U.S.-Republic of Korea Mutual Defense Treaty

U.S.-Republic of Korea Mutual Defense Treaty

The U.S.-Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) Mutual Defense Treaty was signed October 1, 1953, and became effective in 1954. It committed the United States to the defense of the ROK against future attacks by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). In early 1953, as the Korean War armistice talks opened, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower sought a way to convince ROK president Syngman Rhee to accept a truce with DPRK.

Rhee, who had insisted that no truce short of military reunification of the two Koreas would suffice, balked at the U.S. demand that he sign an armistice with DPRK. Rhee flatly rejected any agreement that would allow the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (Chinese Communists) to remain in Korea following a ceasefire because he maintained that such an agreement would be tantamount to ROK’s signing its own death warrant.

Despite Eisenhower’s assurances that the United States would pursue all peaceful means of reunification, and offers to enter a mutual security pact with the ROK, Rhee sought a mutual defense treaty with the United States as a precondition for any armistice.


Rhee’s unilateral release of 25,000 DPRK prisoners of war on June 25, 1953, complicated negotiations and increased pressure on the United States to bring the ROK leader to agree to an armistice. To that end, Eisenhower sent Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robinson to offer Rhee a mutual security pact and promised economic incentives in return for Rhee’s agreement.

The Robinson mission was successful, and when Rhee did not stand in the way of the armistice, which was signed on July 27, 1953, the two countries set about crafting the bilateral treaty.

On August 8, 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles initiated negotiations that culminated in a treaty of six articles, based on the model of existing treaties between the United States and the Philippines, and the United States and Australia and New Zealand.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization model was rejected because it would have given the president the authority to consider an external attack on ROK as an attack on American territory.

Seeking to limit its commitment and to contain its ally, the United States defined its responsibilities as extending only to territory under ROK control at the time the treaty was signed or subsequently recognized as lawfully incorporated into the ROK. During the ratification debates in the U.S. Senate a note of understanding was added to the treaty clarifying the U.S. position that the mutual defense agreement extended only to attacks from external forces.

It received ratification on January 26, 1954, and the president accepted the Senate’s recommendations on February 5, 1954, subject to the agreement on the limitation of commitment. ROK agreed to the change, and the treaty came into effect when ratification documents were exchanged in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1954. The treaty remains in effect, and U.S. forces remain stationed in the ROK.

Syngman Rhee

Syngman Rhee was the controversial, strongly anticommunist, and increasingly authoritarian first president of South Korea, serving from April 1948 until April 1960.

He gained office through a popular election in 1948, led South Korea through the Korean War, and was reelected twice, although not without controversy, before being forced from office in the wake of the fraudulent 1960 election.

Born in Hwanghae Province on March 26, 1875, Rhee—also known as Yi Sung-man—labored passionately to create a modern, independent Korea. Having studied the Chinese classics and repeatedly failed the civil service examinations, Rhee enrolled in and eventually taught at a Western-style school run by U.S. Methodists.

In 1896 he helped found the Independence Club, a Western-leaning nationalist organization hoping to fend off the growing interventions by Japan, Russia, and China in Korean affairs.


Weary of his proposed reforms, the conservative Korean government imprisoned Rhee for seven years, during which time he was tortured and also converted to Christianity, which he considered "the religion of liberty".

Freed in 1904, Rhee traveled to the United States to petition U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt to help Koreans oppose expanded Japanese influence. This effort failed, and Japan increased its control and formally annexed Korea in 1910. Rhee stayed on in the United States, where he earned a B.A. from George Washington University in 1907, an M.A. from Harvard in 1908, and a Ph.D. in theology from Princeton in 1910.

He returned to Korea in 1910 as chief Korean secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association in Seoul. A year later he was forced into exile because of his organizing against Japanese rule.

He would spend the next 33 years in Hawaii and Washington, D.C., where he would continue working on behalf of a modern, independent Korea. In 1920 he became the first president of the exiled Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. His main strategy was to build support for Korea in the international community, particularly the United States.

After defeating the Japanese in World War II, the United States occupied the southern half of Korea. Rhee, by now back in the country, helped found the National Society for the Rapid Realization of Korean Independence.

In 1948 he handily won United Nations (UN)–sponsored elections for president of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). He was known for his desire to reunite the Korean Peninsula, his commitment to democracy, and his strong opposition to communism.

In the two years after his election, Rhee intensified cold war tensions in East Asia by calling for a "march north" to destroy Kim Il Sung’s communist regime. But it was Kim’s Communist forces that invaded South Korea in June 1950.

