Korea: Into the Modern: Part Two

Part Two: Into the Modern: the Korean War and other events…

Korea remained isolated throughout most of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries. The Choson Dynasty looked towards China and the Manchus were Korea’s main contact in terms of trade and diplomacy. The West was aware of “The Hermit Kingdom” and was intensely curious. France and the United States attempted naval probes or expeditions during the 1860”s. Both of these were driven off by the Koreans. The US was exhausted by the Civil War and for a time, turned away. Christian missionaries entered Korea. The Koreans were animists, Buddhists and Confucians. They did not, at first take kindly to the new religion. There were multiple incidents in which missionaries were captured, killed and/or driven out of the country. In the end it was various Presbyterian-Protestant denominations that succeeded in Korea. Today, the religious demographic of Korea is roughly one third Buddhist, one third Christian, one third local animist with a general Confucian overlay. It may come as a surprise to some Westerners that these groups get along quite well with each other. They practice religious tolerance. The social fault lines today have more to do with the modern vs. the ancient, class or wealth, loyalties to local areas and internal politics.

The rise of Japan after the Mejii Restoration is crucial to Korean History. In 1895 Japan defeated the tottering Manchu Dynasty in a clash that had a great deal to do with access to Manchuria. China’s influence on Korea waned. This hastened the fall of the Manchus and in turn, led in part to the rise of the Republic of China. The Russo/Japanese War of 1904-05 proved to have enormous ramifications for Korea and the world. The Japanese soundly thrashed the Russian Czar’s Pacific and Baltic Fleets. The Baltic Fleet actually steamed around the world only to lose a second series of naval battles. The fighting on land was inconclusive yet Japan was the clear overall victor in this conflict. The West was shocked to see the unexpected, rapid rise of a “yellow” Asian power. President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of State William Howard Taft brought the Japanese and Russians to the negotiating table. Peace was made. Roosevelt won the Noble Peace Prize. The Russian officer corps was left humiliated and angry by this loss; a bitter future fruit as Czarist Russia stumbled towards Communist revolution. The salient point here is that; Japan was given a “free-hand” or “sphere of influence” in Korea. Japan began to put diplomatic, political and economic pressure on the Korean government. As the Choson Dynasty continued to weaken the Japanese took advantage. In essence, Japan controlled the Korean throne and those among the Korean royalty who resisted were eliminated. By 1910 Korea was a colony of Imperial Japan. This year also marked the end of the Choson Dynasty and the fall of the last Korean Empress is still remembered with deep sadness by Koreans.

Whether the Koreans wanted it, liked it or not; Japan pushed Korea into the modern age. The Korean language, “Hangul” was banned in schools as the rigid Japanese education system imposed. Korea was industrialized, electrified and generally modernized. It became a classic colonial relationship. Korea supplied labor and raw materials to Japan. Japan was in a very expansive and imperialistic mood. Korea became the ideal base as Japan sought to enter China. The Second World War actually started when Japan and China began hostilities over Manchurian railway rights in 1931 (the same year that fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia). Japan invaded China. China dissolved as the Nationalist government dithered. Jiang Jieshi, the recalcitrant President of the Republic of China appeared to dread a rising Communist insurgency led by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai more that he feared Japan. It did not help matters that warlords controlled vast areas of China. Neither did it help that Fascism was gaining ground in Europe during the 1930”s. Nazi Germany began to grab territory with aggressive, bullying diplomacy and military action. Europe and the United States were thus badly distracted in terms of events in Asia. A pattern began to develop that lasted throughout World War Two until 1949 when the Communists won, thus creating The People’s Republic of China. The administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to aid the Chinese and to prod Jiang to make greater efforts against the Japanese. President Jiang usually threw more energy, money and materiel against the Communists than the Japanese to the immense frustration of the Americans. Relations between Japan and the United States deteriorated. Roosevelt wanted Japan out of China. Japan held deep resentments towards the US in terms of past American racism towards Asians. The Roosevelt administration began to cut off supplies of steel and oil to Japan. Japan acted. Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was attacked on December 7^th, 1941.

The Japanese called World War Two, “The Pacific War” and “The Fifteen Year War” because, for them, it was fought in the Pacific and lasted 15 years. Their great Harvard educated Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto accurately predicted the course of World War Two in the Pacific. He knew that Japan would have about one year to rampage around Pacific Asia before the overwhelming military and economic might of the United States changed the equation. Japanese armies swept through China and South-East Asia. The French and British suffered the loss of their colonial empires in Asia. The English Pacific fleet was lost as was the great bastion of Singapore. The Philippines fell. Japanese carrier groups ventured into the Bay of Bengal and probed the Indian coast. Pearl Harbor was wrecked. Unfortunately from the Japanese point of view; the US carrier fleet, submarine pens and oil depots survived the attack. The turning point did not come until the Battle of Midway in 1942 when the Imperial Navy lost four first class aircraft carriers. What followed was three more years of horrible carnage as the Allies slogged their way towards the Japanese Home Islands. The purpose of this huge “island hopping” campaign was to gain bases for air assaults against Japan.

