tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/korean-war-34041/articlesKorean War – The Conversation2024-02-06T15:58:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2221832024-02-06T15:58:28Z2024-02-06T15:58:28ZNorth Korea has demolished its monument to reunification but it can’t fully erase the dream<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573050/original/file-20240202-27-xopp8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C49%2C971%2C610&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://bjornfree.com/kim/">Bjørn Christian Tørrissen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>North Korea has <a href="https://www.chosun.com/politics/north_korea/2024/01/24/WSRI6MUUQNG63BCQGXK24QLCYU/">demolished</a> the Arch of Reunification, a monument that symbolised hope for reconciliation with the South. The decision to demolish the monument came shortly after the regime’s leader, Kim Jong-un, delivered a <a href="https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1705369092-194545332/respected-comrade-kim-jong-un-makes-policy-speech-at-10th-session-of-14th-spa/">speech</a> declaring it an “eyesore”. </p>
<p>In the same speech, Kim said that the peaceful reunification of the two Koreas, which have <a href="https://www.history.com/news/north-south-korea-divided-reasons-facts">remained divided</a> since August 1945, was no longer possible and called for an amendment to the North Korean constitution to reflect South Korea’s status as his country’s “principal enemy”. </p>
<p>Unveiled in 2001, the Arch of Reunification <a href="https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1452002412-480315630/monument-to-three-charters-for-national-reunification-erected/">featured</a> two Korean women wearing traditional dresses – called <em>hanbok</em> (한복 “Korean clothes”) in South Korea and <em>chosŏn-ot</em> (조선옷 “Korean clothes”) in the North. The women jointly held up an image of the unified Korean peninsula, reflecting the North Korean government’s genuine desire at the time to reunify the two countries.</p>
<p>This is not the first time North Korea has destroyed symbols of Korean cooperation, dialogue and hope for unification. In June 2020, North Korea recorded and released <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53060620">footage</a> of it blowing up a joint liaison office with South Korea near the border town of Kaesong. The site was opened to help the the two countries communicate. </p>
<p>The following year, in August 2021, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nkorea-says-inter-korean-hotlines-will-be-restored-monday-kcna-2021-10-03/">North Korea severed</a> the Inter-Korean hotline – a series of over 40 telephone lines that connect North and South Korea – in protest against military drills jointly undertaken by South Korea and the US. Kim did, however, restore the hotlines two months later and urged Seoul to step up efforts to improve relations.</p>
<p>The Arch of Reunification’s demolition signals North Korea’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/16/unification-with-south-korea-no-longer-possible-says-kim-jong-un">determination</a> to brand reunification as impossible. But, despite the physical erasure of this monument, its depiction on five official postage stamps serves to immortalise the monument and what it symbolised.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A postage stamp depicting the Arch of Reunification against a clear blue sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572249/original/file-20240130-25-13pl4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North Korean postage stamp issued on 30 May 2002 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Joint Declaration by North and South Korea for reunification.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Hall</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Propaganda postage stamps</h2>
<p>Postage stamps function not only as items that display the paying of postage rates, but also as small carriers of propaganda messages. They have, in the past, been described as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002200948401900204">“ambassadors”</a> conveying official viewpoints, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1014307914500">“windows of the state”</a> that illustrate how it wishes to be seen by its own citizens and those beyond its boundaries. </p>
<p>In most authoritarian states, revisions to official party narratives require the alteration and removal of symbols associated with the previous narrative. The most <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4209080">notable example</a> of this is the removal of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s name from many cities and landmarks following his death in 1953. </p>
<p>This formed part of the de-Stalinisation movement in the late 1950s and dismantled Stalin’s “cult of personality”. Stalin had used art and popular culture to improve his status as leader and inspire loyalty. </p>
<p>In a similar way, the official North Korean postage stamp <a href="http://www.korstamp.com.kp/">catalogue</a> removed five stamps from its listings that depicted the Arch of Reunification. Stamp catalogues provide information relating to when stamps were issued, who designed them, their dimensions and colour. Having this information is important when collecting and analysing them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A postage stamp depicting the Arch of Reunification against red background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572252/original/file-20240130-17-zh61fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North Korean postage stamp issued on 25 July 2016 to mark the 7th Congress of the Worker’s Party of Korea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Hall</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s not certain exactly when the stamps were removed. But <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/changes/http://www.korstamp.com.kp/home/index-en.html">Wayback Machine</a> (a digital archive of the World Wide Web) indicates there was a change to the website on January 19, placing the change squarely within the timeframe of Kim’s speech and the <a href="https://www.chosun.com/politics/north_korea/2024/01/24/WSRI6MUUQNG63BCQGXK24QLCYU/">reported demolition</a> of the monument. All visual and textual references to the stamps have been removed from the website.</p>
<p>NK News also <a href="https://www.nknews.org/2024/01/why-north-korean-websites-are-suddenly-vanishing-from-the-internet/">reported</a> around this time that North Korea was purging propaganda websites of old content, suggesting a rewriting of the official narrative. </p>
<p>There is precedent for this. North Korea has previously removed listings from its official stamp catalogues after they have been issued because they run contrary to new state narratives.</p>
