korea
continued to be authoritarian; however, economic change began to gain ground ushering in a new
phase of activity and international impact.
The Korean government rested normally in the hands of a political strongman, usually from army
ranks. Syngman Rhee was forced out of office by student demonstrations in 1960; a year later, in
1961 army officers took over effective rule of the country, although sometimes a civilian government
served as a front. Intense student protest, backed by wider popular support, pressed the military
from power at the end of the 1980s, but the ensuing election did not clearly change the political
situation. Conservative elected officials restricted opposition activity, but as in postwar Japan, the
South Korean government placed its primary emphasis on economic growth. Huge industrial firms
were created by a combination of government aid and active entrepreneurship. By the 1970s, when
growth rates in Korea began to match those of Japan, Korea was competing successfully in the
area of cheap consumer goods, as well as in steel and automobiles, in a variety of international
markets. In steel, Korea's surge—based on the most up-to-date technology, a skilled engineering
sector, and low wages—pushed past Japan's. The same held true in textiles, where Korean growth
(along with that of Taiwan) erased almost one-third of the jobs held in the industry in Japan.
Huge industrial groups such as Daewoo and Hyundai resembled the great Japanese holding companies before and after World War II and wielded great political influence. For example, Hyundai
was the creation of entrepreneur Chung Ju Yung, a modern folk hero who walked 150 miles to
Seoul, South Korea's capital, from his native village to take his first job as a day laborer at age 16.
By the 1980s, when Chung was in his 60s, his firm had 135,000 employees and 42 overseas
offices throughout the world. Hyundai virtually governed Korea's southeastern coast. It built ships,
including petroleum supertankers; it built thousands of housing units sold to low-paid workers at
below-market rates; it built schools, a technical college, and an arena for the practice of the
traditional Korean martial art Tae Kwon Do. With their lives carefully provided for, Hyundai workers
responded in kind, putting in six-day weeks with three vacation days per year and participating in
almost worshipful ceremonies when a fleet of cars was shipped abroad or a new tanker launched.
South Korea's rapid entry into the ranks of newly industrialized countries produced a host of more
general changes. The population soared. By the 1980s more than 40 million people lived in a
nation about the size of the state of Indiana, producing one of the highest population densities on
earth: about 1000 people per square mile. This was one reason, even amid growing prosperity,
why many Koreans emigrated. The government gradually began to encourage couples to limit their
birth rates. Seoul expanded to embrace 9 million people; it developed intense air pollution and a
hothouse atmosphere of deals and business maneuvers. Per capita income grew despite the
population increase, rising almost 10 times from the early 1950s to the early 1980s, but to a level
still only one-ninth that of Japan. Huge fortunes coexisted with widespread poverty in this setting,
although the poor were better off than those of less developed nations.