The Japanese propaganda term for their conquest of Asia was “The Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. The rally cry was, “Asia for the Asians”. This does not sound unreasonable at first until we recall that the Japanese held racist views about other peoples in Asia. They believed themselves superior, their Emperor to be divine and they sought dominance. These attitudes were evident in Korea.  Korean industrial and agricultural production was used to supply the Japanese war effort. Korean men found themselves fighting for Japan “in foreign fields”. Korean women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. A special currency was printed for the “cost” of these liaisons with the Korean, “comfort women”. The term “comfort women” is one of those infamous, banal euphemisms or phrases for human evil, much like “The Joy Division”, “The New Order”, “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, “the Peculiar Institution”, “Death to the Infidels!”, “Ethnic Cleansing” or “Shock and Awe”. Japan has never fully apologized for this forced prostitution of Korean women and other atrocities in Asia during the war. The “deepest regrets” are expressed and payments have been made. Of course the losers in war must generally apologize; the victors almost never and there are legal/financial reasons to avoid such statements. The remembrance of these acts stand in silent eloquence for themselves; war is an immoral business.

There was little or no fighting in Korea during the Pacific War. I have often wondered what might have happened if the United States had attempted landings in Korea during the war? The Koreans may have risen and tried to throw the Japanese out themselves. The slaughterhouses of Iwo Jima and Okinawa might have been avoided. Korea is certainly near to Japan, thus making it a perfect base for the bombing of Japan. What happened later with the Communists could have been averted. Yet, a historian’s duty is to write about and try to analyze what actually happened. To do otherwise is to create science-fiction no matter how interesting it may be. Nevertheless; the Japanese assaults during the war served to remove or weaken much of European and American influence in Asia (colonies) even in recalcitrant defeat.

When atomic bombs fell on Nagasaki and Hiroshima Korea was still occupied by Japanese forces. American soldiers peacefully landed in Korea to the great joy of the Koreans. This happy period proved to all too brief due to a series of inter-acting events. Russian troops were deeply involved in Manchuria as they toppled the Japanese puppet dynasty of Manchuko. The American commanders on the scene contacted the State Department for instructions. Basically stated, the question was; “What is the plan for Korea?” As it turned out there was no plan. In a somewhat frantic scramble John Forster Dulles and other State Department officials called for maps of Korea and sought information on the country. In the meantime, Soviet forces entered the North of Korea. This led to yet another complicated and confusing period in Korean History. Because the country was “free” political parties on the right and left arose. These groups had survived under the surface during the Japanese occupation. The US tended to support the rightists and the USSR the leftists. Attempts to hold nation-wide unity elections failed. The situation devolved; the South was rapidly becoming a client of the United States while the North was backed by the Russians and the PRC. The Communists in the North began purges of people who had collaborated with Japan or those who held liberal democratic views. Matters worsened further when a leftist rebellion flared in the far south of South Korea. This revolt was brutally smashed by the southerners with some help from the US. The South accused the North of backing the uprising. Premier Stalin of the Soviet Union pulled his forces out in 1948. Nevertheless, at this point, a divided Korea was a fact. The United Nations stepped in to sponsor democratic elections in the South. In essence this was de-facto recognition of reality. Korea was partitioned along the 38^th Parallel. South Korea developed in to a rightist, pseudo-democratic military regime under President Rhee Syngman. The North became a ruthless Stalinist style dictatorship under the rule of Kim Il Sung.  Tragedy continued to lurk in the wings for Korea.

The Korean War started on June 26^th, 1950 when North Korea launched a huge invasion of the South. Some leftist American historians, including I.F. Stone believe that President Rhee may have provoked this with minor raids against the North in the hopes of gaining increased US military assistance. There is no question that the North had prepared in advance. The bulk of American forces in Asia were engaged in the occupation of Japan under General Douglas MacArthur. The Japanese made a 180 degree turn in their attitude once Emperor Hirohito had told them that the “Pacific War” was lost. Occupation duty was easy in Japan because the Japanese cooperated and absorbed American culture with enthusiasm. North Korea was in no mood to make things easy or cooperate.

MacArthur began to pour his unprepared soldiers into Korea. President Harry S. Truman took the matter to the United Nations. The ensuing series of battles proved to be the worst string of defeats for the United States since the halcyon days of the Southern Confederacy. Constantly retreating; the US and South Korean armies were driven down the length of the peninsula. As supplies and reinforcements arrived they managed to rally and create “The Busan Perimeter” around the southern seaport of Busan. The Soviet Union then made one of the greatest diplomatic mistakes in history. They chose to boycott the Security Council meeting on Korea. This allowed President Truman to get what he needed, a UN resolution for the use of force to save South Korea. The “UN” forces were the United States, South Korea and various nations from the British Commonwealth. President Jiang of The Republic of China, after losing to the Communists in 1949 was now bottled up in Taiwan. He offered to enter the war on the UN side. Truman and his advisors knowing this would be a guaranteed way to completely infuriate China wisely declined the offer. India; the leader of “The Non-Aligned Nations” actively worked throughout the war to find a way to stop the fighting. These efforts went nowhere; although they did become useful after the war in terms of prisoner exchanges.