<p>In 1960, for example, North Korea released a set of five stamps celebrating the <a href="https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART002723908">reconstruction of Pyongyang</a> after the Korean War (1950–1953). Two of the place names shown on the stamps, “Mao Zedong Square” and “Stalin Street”, were later renamed “Triumph Arc Square” and “Victory Street”. However, as the stamps issued in 1960 contained the original names, their visual depictions in subsequently published stamp catalogues were not included.</p>
<h2>The reunification dream lives on</h2>
<p>The Arch of Reunification was first depicted on a North Korean postage stamp in May 2002, almost one year after its unveiling. But the monument has been depicted more recently, on two stamps issued in 2015, and two more stamps issued in 2016 and 2021 respectively.</p>
<p>North Korea is seeking to erase any remnant of the Arch of Reunification’s depiction. But, unfortunately for North Korea, these stamps exist in the private collections of foreign stamp collectors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A North Korean postage stamp issued in 2021." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572253/original/file-20240130-29-35mal4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North Korean postage stamps issued on 20 February 2021 to mark the 8th Congress of the Worker’s Party of Korea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Hall</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The stamps were released to the world through Korea Stamp Corporation (North Korea’s state-run postal authority) offices in Russia and China at the time of issue. These stamps can still easily be bought from stamp dealers on online platforms such as eBay. </p>
<p>For that reason, North Korea can never fully erase these depictions of the unification dream as it doesn’t have full control over how its state narrative is presented and potentially altered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222183/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Arch of Reunification has been destroyed – reversing decades of government policy targeting eventual reunification with the South.David Hall, PhD Candidate in Korean Studies, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103672023-07-26T20:05:36Z2023-07-26T20:05:36ZThe ‘Mao suit’: how a military-style uniform changed the face of China – and clothed Australian prisoners during the Korean War<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539118/original/file-20230725-23-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=179%2C50%2C609%2C652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1953 Chinese Korean War propaganda poster.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chineseposters.net/">Chineseposters.net, accession no. PC-1953-003PC-1953-003</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the collection of the Australian War Memorial there is a photograph of four men in a North Korean prisoner of war camp, taken in the winter of 1952-3. Australian airman Ron Guthrie is in the group. He had been in captivity since August 1951.</p>
<p>More than 17,000 Australians took part in the Korean War, which began in June 1950 as a civil war between North and South Korea and quickly erupted into an international conflict involving China on the north side and the United States on the south. In Chinese, this war is known as the “resist America, support Korea” war. </p>
<p>On 27 July 1953, 70 years ago today, hostilities came to an indefinite halt with the signing of an armistice.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539119/original/file-20230725-23-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of POWs at Pyoktong, North Korea, winter 1952-53. Temperatures sometimes fell as low as -43° C. Warrant Officer Ron Guthrie of 77 Squadron, RAAF, is second from the left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this bitter, destructive and still unresolved conflict, one of the greatest challenges for both sides was how to deal with the weather. In the summer, men collapsed from the heat and humidity. Weapons became difficult to handle, blistering the hands. </p>
<p>Even worse were the winters. The men in this photo are wearing thickly padded clothes that would help them survive the extreme cold. A line in the 1970s TV series <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M*A*S*H_(TV_series)">MASH</a> sums up the likely weather conditions at the time: “The temperature is now two degrees below zero [°F]. Tonight’s forecast is cold, with a good chance of bad weather tomorrow.” </p>
<p>Australians had arrived in Korea unprepared for these conditions. They were initially helped out by the Americans and in due course, supplied with their own <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1101903">fit-for-purpose uniforms</a>: a string vest, thick fleece underclothing, a heavy jersey, and windproof combat jacket and trousers under a fur lined parka. All this, together with a down sleeping bag, cost over £100, (around $4000 in buying power today).</p>
<p>Clearly, the four POWs in the photo are not dressed in these made-in-Australia outfits. With the possible exception of the shoes, what they are wearing is not too different from ordinary dress worn by men in China at that time: a high-collared jacket with inset sleeves and five buttons paired with shapeless but nonetheless Western-style trousers, tailored at the crotch. </p>
<p>In a war dominated on the northern side by the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, the similarities are not surprising. The prisoners are in fact wearing a variety of what foreigners would come to call a “Mao suit”. In Chinese it fits into a category of clothing called <em>zhifu</em>, or uniform.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korean-pows-seeking-last-chance-to-return-home-after-decades-in-exile-79929">North Korean POWs seeking last chance to return home after decades in exile</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Mass mobilisation of sewing labour</h2>
<p>What is a Mao suit? The term was first used to describe the relatively undifferentiated clothing of people in China during the Mao years – “all dressed in blue boiler suits” in the view of foreigners, although a closer look would show fine gradations in the clothing system. There was a large social distance between the well-tailored suit of fine wool worn by a high official and the roughly-made ensemble in homespun cotton worn by a man on the street.</p>
<p>The fitted, military-looking jacket of the Mao suit resonates both with the longer coat worn by India’s first prime minister <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru">Jawaharlal Nehru</a> and with the <em>stalinka</em>, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_tunic">Stalin tunic</a>. These items of clothing were all products of global militarisation in the 20th century.</p>
<p>The Chinese variant can be traced to a Japanese-influenced style of military jacket worn by “Father of the Republic” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen">Sun Yatsen</a>, China’s most significant political leader before Mao Zedong. </p>