After the Korean War broke out in June 1950, Rhee proved a steady, but difficult, ally of the United States. In 1951 he reorganized the military in order to root out corruption and inefficiency. But he also routinely undermined U.S. efforts by rejecting any peace deal that stopped short of reunifying Korea. He also called on the United States to counter Chinese intervention more aggressively, including bombing China.

By August 1953, however, the prospect of intensified hostilities with the north and worsening relations with the United States forced Rhee to accept a divided Korea. The United States deployed troops along the demilitarization zone both to protect the south from invasion from the north and to thwart Rhee’s aggressive tendencies.

For most of the 1950s, Rhee repeatedly worked to consolidate his hold on power. In 1951 he founded the Liberal Party. In 1952 he engineered changes in the constitution to guarantee his victory in the election. When these changes were rejected in favor of a parliamentary system, he declared martial law. In the ensuing general election, Rhee won 72 percent of the vote.

As the 1956 election approached, Rhee once again forced changes into the constitution to eliminate the provisions limiting presidents to two terms. He then won the election with 55 percent of the vote, a low number considering that his rival, Sin Ik-hui, had suffered a heart attack and died 10 days earlier.

South Korea made significant economic and social progress under Rhee. The expansion of the school system after independence and the modernization of the military contributed greatly to the changes that transformed Korea. Massive U.S. aid combined with the government’s import-substitution policies yielded strong growth.

In 1960 Rhee and the Liberal Party once again rigged the presidential election. This time, however, a protest movement led by students became widespread, and governmental security forces killed 142 protesters. These events forced Rhee’s resignation. He fled to the United States and died five years later in 1965 in Hawaii.

U.S.-Republic of Korea Mutual Defense Treaty

The U.S.-Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) Mutual Defense Treaty was signed October 1, 1953, and became effective in 1954. It committed the United States to the defense of the ROK against future attacks by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). In early 1953, as the Korean War armistice talks opened, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower sought a way to convince ROK president Syngman Rhee to accept a truce with DPRK.

U.S.-Republic of Korea Mutual Defense Treaty

Rhee, who had insisted that no truce short of military reunification of the two Koreas would suffice, balked at the U.S. demand that he sign an armistice with DPRK. Rhee flatly rejected any agreement that would allow the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (Chinese Communists) to remain in Korea following a ceasefire because he maintained that such an agreement would be tantamount to ROK’s signing its own death warrant.

Despite Eisenhower’s assurances that the United States would pursue all peaceful means of reunification, and offers to enter a mutual security pact with the ROK, Rhee sought a mutual defense treaty with the United States as a precondition for any armistice.


Rhee’s unilateral release of 25,000 DPRK prisoners of war on June 25, 1953, complicated negotiations and increased pressure on the United States to bring the ROK leader to agree to an armistice. To that end, Eisenhower sent Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robinson to offer Rhee a mutual security pact and promised economic incentives in return for Rhee’s agreement.

The Robinson mission was successful, and when Rhee did not stand in the way of the armistice, which was signed on July 27, 1953, the two countries set about crafting the bilateral treaty.

On August 8, 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles initiated negotiations that culminated in a treaty of six articles, based on the model of existing treaties between the United States and the Philippines, and the United States and Australia and New Zealand.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization model was rejected because it would have given the president the authority to consider an external attack on ROK as an attack on American territory.

Seeking to limit its commitment and to contain its ally, the United States defined its responsibilities as extending only to territory under ROK control at the time the treaty was signed or subsequently recognized as lawfully incorporated into the ROK. During the ratification debates in the U.S. Senate a note of understanding was added to the treaty clarifying the U.S. position that the mutual defense agreement extended only to attacks from external forces.

It received ratification on January 26, 1954, and the president accepted the Senate’s recommendations on February 5, 1954, subject to the agreement on the limitation of commitment. ROK agreed to the change, and the treaty came into effect when ratification documents were exchanged in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1954. The treaty remains in effect, and U.S. forces remain stationed in the ROK.

Korean War (1950 - 1953)

Korean War (1950 - 1953)

The first major conflict of the cold war began in June 1950 and ended in an inconclusive armistice on July 27, 1953. Long considered a “forgotten war” in which almost 4 million people, including 136,000 U.S. citizens, were killed or wounded, the Korean conflict attracted increased academic and popular attention in the early 21st century.

Partition of the ancient former kingdom of Korea resulted from Allied maneuvers near the end of World War II. Occupied by Japan during the war, Korea was divided in 1945 at the 38th parallel. The Soviets occupied the northern area while the United States supervised the southern sector. As the cold war between these former allies intensified, this partition line became a new “Iron Curtain” dividing Koreans from each other.

