North and South Korea have been separated for more than 70 years, ever since The Korean Peninsula became an unexpected casualty of the intensified Cold War between the two dominant superpowers: The Soviet Union and the United States.
It all started with Japan and Russia fighting for control of The Unified Korea in 1904. Japan, using its victory took over Korea, having already installed a puppet ruler, Emperor Sunjong. He was the last leader of the ‘united’ Korea and also the last ruler of the Joseon dynasty that extended back 500 years.
When he died in 1926, the Japanese completely came into power and controlled the country. They attempted to erode Korea’s unique cultural identity by suppressing Korean language and customs. Tokyo even tried to enforce a law stating that all second names should be Japanese. This created anti-Japanese feeling among the Koreans which lasts to this day.
When the Cold War started, Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, eventually, the Japanese empire dismantled in Korea which led the Korean Peninsula to become the victim and it got split into two zones: The North and The South. U.S controlled the South Korea while Soviet controlled the North.
In 1948, the U.S called for a United Nations sponsored voting for all Koreans to determine the future of the peninsula. After the North refused to participate, the South formed its own government in Seoul, led by strongly anti-communist Syngman Rhee. The North responded to the action of the South by installing the former communist guerrilla Kim Il Sung as the first premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the capital of Pyongyang.
The growing tensions between the two separated zones led to The Korean War (1950-53) which killed at least 2.5 million people. The war began on 25 June 1950 when the Communist North Korea invaded South Korea. Almost immediately the US secured a resolution from the United Nations calling for the military defense of South Korea against the North Korean aggression. In the matter of days, US land, air, and sea forces had joined the battle. Following the US, China also joined the war favouring the North. In November and December 1951, hundreds of thousands of troops from the People’s Republic of China began heavy assaults against the American and South Korean forces.
The Korean War did a little to resolve the question of which regime represented the ‘true’ Korea. However, it firmly established the feeling of disliking for the US among the North Korea permanently, as the US military bombed villages, towns and cities across the northern half of the peninsula. Since then, there has been extremely little movement across the DMZ between North and South Korea.
South Korea continued strong ties with the west and developed a vigorous economy, and in recent decades has made steps towards becoming a fully democratic nation. Meanwhile, North Korea remained an isolated “hermit kingdom” particularly after the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s and economically under developed, as well as virtual police state ruled by a single family for three generations.
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