<p>Mao himself set the sartorial tone for Communist China by wearing a jacket in the Sun Yatsen style when he announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539122/original/file-20230725-15-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mao Zedong declares the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October, 1949.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The altered appearance of the crowd in any Chinese town after 1949 was one of the most immediate effects of regime change. Both the Chinese long gown and the Western suit were abandoned. Clothing regulations for employees in the state sector established the Sun Yatsen jacket or its poor relative, the “People’s jacket”, as standard dress.</p>
<p>Across China, tailors started cutting up old clothes to fashion these new-style garments. Much of this activity was undertaken while the Korean War was in progress.</p>
<p>For the civilian population, the provision of this new sort of clothing (literally <em>xinyi</em> or “new clothes”) was undertaken piecemeal, often by newly trained housewives given crash courses in the sewing and vocational schools that mushroomed across China in the early 1950s. For provisioning the armed forces, mass mobilisation of labour was required. </p>
<p>Vast quantities of clothing were required very quickly to outfit the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army. In July 1950, normally a slack month in clothing production, four regional military administrations were ordered to supply <a href="https://china.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202011/20/WS5fb7c472a3101e7ce9730d82.html">340,000 cotton padded uniforms</a> and comparable or greater numbers of shoes, vests, and greatcoats. Gloves (cotton-padded mittens) and socks were needed in greater quantities again. </p>
<p>In the longer-term, skills acquired in the production of army uniforms (fitted garments with pockets, belt hooks, buttons, buttonholes and other novel features) would be applied to the mass production of civilian wear, which was constructed along similar lines.</p>
<p>The huge labour reserves available in China failed to avert a crisis in the supply of winter uniforms in the early months of the war. The Chinese clothing industry at that time was under-mechanised. Most clothes were still made at home or in the corner tailor shop. A sewing-machine industry was only just being developed. Cotton fields were only just being recultivated in wake of years of turmoil during the war against the Japanese (1937-1945) and the ensuing Civil War (1946-1949).</p>
<p>Accordingly, when the People’s Volunteer Army arrived in Korea, they were no better equipped than Australians. As summer turned to autumn, temperatures dropped precipitately. On the front, men cut up their bedding for protective clothing. In the winter, frostbite began to take its toll. Soldiers lost fingers, toes, noses and ears. In the decisive <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chosin_Reservoir">Battle of Chosin Reservoir</a>, some 6,000 Americans and nearly 30,000 Chinese were immobilised by frostbite, 1,000 of them perished from the cold.</p>
<p>By the following spring, clothing production had been ramped up but supply lines were frequently affected by hostilities. Bombings in the Hwacheon Dam area in April 1951 took out a load of 280,000 summer-weight uniform jackets. Soldiers on the front were reduced to stripping their winter jackets of cotton wadding so that they had something serviceable to wear in the warmer weather.</p>
<p>Under these circumstances, clothing prisoners of war had low priority. What protective clothing they had at the time of capture was often taken from them. Cold was their constant companion. </p>
<p>After peace talks began in August 1951, conditions improved and the padded Mao suits of the photograph appear to have become standard issue. Thereafter, one of the main problems was living with lice, which secreted themselves in the seams. In the absence of a change of clothing, lice were almost impossible to eradicate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539127/original/file-20230725-21-7rw3f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1953 Chinese propaganda photograph taken at Camp 5, Pyoktong, North Korea, on the Yalu River near the Manchurian border, of four Australian POWs all captured while serving in Korea with the 3rd Battalion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/m-a-s-h-50-years-on-the-anti-war-sitcom-was-a-product-of-its-time-yet-its-themes-are-timeless-190422">M*A*S*H, 50 years on: the anti-war sitcom was a product of its time, yet its themes are timeless</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Unpicking and refluffing</h2>
<p>On both sides of the conflict, the punishing winter of 1950-51 concentrated the authorities’ attention on improving the quality of protective better clothing. The technological gap between the US and China is apparent in the outcomes. </p>
<p>Footwear was a prime concern. For the Americans and their allies under the United Nations Command, leather combat boots such as worn in World War II had at first been thought sufficient. By August 1951, the US had come up with an airtight, insulated rubber boot, popularly known as the Mickey Mouse boot on account of its large toe. It did not eliminate the problem of frostbite but with frequent changes of woollen socks sharply reduced its incidence. </p>
<p>The Chinese, too, developed something more effective, with a larger toe, providing room for extra padding. Padded cloth socks were widely used and sewing socks for soldiers became a common domestic pastime. </p>
<p>Cotton was core to keeping warm. Insulation of hats, coats, trousers and mittens was provided by inserts of cotton fluff. When newly made up, the proportion of air to cotton provides good insulation in a garment. </p>
<p>Over time, the cotton fluff becomes hard and matted, reducing its effectiveness against the cold. The clothes would need to be unpicked in the summer and the cotton refluffed for service the following winter, an arduous process that in China was a discrete cottage industry.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539124/original/file-20230725-25-4euho7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How to secure cotton wadding in the body of a jacket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From a 1958 Chinese pattern book.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fortunately for Guthrie and the other Australian prisoners, this would be their last winter in a POW camp. The armistice was signed in the summer of 1953. An exchange of sick and injured POWs had already taken place in April. The “Big Switch,” entailing an exchange of thousands of POWs from each side, followed in September. It was early autumn. The padded winter “Mao suit” had long since been discarded in favour of its summer equivalent – the plain, blue, high-collared jacket and trousers worn all over China by ordinary working men. </p>