So when the U.S. State Department learned in June 1950 that Communist North Korean forces had crossed the 38th parallel into anticommunist South Korea, President Harry S. Truman feared that South Korean forces alone would be unable to stop apparent Soviet plans to make all of Korea a communist regime.


Taking advantage of a temporary Soviet boycott of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, Truman persuaded UN members to declare North Korea the aggressor. This, rather than a congressional declaration of war, became the justification for fielding a joint UN force, dominated by U.S. officers and troops, to launch a “police action” in Korea.

UN forces were overwhelmed and pushed ever southward by the North Koreans until September, when General Douglas MacArthur, a World War II satria and Japan’s postwar governor, executed a daring amphibious assault at Inchon, just west of South Korea’s capital of Seoul. By October the 38th parallel was once again under UN control.

But MacArthur wanted to go further. Meeting in October with the president MacArthur assured Truman that neighboring China would not interfere if UN forces reunited Korea under U.S. protection. China, fresh from its own communist revolution in 1949 and secretly armed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, took exception.

By the bitter winter of 1951 waves of Chinese soldiers had entered Korea and were again pushing UN troops southward. Yet MacArthur continued hostile moves against the Chinese and accused Commander in Chief Truman of “appeasement.”

By the time Truman, supported unanimously by his Joint Chiefs of Staff, fired MacArthur for insubordination in April, the Korean conflict had settled into a violent stalemate centered on the original partition line. Peace negotiations began in June 1951, but foundered on the issue of repatriation. Many Chinese and North Korean war prisoners were unwilling to return to the regimes that had sent them into war.

The Korean stalemate became a venomous election issue in the United States, inspiring Republicans like Senator Joe McCarthy of Minnesota to question Truman’s and the Democrats’ patriotism.

Elected president by a large margin in 1952, former General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, visited the Korean front lines after taking office, but no formal peace treaty ever resulted. A July cease-fire was declared, and the 38th parallel, augmented by a DMZ (demilitarized zone) on either side, again marked the continuing division between North and South Korea.

Over the years fighting occasionally broke out along the DMZ. North Korea remained a secretive and fanatically communist regime, while South Korea, despite difficulties adapting democratic political processes, became a major manufacturing power in Asia, rivaling Japan.

Republic of Korea

With an area of 98,480 square kilometers, the Republic of Korea (ROK), or South Korea, occupies slightly less than half of the Korean Peninsula. It is bordered to the north by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea), to the south by the East China Sea, to the east by the Sea of Japan, and to the west by the Yellow Sea.

Republic of Korea Map

A four-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone, which runs 238 kilometers across land and another three kilometers over the sea, marks the boundary between the two Koreas. The estimated population of ROK in 2005 was 48,422,644. Seoul, located near the border with North Korea, is the capital city.

South Korea has a republican government based on a presidential model. A popularly elected president, who is the head of state, appoints a prime minister as well as other members of the cabinet. A unicameral National Assembly functions as the legislative branch, and the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court make up the judicial branch.

In August 1945 Allied forces led by the United States landed on the Korean Peninsula in the south while Soviet forces moved down from the north, eventually liberating Korea from Japanese colonial rule. The 38th parallel became the boundary dividing the occupation forces from 1945 to 1948.

What began as the separation of two administrative units dictated by the Yalta agreement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1945 eventually led to the creation of two separate states dictated by the political and ideological divisions of the cold war.

Domestic developments further complicated the matter. Throughout the war years, various Korean nationalist factions operating at home and in exile jostled to position themselves as the representatives of an independent Korea. In the immediate postwar era, the United States eventually turned to Syngman Rhee, an exiled popular anticommunist nationalist to provide leadership in the south.

In 1947 the newly formed United Nations (UN) created a commission to oversee national elections in Korea. Barred from access to the Soviet occupation zone, the commission oversaw the election of the National Assembly in the south in 1948. This body then elected Rhee as the first president. The Republic of Korea was formally established in May 1948.

War once again broke out on the Korean Peninsula when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel in a failed attempt to reunify the nation under communist rule. The United States promptly intervened in the conflict as part of a UN police action.

The Korean War cemented the patron-client relationship between the United States and South Korea. In 1954 the two countries signed a mutual defense treaty that formalized their bilateral security arrangements.

Although their numbers were reduced after the 1970s, U.S. troops were stationed in South Korea from then on. Additionally, the United States continued to supply generous military aid to build up South Korea’s defense capabilities. South Korea contributed forces to help the United States in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973.