There are some personal relationships that were crucial to the eventual outcome of the Korean War. First; it is most interesting that Kim Il Sung managed to get tacit approval and combat forces from both Russia and China. Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong were not fond of each other. Both men were adept at calculating the odds and evaluating the threat. Neither wanted a free, Western leaning and unified Korea on their borders. In the end, a chance to give the Americans a sound beating in Asia proved to be irresistible. The other crucial factor was the problematic relationship between President Truman and General MacArthur. Truman’s goals were to save South Korea and avoid nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Truman’s thinking resonated with liberal diplomat George F. Kennan’s Cold War concept of “containment” of the USSR. However, it also introduced the troubling, controversial idea of “limited war” into the lexicon. MacArthur wanted to eliminate North Korea and free all the Korean people. He was willing to push military matters and political matters to the brink to attain this. He publicly squabbled with the president, made noises about running for the presidency as a Republican, wrote letters to Congressmen that ended up in the press and aggressively prosecuted the war.

MacArthur was an aging yet brilliant commander. Later in 1950 he devised the famous landing at Inchon, a port city on the Western side of South Korea. Because Inchon has strong tides and steep beaches this move was considered impossible by military strategists. MacArthur proved the experts wrong. A naval task force led by the battleship Missouri (ironically, Truman’s home state) distracted the North Koreans with bombardments on their West coast. The landing surprised the North Koreans leaving the Americans behind or north of the forces besieging Busan. The North Korean invasion dissolved and their armies fled to the North constantly harried by the US Air Force. MacArthur and the UN forces pushed them hard to the point where a very thin slice of North Korea clung to the Chinese border along the Yalu River. At this point a severe case of hubris afflicted General MacArthur while the harsh Korean winter savaged his strung out armies. The mountainous geography of Korea split the UN forces as they fought their way up valleys. MacArthur began to receive troubling intelligence reports that he tended to dismiss. To paraphrase; the reports stated, “Sir, we are capturing Chinese troops.”, and, “Sir, we are over-running airbases that have been out-fitted for Soviet MiG fighters.” MacArthur began to talk about nuclear weapons and crossing the Yalu into China. Mao played his card and sent hundreds of thousands of PRC troops crashing into the Americans. The conflict was now a world war. The United States, the United Nations in the form of the British Commonwealth and South Korea now faced Communist China, the Red (Soviet) Air Force and North Korea.

The American reeled under the enormous Chinese assault, attempted to rally but were forced into ruinous retreats. They did manage to inflict tremendous amounts of casualties on the onrushing Chinese. Truman and MacArthur resumed their argument. The two leaders met at Wake Island to temporarily patch up their differences and discuss strategy. The war ground on and settled into a stalemate in the vicinity of the original line, the 38^th Parallel. The Korean people experienced endless horrors for three main reasons. First, when a particular city changed hands in the ebb and flow of war; individuals were questioned as to their loyalties by either the Communists or the rightist South Koreans. These unfortunates were put in impossible, unexplainable positions and suffered the consequences. Secondly, the United States Air Force bombed and napalmed everything that moved in the combat zones. The ruins were bombed into rubble and the rubble was bombed into dust. Third, prolonged war increases the bitterness between the clashing forces. Therefore, the Koreans were subject to atrocities and bad behavior by the troops of all sides. There is some evidence that indicates that the Americans were greatly feared by the Korean people.

President Truman sacked MacArthur and replaced him with General Matthew Ridgeway. The fighting continued in to 1953 as Ridgeway managed to improve the morale of the battered American infantry and stabilize the front while continuing to fight for debatable reasons to some observers. MacArthur returned to the US and gave his famed, “…..old soldiers never die, they just fade away”, speech to Congress. Ridgeway and the Truman administration opened up negotiations with the North Koreans. The North Koreans proved to be tough bargainers; an attribute they retain to this day. An armistice was proclaimed in 1953. Over one million Koreans were killed, 53,000 US personnel died, thousands of UN troops may be added to the toll along with tens of thousands (at least) of Chinese soldiers. The first modern Korean Civil War was over in a most inconclusive manner. I do not wish to see another, ever.

South Korea survived and actually gained a few thousand yards along the border in some areas. North Korea survived with the satisfaction of actually fighting the Americans to a draw enshrined in their collective consciousness. China and Russia failed to eliminate South Korea while the West failed to eliminate North Korea. Some historians believe that this war may have released Cold War tensions. If so; the Korean people paid the price for all of us in their blood as the world just barely avoided World War III. An armistice is a cease fire; we are still technically at war with North Korea. We know the North Koreans are tough. We know the South Koreans are our friends because they have proved this through Vietnam and Iraq II.  The North Koreans for all of their apparent craziness are most cunning. They know that the United States is aggressively distracted in Iraq and Afghanistan at this historical moment. The best hope for a positive outcome lies within the natural impulse of the Koreans to someday, finally be one united Korean nation again. This desire should be encouraged carefully and pragmatically.