<p>Photographed on release, Guthrie and his companions wear their clothes casually – half-buttoned up, collars gaping over white singlets, caps worn jauntily or backwards. They would shortly change these clothes for their service uniforms. Twenty-nine of the 30 Australians who became POWs returned home, a remarkable survival rate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539125/original/file-20230725-21-qc020l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prisoners of war on their release. Left to right (back row): Pilot Officer Ron Guthrie; Flight Lieutenant Olaf Bergh; Flight Lieutenant John ‘Butch’ Hannan. Front row: Pilot Officers Vance Drummond and Bruce Thomson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Travelling in the opposite direction to Guthrie was a political officer of the People’s Volunteer Army, Xie Zhiqi. At the end of the war the majority of POWs from the People’s Volunteer Army chose to go to Taiwan. Xie was one of the minority who went back to China. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539142/original/file-20230725-29-dr3f9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All repatriates to China were interned on arrival and subjected to investigation. Xie was accused of having participated in reactionary activities during his time as POW. Expelled from the Chinese Youth League (a Communist Party organisation) and discharged from the People’s Liberation Army, he had to surrender his army uniform. </p>
<p>He spent the rest of his working life, including seven years of it in a labour camp, wearing the plain blue trousers and high-collared jacket that is now indelibly associated with Mao’s China. </p>
<p><em>Antonia Finnane is the author of, most recently, How to Make a Mao Suit: Clothing the People of Communist China 1949-1976 (Cambridge University Press, 2023).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antonia Finnane has received funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>The Mao suit has a fascinating history. Vast quantities of this ‘people’s uniform’ were made for soldiers during the Korean war – which ended 70 years ago today – including Australian POWS.Antonia Finnane, Professor (honorary), The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2071072023-06-27T12:23:02Z2023-06-27T12:23:02ZSouth Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world – and that doesn’t bode well for its economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534163/original/file-20230626-5418-k0jzlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C7842%2C4032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An aging population, a tired economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-elderly-lady-rests-near-her-street-stall-as-pedestrians-news-photo/1251981087?adppopup=true">Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around <a href="https://www.livescience.com/worlds-population-could-plummet-to-six-billion-by-the-end-of-the-century-new-study-suggests">the world</a>, nations are looking at the <a href="https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2023/06/20/what-does-a-shrinking-population-mean-for-china">prospect of shrinking</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/02/14/aging-boomers-more-older-americans/">aging populations</a> – but none more so than <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/22/s-korea-breaks-record-for-worlds-lowest-fertility-rate-again">South Korea</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last 60 years, South Korea has undergone the most rapid fertility decline in recorded human history. In 1960, the nation’s total fertility rate – the number of children, on average, that a woman has during her reproductive years – stood at just under six children per woman. In 2022, that figure was 0.78. South Korea is the only country in the world to register a fertility rate of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1163341684/south-korea-fertility-rate">less than one child per woman</a>, although others – <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1155943055/ukraine-low-birth-rate-russia-war">Ukraine</a>, <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-low-fertility-rate-population-decline-by-yi-fuxian-2023-02">China</a> and <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/births-in-spain-drop-to-lowest-level-on-record/2614667">Spain</a> – are close.</p>
<p><iframe id="FNa7q" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/FNa7q/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jAfhO2YAAAAJ&hl=en">a demographer</a> who over the past four decades has conducted extensive research on Asian populations, I know that this prolonged and steep decline will have huge impacts on South Korea. It may <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230102000602">slow down economic growth</a>, contributing to a shift that will see the country <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/29/south-korea-s-demographic-crisis-is-challenging-its-national-story-pub-84820">end up less rich and with a smaller population</a>.</p>
<h2>Older, poorer, more dependent</h2>
<p>Countries need a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to replace their population, when the effects of immigration and emigration aren’t considered. And South Korea’s fertility rate has been consistently below that number since 1984, when it dropped to 1.93, from 2.17 the year before.</p>
<p>What makes the South Korean fertility rate decline more astonishing is the relatively short period in which it has occurred.</p>
<p>Back in 1800, the U.S. total fertility rate was <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-us-1800-2020/">well over 6.0</a>. But it took the U.S. around 170 years to consistently drop below the replacement level. Moreover, in the little over 60 years in which South Korea’s fertility rate fell from 6.0 to 0.8, the U.S. saw a more gradual decline from 3.0 to 1.7.</p>
<p>Fertility decline can have a positive effect in certain circumstances, via something demographers refer to as “<a href="https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-attaining-the-demographic-dividend/">the demographic dividend</a>.” This dividend refers to accelerated increases in a country’s economy that follow a decline in birth rates and subsequent changes in its age composition that result in more working-age people and fewer dependent young children and elderly people.</p>
<p>And that is what happened in South Korea – a decline in fertility helped convert South Korea from a very poor country <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/miracle-maturity-growth-korean-economy">to a very rich one</a>.</p>
<h2>Behind the economic miracle</h2>
<p>South Korea’s fertility decline began in the early 1960s when the government adopted an <a href="https://countrystudies.us/south-korea/47.htm">economic planning program</a> and a <a href="https://doi.org//10.3349/ymj.1971.12.1.55">population and family planning program</a>.</p>
<p>By that time, South Korea was languishing, having seen its <a href="https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/ijoks/v5i1/f_0013337_10833.pdf">economy and society destroyed</a> by the Korean War of 1950 to 1953. Indeed by the late-1950s, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. In 1961, its annual per capita income <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198796954.003.0006">was only about US$82</a>. </p>