Authoritarian rule characterized the government of South Korea. Rhee combined bellicose rhetoric against the north with repressive tactics at home to silence political opposition. In 1952 he pushed for a change to the popularly elected presidency. Four years later he pushed through a questionable constitutional amendment that permitted a lifelong presidency.

Seoul

This allowed him to run for president again in 1956 and 1960. Meanwhile, domestic, social, and economic problems generated widespread student protests. Rhee resigned and fled to Hawaii, where he lived in exile until his death in 1965.

After a short interregnum during which the country turned to a new constitution that established parliamentary democracy, three military men followed as presidents in South Korea. The first, General Park Chung Hee, launched a coup in May 1961 to overthrow the nine-month-old parliamentary government and placed the Republic of Korea under military rule for two years.

At the end of 1963 the country adopted a new constitution that permitted presidents to serve two four-year terms, and Park was duly elected to the office. But he would continue to manipulate constitutional processes, or, in some cases, suspend them altogether, in order to remain in power.

In 1971 he declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution, dissolved the National Assembly, and then promulgated a new Yushin (revitalization) constitution. The Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), which he established, was used to intimidate South Korean dissenters.

Park relied on emergency decrees to repress this opposition to his regime; protesters were given long jail terms, a number of students were executed, and the press faced increasingly harsh censorship. Park’s regime finally came to an end when the director of the KCIA assassinated him in October 1979.

During the Park Chung Hee era, South Korea made its transition to a modern economy. Inspired by the Japanese economic miracle, the government adopted a series of five-year development plans aimed at transforming an agrarian nation to an industrial power.

Comparatively low labor costs allowed South Korea to compete effectively in such labor-intensive industries as textiles. In the 1970s the country shifted its focus away from labor-intensive light industries to heavy industries. This government-controlled economic development effort bore fruit as economic growth rates increased.

In December 1979 General Chun Doo Hwan, a veteran of the Vietnam War, came to power in a coup. Within months he declared martial law. Charging that pro-democracy student demonstrations in Kwangju Province had been instigated by North Korean infiltrators, he acquired emergency powers that would allow him to disregard any constitutionally recognized rights of the people.

He also embarked on a campaign to root out those who criticized his regime. Among those he arrested were three longtime civilian critics of authoritarian rule: Kim Young Sam, Kim Dae Jung, and Kim Jong Pil. But protests persisted, and in 1987 Chun stepped aside in favor of his handpicked successor, Roh Tae Woo, who won a presidential election with only 36 percent of the vote.

Under Roh, South Korea began to pursue new directions in foreign policy in keeping with the geopolitical ekspresi dominan that hearkened the end of antagonistic camps in the cold war. Roh followed up on an earlier usulan to exchange visits between North and South Korea. Following sports and cultural exchanges, the two countries signed the 1991 Basic Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, and Cooperation of Exchanges.

Politics in South Korea followed a pattern of democraticization from the late 1980s onward. Kim Young Sam, a longtime critic of Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian rule, emerged victorious in the 1992 presidential elections, becoming the first civilian president in more than three decades.

Kim initiated a campaign to root out longtime corruption in government. Both the former presidents Chun and Roh were indicted for corruption and their roles in the 1979 military coup.

Kim Young Sam also faced pressure to liberalize the South Korean economy. Widely recognized as one of the economic miracles in Asia, South Korea had an average per capita income of $10,600.

By 1997 economic growth in South Korea showed signs of abatement due to the effects of the Asian financial crisis. The resulting labor and student protests eventually led to the victory of a longtime opposition leader, Kim Dae Jung, in the presidential elections.

One night in Seoul

Kim Dae Jung presided over a country in the throes of an economic downturn. He pushed for bold reforms to ameliorate the situation. The South Korean leadership worked with the International Monetary Fund in its rescue effort. By 1999 the economy was well on its way to recovery.

It was in foreign relations that President Kim Dae Jung would leave his mark. He pursued efforts to build a more cordial relationship with his northern neighbor by providing economic assistance to the beleaguered north. Such efforts, Kim hoped, would end North Korean isolation and eventually change its governmental system.

Although Kim’s policy did not yield concrete results, his summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2000 raised hopes about eventual reconciliation between the two Koreas. For his efforts, President Kim won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

Roh Moo-hyun of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) became president after the 2002 elections.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

With an area of 120,410 square kilometers, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, occupies slightly more than half of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in northeast Asia. North Korea shares common borders with the Republic of Korea to the south, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the north, and Russia to the northeast.