<p>But dramatic increases in economic growth began in 1962, when the South Korean government introduced a five-year economic development plan. </p>
<p>Crucially, the government also introduced a population planning program in a bid to bring down the nation’s fertility rate. This included a goal of getting <a href="https://doi.org//10.3349/ymj.1971.12.1.55">45% of married couples</a> to use contraception – until then, very few Koreans used contraception.</p>
<p>This further contributed to the fertility reduction, as many couples realized that having fewer children would often lead to improvements in family living standards. </p>
<p>Both the economic and family planning programs were instrumental in moving South Korea from one with a high fertility rate to one with a low fertility rate.</p>
<p>As a result, the country’s dependent population – the young and the elderly – grew smaller in relation to its working-age population.</p>
<p>The demographic change kick-started economic growth that continued well into the mid-1990s. Increases in productivity, combined with an increasing labor force and a gradual reduction of unemployment, produced average annual growth rates in gross domestic product <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/gnp-gross-national-product">of between 6% and 10% for many years</a>.</p>
<p>South Korea today is <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true">one of the richest countries</a>
in the world with a <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=KR">per capita income of $35,000</a>.</p>
<h2>Losing people every year</h2>
<p>Much of this transformation of South Korea from a poor country to a rich country has been due to the demographic dividend realized during the country’s fertility decline. But the demographic dividend only works in the short term. Long-term fertility declines are often <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2022/12/the-long-term-decline-in-fertility-and-what-it-means-for-state-budgets">disastrous for a nation’s economy</a>. </p>
<p>With an extremely low fertility rate of 0.78, South Korea is losing population each year and experiencing more deaths than births. The once-vibrant nation is on the way to becoming a country with lots of elderly people and fewer workers.</p>
<p>The Korean Statistical Office reported recently that the <a href="https://kosis.kr/statHtml/statHtml.do?orgId=101&tblId=DT_1B8000F&language=en">country lost population</a> in the past three years: It was down by 32,611 people in 2020, 57,118 in 2021 and 123,800 in 2022.</p>
<p>If this trend continues, and if the country doesn’t welcome millions of immigrants, South Korea’s present population of 51 million <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2023/06/602_335593.html">will drop to under 38 million</a> in the next four or five decades.</p>
<p>And a growing proportion of the society will be over the age of 65.</p>
<p>South Korea’s population aged 65 and over comprised under 7% of the population in 2000. Today, <a href="https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/korea-south/#people-and-society">nearly 17% of South Koreans</a> are older people.</p>
<p>The older people population is projected to be 20% of the country by 2025 and could reach an unprecedented and astoundingly high 46% in 2067. South Korea’s working-age population will then be smaller in size than its population of people over the age of 65.</p>
<p>In a bid to avert a demographic nightmare, the South Korean government is <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/south-korea-families-770-month-183500253.html">providing financial incentives</a> for couples to have children and is boosting the monthly allowance already in place for parents. President Yoon Suk Yeol has also <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/03/28/national/politics/Korea-birth-rate-Yoon-Suk-Yeol/20230328184849297.html">established a new government team</a> to establish policies to increase the birth rate.</p>
<p>But to date, programs to increase the low fertility rate have had little effect. Since 2006, the South Korean government has already <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/asia/south-korea-worlds-lowest-fertility-rate-intl-hnk-dst/index.html">spent over $200 billion</a> in programs to increase the birth rate, with virtually no impact.</p>
<h2>Opening the trapdoor</h2>
<p>The South Korean fertility rate has not increased in the past 16 years. Rather, it has continued to decrease. This is due to what demographers refer to as the “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23025482">low-fertility trap</a>.” The principle, set forth by demographers in the early 2000s, states that once a country’s fertility rate drops below 1.5 or 1.4, it is difficult – if not impossible – to increase it significantly. </p>
<p>South Korea, along with many other countries – including France, Australia and Russia – have developed policies to encourage fertility rate increases, but with little to no success. </p>
<p>The only real way for South Korea to turn this around would be to rely heavily on immigration.</p>
<p>Migrants are <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2020/06/19/blog-weo-chapter4-migration-to-advanced-economies-can-raise-growth">typically young and productive</a> and usually have more children than the native-born population. But South Korea has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/upshot/comparing-immigration-policies-across-countries.html">very restrictive immigration policy</a> with no path for immigrants to become citizens or permanent residents unless they marry South Koreans.</p>
<p>Indeed, the foreign-born population in 2022 was just over 1.6 million, which is around <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220414000692">3.1% of the population</a>. In contrast, the U.S. has always relied on immigration to bolster its working population, with foreign-born residents now <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigrants-in-the-united-states">comprising over 14%</a> of the population.</p>
<p>For immigration to offset South Korea’s declining fertility rate, the number of foreign workers would likely need to rise almost tenfold.</p>
<p>Without that, South Korea’s demographic destiny will have the nation continuing to lose population every year and becoming one of the oldest – if not the oldest – country in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dudley L. Poston Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Korea’s fertility rate fell below the level needed to sustain a population in the mid-1980s – and it never recovered. It is now below one child per woman during her reproductive years.Dudley L. Poston Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002122023-02-27T17:15:23Z2023-02-27T17:15:23ZKim Jong-un purges: why North Korea is such a dangerous place to be successful in politics<p>North Korea celebrated the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army in February. As it showed off 12 of its massive intercontinental ballistic missile in a military parade, expert Korea-watchers spotted there appear to have been some <a href="https://www.nknews.org/pro/new-military-promotions-appear-to-underscore-north-koreas-focus-on-missiles">significant changes</a> in the country’s military and political hierarchy.</p>
<p>Choe Ryong-hae, the chairman of the standing committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly, was reportedly the only member of the politburo presidium not in attendance. But the Workers’ Party of Korea (North Korea’s sole and ruling political party) <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kim-jong-un-tightens-grip-on-power-with-purge-of-party-officials-7bd0tcvk7">has reportedly recently replaced</a> five of the 12 officials in the party secretariat and seven of the 17-member politburo. This is according to <a href="https://www.unikorea.go.kr/eng_unikorea/relations/infoNK/leadership/party/">South Korea’s unification ministry</a>, which exists to promote the reunification of the two countries.</p>
<p>Two officials whose careers are reportedly on the rise are Song Yong-gon (a member of the Worker’s Party central committee and previously the commander of the 9th Corps of the Korean People’s Army) and <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/02/15/national/northKorea/Korea-North-Korea-Korean-Peoples-Army/20230215172854432.html">Choe Kil-ryong</a>, until now commander of the 2nd Army Corps. The pair have been promoted as commanders of the new units for two classes of intercontinental ballistic missiles. </p>
<p>The promotions appear to confirm Pyongyang’s focus on long-range missiles which have become central element in Pyongyang’s nuclear testing regime. In recent months, North Korea has tested two Hwasong-class missiles – intercontinental ballistic missiles with ranges of up to 15,000km, capable of <a href="https://www.nknews.org/2022/11/north-korea-claims-it-successfully-tested-a-hwasong-17-icbm/">reaching the continental United States</a>. </p>
<p>The wider context of the reported purges is characterised by rising tension on the Korean peninsula. The <a href="https://www.38north.org/2023/01/north-korea-makes-a-still-more-conservative-turn-at-party-plenum/">Workers’ Party plenum in Pyongyang</a> in December 2022 emphasised a hardline policy towards South Korea, including the possibility of preemptive nuclear strikes. South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ef4d3f20-72db-4e0e-82b6-eb36ecfc4c84">has indicated</a> that Seoul won’t hesitate to retaliate and could develop its own nuclear capability.</p>
<p>At the same time, the Kim regime is facing severe domestic crises due to its weak economy, exacerbated by the challenges of COVID and harsh international sanctions. Food insecurity in the North was recently <a href="https://www.38north.org/2023/01/food-insecurity-in-north-korea-is-at-its-worst-since-the-1990s-famine/">described by a US thinktank</a> as “at its worst since the country’s famine in the 1990s”.</p>
<h2>Consolidating power</h2>
<p>North Korea’s political system gives absolute power to the leader, which is both a strength and a vulnerability. Kim Jong-un, who came to power in 2011 shortly after the death of his father Kim Jong-il, has had to constantly struggle to prevent the emergence of alternative centres of power. Unlike his father, Kim had only a short time to prepare for leadership and was (and remains, at 39) quite young in a culture that reveres elders. His first few years were particularly dangerous for him. </p>
<p>At the third party conference in September 2010, Kim Jong-il replaced 78% of the politburo. This was seemingly to formally establish his third son as heir apparent and to put in place “guardians” for the young Kim such as his uncle <a href="https://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/kim-family/jang-song-thaek/">Jang Song-thaek</a> and senior military figure <a href="https://www.nkleadershipwatch.org/leadership-biographies/gen-ri-yong-ho/">Vice-Marshal Ri Yong-ho</a>.</p>
<p>Kim Jong-un replaced his father in December 2011 and, at the party conference the following April, 42% of the politburo was replaced, followed by another 13% <a href="https://www.38north.org/2021/07/north-koreas-party-personnel-shuffles-a-reality-check/">removed at the 2013 party plenum</a>. It was reported that some in the top leadership – including <a href="https://www.38north.org/2014/01/amansourov012214/">members of Kim’s own family</a> – were scheming against him.</p>
<h2>A dangerous family</h2>
<p>These purges continued to create a climate of fear in Pyongyang. In 2012, the vice minister of the army, Kim Chol, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9630509/North-Korean-army-minister-executed-with-mortar-round.html">was executed</a> “for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il’s death”. </p>
<p>A similar fate befell Ri Yong-ho, one of senior team which had guided Kim Jong-un as he was preparing for leadership and by then the chief of staff of the North Korean military. Ri was removed from his positions and is <a href="http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/11/113_190937.html">believed to have been executed</a> amid rumours of <a href="https://www.nknews.org/2012/07/what-was-behind-ri-yong-hos-departure/">disagreement over economic policy</a>. </p>
<p>But the most prominent victim of the early consolidation of Kim’s rule was his uncle and former mentor. Jang Song-thaek was the second most powerful person in North Korea until his execution in 2013 (lurid reports of either being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/06/story-kim-jong-un-uncle-fed-dogs-made-up">torn to pieces by dogs</a> or <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/13/north-korea-execute_n_4437788.html">executed by machine gun</a> have never been confirmed).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1lCAg_9NlWo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Jang, who was accused of being part of a bureaucratic clique engaged in <em>sedo</em> (<a href="https://www.globalasia.org/v9no1/cover/the-execution-of-jang-song-thaek-consolidating-power-pyongyang-style_chang-hyun-jung">lust for power</a>) may have become a real threat to Kim due to his close relations with the Chinese government and his efforts to consolidate control over key elements of the economy. </p>
<p>On February 13 2017, Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/17/north-korea-leader-not-long">Jong-nam</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/01/how-north-korea-got-away-with-the-assassination-of-kim-jong-nam">was murdered</a> in an assassination which made international headlines. He had been in exile for some time in Macau after falling from grace, which he claimed was due to his advocacy of political reform.</p>
<p>He was exposed to VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur International Airport by two women – one Indonesian and one Vietnamese – who claimed they had been asked to play a prank and had no idea of the identity of their target. This was another sign of the intense power struggle within the Kim family itself. </p>
<h2>Violent reshuffles</h2>