A four-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone, which runs 238 kilometers across land and another three kilometers into the sea, marks the boundary between the two Koreas near the 38th parallel. The estimated population of DPRK in 2004 was 22,697,553. Pyongyang is the national capital. North Korea remained one of the most isolated states in the contemporary world.

North Korea is a communist state. Its leader, Kim Jong Il succeeded to the position of supreme leadership in 1994 after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, although this was not formalized until four years later.

Both father and son dominated the North Korean government since its inception. A newly amended constitution in 1998 conferred on the deceased Kim the title of president for life and abolished the office of the president.

Kim Jong Il heads the National Defense Commission (NDC), which functions as the chief administrative authority in the country. He is also supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and general secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP).

The separate state of North Korea was created as a result of the military situation at the end of World War II. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, the northern part of the peninsula was occupied by Soviet forces, while the southern half came under U.S. military authority. The peninsula was consequently divided into two military occupation zones at the 38th parallel.

The Soviet occupation authority turned to Kim Il Sung, who had fought the Japanese in Manchuria, to provide leadership in its zone. In September 1948 Kim launched the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, with himself as the premier.

In early 1950 Kim Il Sung lobbied his communist allies in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to support a North Korean effort to reunite the two Koreas. On June 23, 1950, the commanders of seven combat divisions of the North Korean People’s Army amassed near the border and received orders to initiate the “war of liberation.”

Crossing the 38th parallel, North Korean forces quickly overwhelmed South Korean forces before they themselves were stopped and then pushed back across the border by a United Nations (UN) force led by the United States.

In November PRC sent “volunteers” to fight alongside the North Koreans when UN forces neared the Yalu River, North Korea’s border with China. An armistice was signed in 1953, establishing a demilitarized zone roughly at the 38th parallel.

The wartime situation gave Kim Il Sung the opportunity to consolidate his position and establish himself as the absolute power in North Korea. In a series of show trials and purges, potential rivals were eliminated. In 1956 members of rival factions were purged from the KWP.

In fact, some were made to shoulder the blame for the failure of the unification effort. Two years later the KWP announced that it had ended intra-party dissent. Kim Il Sung was now the undisputed leader, controlling virtually all aspects of North Korean society.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

A personality cult soon emerged around the person of Kim Il Sung, who was elevated to the status of “Great Leader,” and his past as a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese, his defiance of the United States, and his exploits in building the nation were mythologized in song and poetry.

Institutions such as universities and museums bear his name, and important places in his life are national shrines. A similar personality cult developed around his son and successor, Kim Jong Il, with mythical events written into his biography. Revered as “Dear Leader,” the younger Kim is said to be imbued with extraordinary intellectual and artistic abilities.

North Korea adopted as its guiding ideology juch’e, or self-reliance. Occasionally dubbed Kim Il-Sungism, the concept, which emerged in the mid-1950s, is an amalgamation of Marxist-Leninist doctrines with Maoism, Confucianism, and Korean traditions. Juch’e in operational terms involves the creation of a self-sustaining national economy and a strong military that can provide self-defense.

After the Korean War, Kim Il Sung focused on economic development. With a centrally planned command economy, North Korea at first appeared to be making great strides. It recovered quickly from the devastation of the Korean War. In the spirit of juch’e, economic planners focused on industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture.

Pyongyang

Equally important for North Korean economic survival was Soviet economic assistance, although limited, and the preferential treatment that North Korean goods received in the Soviet Union, PRC, and the East European satellites through the late 1970s–80s.

The changing geopolitical situation reduced such outside assistance to almost nothing and exposed the vulnerabilities in the North Korean economy. The consequences of a decades-old inefficient economic system could no longer be kept hidden.

Energy and food shortages plagued North Korea, a country with little arable land and no oil reserves. Cycles of natural disasters exacerbated the situation. From the late 1990s onward North Korea had to rely on food aid from other countries, including South Korea, to stave off widespread famine.

The relationship between the two Koreas continued a seesaw demam isu in the Kim Jong Il era. From the mid-1990s onward there were intermittent talks between the two governments. In 1998 when South Korean president Kim Dae Jung initiated his Sunshine Policy, which held out hope for reconciliation between the two Koreas, he found a receptive audience in the north partly because North Korea saw this as a means of securing the necessary economic assistance.

In 2002 the North Korean government also began to abandon some features of its tightly controlled command economy. In addition, it adopted some market features, such as removing price and wage controls. The government also began to court foreign investment and foreign trade, including from the Republic of Korea.

Pyongyang Mass Dance

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, North Korea once again garnered attention because of its nuclear weapons program, weapons sales to Iran, and its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Six-party talks involving North Korea, South Korea, Japan, the PRC, Russia, and the United States did not yield definitive results.

In 2005, North Korea tested a missile over the Sea of Japan. This approach increased the level of tension and raised the specter of a military confrontation in the Northeast Asia region. In October 2007, North Korea agreed to disable its nuclear facilities by late 2008 in exchange for economic aid.

Kim Il Sung / Kim Jong Il

Together, father and son Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il form a dynasty that has ruled the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or Communist North Korea, since its creation in 1948. Because of the personality cult established by Kim Il Sung and because Korea remains a tightly closed society, details about the lives of the two men remain scarce.

Kim Il Sung

The information that is disseminated officially is so flattering that it is highly suspect. For example, one biography of Kim Il Sung reports that he fought more than 100,000 times against the Japanese in the seven years between 1932 and 1945 and was always victorious.

Kim Il Sung (originally Kim Sung Chu) was born in 1912 in a northeastern province of Korea. His father was a school teacher who took his family to Chinese Manchuria in 1925 to escape Japan’s harsh colonization of their homeland. For the next 14 years, Kim lived in Manchuria, where he joined the Communist Party in 1931.

In 1939 Kim went to the Soviet Union, where he received further military training and was part of the Soviet military force that invaded and occupied Pyongyang in 1945. According to the terms of the Yalta agreement, the United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea into North and South.

Kim stayed in the north with the Soviets, who helped him prevail over other factions and become premier of the new Democratic People’s Republic in 1948. Under Soviet and Chinese sponsorship Kim instigated the Korean War, which lasted until 1953.

A great admirer of Stalin, Kim patterned his rule after the Soviet leader. During the years following the Korean War, Kim solidified his power, purged his enemies, drove out foreign influences, and established himself as almost a god.

Kim Jong il

He also managed, through rigorous control of the press, to exalt his family, raising many of them to the status of national heroes. He decreed that no newspaper could be published without his picture on the front page and without all the stories approved by government censors. His pictures and statues were also in every public building in the nation.

These and other actions were undertaken as part of Kim’s self-proclaimed doctrine of Juchie, which encompassed the total economic, social, and political philosophy of the country.

North Korean citizens born after the Korean War had little or no knowledge of the outside world, since anything foreign was prohibited. His birthday became a national holiday. Since 1976, the Loyalty Festival Period has included February 16 (Kim Jong Il’s birthday) and April 15 (Kim Il Sung’s birthday).

According to some reports, Korea went to extraordinary lengths to prolong Kim Il Sung’s life. Purportedly a clinic staffed with 2,000 specialists was constructed solely for the purpose of caring for Kim and his son.

Staff at the clinic experimented with diets and drugs on two teams of men who were similar to the leaders in age and body makeup. These efforts to extend his life all failed and the elder Kim died in 1994.

Kim Jong Il, the eldest son of Kim Il Sung, became his country’s next dictator. He was born in 1941 while his father was training in the Soviet Union. The Soviets had established a school for the children of Korea’s guerrilla fighters, the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, where Jong Il received his early education. After two years of training at the Air Academy in East Germany, the young Kim returned to Korea and attended Kim Il Sung University.

Kim Jong Il’s portraits began to appear with his father’s, and he was referred to by titles such as “the sun of the communist future.” He made official visits to China and the Soviet Union in the 1980s, further indicating that he would follow his father as ruler. But he was not immediately named as his father’s successor. The title of the country’s president was reserved for his father by a constitutional amendment.

Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il

Little information is available about the personal life of Kim Jong Il. Some sources report that his half-brother is being groomed as his successor while other reports indicate that his sons are embroiled in a struggle to become heir.

Japanese Invasion of Korea

Japanese Invasion of Korea

Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi dreamed of conquering China and launched two invasions of Korea, in 1592 and 1597, in order to do so. Although he ultimately failed, the wars inflicted terrible devastation on Korea. Because as its overlord the Ming dynasty in China sent a large army to aid Korea, the war also considerably weakened the Ming dynasty.

In the 16th century, Japan underwent constant civil wars as the Ashikaga Shogunate weakened and various feudal lords sought supremacy; in fact this period was called the “Warring States” abad in Japanese history. Hideyoshi was an ambitious general who rose from obscurity. By 1590, he had destroyed all rival lords and unified Japan, freeing him and his large army to conquer new lands.