<p>These fairly regular purges of North Korea’s elite are partly to fend off alleged coup plots, but <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/54/3/73/118352/Who-Is-Purged-Determinants-of-Elite-Purges-in?redirectedFrom=fulltext">studies of Pyongyang’s leadership</a> show that they are also a key mechanism to maintain control over the bureaucracy, a system also <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/north-koreas-power-structure">effectively used by Kim Jong-il</a> . </p>
<p>In an absolute dictatorship, it is an important mechanism to inoculate the leadership from responsibility for policy failure by blaming others. An absolute leader who demands complete allegiance and unquestioning loyalty from his population cannot be seen to accept responsibility for any of his government’s mistakes, especially when they result – as they have recently – in hardship for so many in the North. </p>
<p>For Kim Jong-un, as with his predecessors in the North Korean leadership, a <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/54/3/73/118352/Who-Is-Purged-Determinants-of-Elite-Purges-in?redirectedFrom=fulltext">purge is a political tool</a> similar to a reshuffle in Downing Street. Expect to read of more while the “Respected Comrade” remains in power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Bluth received funding from the Korean Foundation and the Academy of Korean Studies. </span></em></p>People who get too close to the seat of power in North Korea, including the Supreme Leader’s relatives, have a way of ending up dead.Christoph Bluth, Professor of International Relations and Security, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1912902022-10-04T12:23:37Z2022-10-04T12:23:37ZBiden says the US doesn’t want a new Cold War – but there are some reasons it might<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487568/original/file-20220930-21-zx2bmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C85%2C5167%2C3364&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">United nations or a return to new Cold War?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-speaks-during-the-77th-session-of-the-news-photo/1425945336?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“We do not seek a Cold War,” declared President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/21/1124095601/biden-ukraine-unga-speech">in front of world leaders gathered at the United Nations</a> on Sept. 21, 2022. He continued that America was not asking “any nation to choose between the United States or any other partner.” </p>
<p>But that’s likely <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-us-should-want-a-cold-war-with-china-xi-jinping-taiwan-geopolitics-military-confrontation-competition-biden-democracy-11644510051">not how everyone views the prospect of a new Cold War</a>. Despite Biden’s protestations, foreign policy observers are <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/new-cold-war-0">increasingly framing the relationship</a> between the U.S. on one side and Russia and China on the other <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/27/new-cold-war-nato-summit-united-states-russia-ukraine-china/">as a “Cold War</a>” in which <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/americas-arab-partners-show-no-interest-bidens-cold-war">countries are, in fact, being expected to choose sides</a>. Moreover, in a March 2022 poll more than 6 in 10 American adults said <a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/3ixnq9227y/econTabReport.pdf">the chance of a Cold War was higher</a> than it was five years earlier.</p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/biden-says-the-us-doesnt-want-a-new-cold-war-but-there-are-some-reasons-it-might-191290&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>To be clear, there is no reason to question Biden’s personal sincerity. But as a <a href="https://history.sdsu.edu/people/daddis">historian of the Cold War</a>, I think it is legitimate to ask whether the “no return to Cold War” position is wholly representative of Washington’s foreign policy establishment, given that the Cold War presented advantages and opportunities to the U.S. Moreover, I believe that if Americans were really being honest on the issue, some might concede they actually miss the Cold War.</p>
<h2>Identity and intervention</h2>
<p>From World War II’s end in 1945 to the Berlin Wall’s collapse in 1989, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/odd-arne-westad/the-cold-war/9780465093137/">the Cold War</a> seemingly offered advantages to successive U.S. administrations and the wider American public that have disappeared since.</p>
<p>Perhaps most importantly, the United States could justify <a href="http://peacehistory-usfp.org/cold-war/">interventionist foreign policies</a> during the Cold War era. In faraway places ranging <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44254547">from Greece</a> to <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/congo-decolonization">the Congo</a>, the U.S. presented itself as a benevolent superpower assisting fledgling democracies against an expansionist communist threat, real or perceived.</p>
<p>Supporting allies, whether <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/korean-conflict">in South Korea</a> or <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/lists/america-war-vietnam">South Vietnam</a>, made sense when Moscow, in <a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116192.pdf?v=babe0c496366730e23048f0d2ab5edf2">President Truman’s</a> words, had moved “beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations” and was using “armed invasion and war.”</p>
<p>Proxy wars, where the superpowers fought one another through local allies, were far more palatable when one’s enemy could be deemed an ideological global menace.</p>
<p>The Cold War also offered a form of cultural capital to its champions, allowing Americans to embrace a virtuous national identity, contrasting it to the evils of godless communism. In this framing, Americans were the moral defenders of universal democratic principles. Communists, conversely, were the antithesis to such ethical doctrines.</p>
<p>In the popular 1947 comic “<a href="https://archive.org/details/IsThisTomorrowAmericaUnderCommunismCatecheticalGuild/mode/2up">Is this Tomorrow</a>,” for instance, children were taught that the communists’ rise to power relied on the tools of “starvation, murder, slavery, [and] force.” There was little ambiguity when painting Moscow’s henchmen in bloody red strokes.</p>
<p>Given such threats, those working within the <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-congressionalmilitaryindustrial-complex/">congressional-military-industrial complex</a> found a straightforward, and popular, rationale for increased defense spending. In <a href="https://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1297">one year alone</a> – from 1948 to 1949 – Congress approved a 20% increase in defense appropriations. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/fall/berlin">Berlin Crisis</a>, the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev">communist victory in China’s civil war</a>, the <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-09-09/detection-first-soviet-nuclear-test-september-1949">successful Soviet nuclear test</a> and <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/nato">NATO’s formation</a> – all of which took place in 1949 – portended a future in which Americans needed a potent military machine to protect their security and their interests. Of course, the growth of U.S. military meant power and sway on global stage, an added benefit of burgeoning defense budgets.</p>