His target was China and to reach China he needed passage through Korea. When Korea refused his demands he led an invading army of 160,000 men, landing on the southern tip of the peninsula and advancing northward. The inferior Korean army was overwhelmed, King Sonjo abandoned his capital city Seoul and fled, and his two sons were made captives.


The Korean cause was saved from complete ruin by the emergence of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who built a fleet of “turtle ships,” the world’s first wooden ships with steel plating, which repeatedly defeated the Japanese navy, thus disrupting their supply lines. Meanwhile, China responded with 200,000 troops, who captured Pyongyang and pursued the Japanese forces southward until they only held the southern tip of the peninsula.

Peace negotiations proved fruitless and were broken off because China demanded that Hideyoshi acknowledge Chinese overlordship while Hideyoshi demanded a part of Korea to be ceded to him, the marriage of a Ming princess to the Japanese emperor, and Korean princes as hostages.

Undaunted, Hideyoshi launched a second invasion in 1597 but proceeded no farther than Korea’s two southernmost provinces because both the Koreans and the Chinese relief army were prepared. When Hideyoshi died in 1598 his army quickly returned home. In 1606, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the new shogun of Japan and Hideyoshi’s successor, made peace with Korea.

Admiral Yi Sun-sin in his turtle ships

The two Japanese invasions inflicted terrible sufferings on the Koreans. Whole areas were devastated and depopulated and many historical sites and libraries were burned. The Yi dynasty of Korea never fully recovered its authority and the country its prosperity.

The retreating Japanese moreover took many looted treasures and took as prisoners men with skills, most notably Korean potters, who built up Japan’s ceramics industry. Hideyoshi’s dream of ruling Japan died with him because his son was too young to rule, allowing another feudal lord, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had not participated in the Korean campaigns, to seize power.

Finally the cost of the war weakened the already declining Ming dynasty in China. Additionally, the sending of a large army to Korea denuded southern Manchuria of Ming garrisons and paved the way for the rise of the Manchus.

Defending Korea

Early Yi Dynasty

building that remain from early Yi dynasty

The Choson or Yi dynasty was founded by General Yi Songgye (1335–1408; r. 1392–1408). Yi was a successful general of the declining Koryo dynasty that had ruled Korea for about 500 years. He staged a coup against his government in 1388 and four years later, with the support of the reform-minded Confucian scholars, proclaimed himself King Taejo of a new dynasty.

With the approval of the newly established Ming dynasty in China, to whom he rendered vassalage, he chose the dynastic name Choson, which means “morning serenity,” and moved his capital from Kaesong to Hanyang (present-day Seoul).

Besides the founder, the dynasty was well served by its third king, T’aejong (r. 1400–1418), and his son, Sejong (r. 1418–50), under whom it reached its zenith. The founders of the dynasty were firmly committed to Neo-Confucianism of the Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) school that had been adopted as official in China since the Song (Sung) dynasty, 961–1289.


Korean Neo-Confucian scholars, who were the mainstay of the dynasty, aimed to create in Korea the idealized state exemplified by China’s sage rulers of the golden age, Kings Yao, Shun, Yu, and the founders of the Shang and Zhou (Chou) dynasties.

Much was achieved in the first half century of the dynasty in many fields. Learning and scholarship were esteemed and talented men were encouraged to enter government service. A National Academy was established in Seoul and state endowed schools were established in every county.

Three levels of state-supervised examinations based on Confucian texts and according to Neo-Confucian interpretations were held nationwide and most officials were chosen from the ranks of successful candidates. As in China, the study of history was highly esteemed and the state sponsored the writing of official histories.

Because of the high cost of importing block-printed books from China, Koreans invented movable type, the first in the world. Koreans had until now no written script and had used the Chinese written form exclusively, but because the structure of the Korean language was different from that of Chinese, King Sejong instigated the invention of a Korean alphabet, which was strictly phonetic, proclaimed in 1446. It was then called Hunmin Chongun and in the 21st century Hangul.

The Yi dynasty’s commitment to Neo-Confucian principles would gradually transform Korean society and end the dominance that Buddhism had exercised over Korean life during the Koryo era.

The inadequacies of Buddhism and the mismanagement of government and society under Buddhist influence were blamed for the economic and etika decline of Koryo. As a result Buddhism suffered severe decline during the Yi dynasty. Instead leaders actively inculcated Confucian etika principles.

They emphasized the proper rites and rituals of ancestor worship, filial piety, loyalty, proper social relationships, the patrilineal line of descent, and proper relationship between men and women. The union between a husband and wife was regarded as the mainspring of a stable society.

Whereas upper-class men previously could have several wives, who were not subject to a specified ranking order, under Confucian teachings, only one woman could be wife and mother of her husband’s heir, relegating other women of the household to concubines and their children to lesser importance.

Though subject to her husband, the wife had charge of the domestic sphere, and responsibility of providing the government with loyal subjects and the family with devoted sons. The public sphere was the husband’s domain.

In science and technology this kurun saw the invention or refinement of the sundial, the automatic water-driven clock, armillary spheres (miniature representations of the Earth, Moon, and planets in the form of skeletal globes), and the rain gauge. Medical books that included new knowledge were published and made widely available.

Since Confucians honored farmers as the backbone of society, farming was encouraged. Land reform and redistribution and the introduction of new agrarian methods from China greatly increased food production. Innovations included the introduction of new manure, crop rotation instead of letting fields lie fallow, irrigation, and autumn plowing.

Commerce played a decidedly secondary role in the early Yi era. Attempts by the government to introduce paper money and copper coins proved unpopular and people preferred the old method of using a type of cloth and grain as mediums of exchange. This remained true until the early 17th century, when increased commerce led to the acceptance of metal coins.

The policies and practices instituted by the founders of the Yi dynasty established the firm foundations that led to a period characterized by brilliant cultural and technical achievements. They also explain its longevity despite later setbacks.

Silla Dynasty

Silla Dynasty Map

The Silla dynasty was a Korean kingdom with origins in the southeast of the country, in the area around modernday Pusan (Busan). It is said to have begun in about 57 b.c.e. when the Saro tribe and its allies in that region established a confederation of the tribes, led by Pak Hyeokgeose.

However many historians feel that date was the invention of 12th-century Korean historians, as found in the Samguk Sagi, written by Kim Bu-sik, to try to show that the Silla predated their main rivals. The early years of Silla saw a rotated monarchy with members of the Pak, Kim, and Sok families sharing the title of ruler, although not using the title of king until later.

As the kingdom of Koguryo was emerging as a major power in northern and central Korea, Silla was taking over tribes in the south. Originally they only targeted the Saro tribe, taking tribute to the Mahan confederation as their vassal in 19 b.c.e.


However Silla grew dramatically in prosperity and many historians have seen this as the influence of many Chinese merchants who came to settle in the area and brought with them much resultant trade.

There were also influences from Japan—the envoy that took the tribute to Mahan in 19 b.c.e. was of Japanese ancestry. In the year after this mission, the king of Mahan died and although Silla sent over a delegation for the funeral, they rapidly drew up plans to take land from Mahan and enlarge their area.

In 250 c.e. the Mahan confederacy, which had controlled much of central southern Korea, was finally absorbed, not by Silla, but by the kingdom of Paekche (Baekje), which had a common border with Silla.

Silla dynasty artifact

This was initially thought to be dangerous as it left the Korean Peninsula under the control of three kingdoms, Silla, Paekche, and Koguryo, with little in the way of buffer states that had existed beforehand. Silla and Paekche feared invasion from the emerging power of Koguryo, which had ejected the last Chinese base in 313.

To counter this threat, Kim Naemul (356–401) of Silla assumed the title of maripkan or king ensured that the succession to the throne was hereditary. The end of the rotating monarchy resulted in the ability to establish a more centralized administration, which adopted many of their methods of government, customs, and some Chinese culture.

Initially Silla sided with Koguryo to attack Paekche, which had been aiding Japanese pirates. However when Koguryo moved its capital south to Pyongyang in 427, and its focus also moved south, Koguryo and Silla had to form an alliance. Silla also built up trade ties with Japan.

King Peopheung (r. 514–540) established Buddhism as the state religion of the kingdom of Silla and embarked on military expeditions that eroded the power of the nonaligned tribes in the region.

Silla dynasty crown

His successor, King Jinheung (r. 540–576), enlarged the army and used it to help Paekche take lands around modern-day Seoul. However in 553 he decided that his forces were strong enough to seize the whole area for itself, ending the 120-year alliance of convenience between Silla and Paekche.

The war in 553–555 led to Silla’s massively enlarging its landholdings, with Paekche forced to cede over half of its territory. This was followed by a long period of peace when scholars in Silla devoted much time to Buddhism.

King Pak-jong, who ascended the throne in 576, abdicated to become a monk and his wife became a nun. A considerable part of the wealth of the country was sent in missions of tribute to China, which weakened Silla economically but bought them a firm alliance.