<h2>Personal (and political) gain</h2>
<p>While serving national security purposes, the Cold War also could promote certain interest groups and individuals across the political landscape of the United States.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, opportunistic politicians could profit from wartime rhetoric by claiming they alone were defending the nation’s security. </p>
<p>Wisconsin Sen. <a href="https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/25-the-cold-war/joseph-mccarthy-on-communism-1950/">Joseph McCarthy</a> proved the most infamous, even pitting his fellow citizens against one another to gain populist approval ratings. In 1950, McCarthy described the world as being in two “hostile armed camps” and exhorted the nation to become “a beacon in the desert of destruction.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white photo shows a man in a suit and tie sat in front of a old-fashioned microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487831/original/file-20221003-1006-hunm0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487831/original/file-20221003-1006-hunm0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487831/original/file-20221003-1006-hunm0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487831/original/file-20221003-1006-hunm0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487831/original/file-20221003-1006-hunm0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487831/original/file-20221003-1006-hunm0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487831/original/file-20221003-1006-hunm0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sen. Joseph McCarthy led a campaign against what he deemed to be un-American activity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-joseph-mccarthy-testifies-before-the-senate-sub-news-photo/515578696?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His public notoriety – though perhaps not his <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/joseph-mccarthys-downfall-was-accusing-the-ar/">downfall</a> – showcased how Cold War fears could be exploited and then translated into political rewards.</p>
<p>And, as McCarthy’s <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691048703/many-are-the-crimes">Red Scare</a> suggested, perceived threats of domestic communism also could be used by conservative social critics to force consensus upon a rapidly changing postwar American society. In just one example, “<a href="https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/international-connections/red-baiting/">red baiters</a>” maliciously claimed that the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/southern-negro-youth-congress-1937-1949/">Southern Negro Youth Congress</a> had been infiltrated by communists and that the larger civil rights movement was a front for anarchist Marxists.</p>
<p>Could today’s conservatives similarly find use for the threat of the “other” to promote an Americanism that seeks to promote unity over individual identities, rights and broader immigration? Those arguing for a return to a “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3234822">Cold War consensus</a>” certainly believe so.</p>
<h2>Myth and reality</h2>
<p>The 1990s, however, hinted that Cold War triumphs came with unintended consequences. Not only was the stability of the international system seemingly shattered in the post-Cold War world, the lack of a unifying enemy appeared to leave U.S. citizens turning on each other.</p>
<p>Americans engaged in raucous <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo37161499.html">culture wars</a> at home, with critics complaining of a stifling “political correctness” that trampled upon their freedom of speech and expression. Meanwhile, the U.S. armed forces were cast adrift abroad seeking a viable <a href="https://tnsr.org/2018/02/choosing-primacy-u-s-strategy-global-order-dawn-post-cold-war-era-2/">grand strategy</a> after their decadeslong commitment to containing communism ended. </p>
<p>Political scientist <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/politics/foreign/mearsh.htm">John J. Mearsheimer</a> even argued at the Cold War’s end in 1990 that Europe was “reverting to a state system that created powerful incentives for aggression in the past.” Not coincidentally, Mearsheimer also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qciVozNtCDM">recently suggested</a> that the post-Cold War push by NATO into former Soviet countries is to blame for the current war. Perhaps the Cold War indeed had offered a sense of stability as much as it did dread. </p>
<p>For a moment, the post-9/11 global war against terrorism offered promise of a new threat, one existential enough on which to build a new American grand strategy for the 21st century. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/sou012902.htm">George W. Bush</a> declared the United States was facing “an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.” </p>
<p>Yet for all its menace, the axis and its “terrorist allies” could not seem to muster enough fear to sustain America’s attention as long as Cold War communists. True, the United States remained in Afghanistan for <a href="https://theconversation.com/calculating-the-costs-of-the-afghanistan-war-in-lives-dollars-and-years-164588">two long, violent decades</a>, but the threats there seemed more local than existential.</p>
<p>Putin’s Russia today prefigures a possible return to a global Cold War – a new struggle pitting “good” against “evil.” Thus, given President Biden’s contention that he is not seeking one, Americans should reflect deeply on what a 21st-century Cold War might actually look like.</p>
<p>The Cold War in myth and memory may have seemed a more idyllic time, when united Americans led in a fairly stable international system. Yet these decades were far more violent, far more contentious both at home and abroad, than Americans might like to concede.</p>
<p>Some in Washington might indeed be happy to return to a new Cold War. But policymakers should think twice before committing the nation to a decadeslong conflict that relies more on an imagined past than a critical reading of that history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory A. Daddis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Cold War provided the US with strategic and defensive advantages; some politicians also used it to push their view of what it meant to be American.Gregory A. Daddis, Professor and USS Midway Chair in Modern U.S. Military History, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1904222022-09-15T20:03:51Z2022-09-15T20:03:51ZM*A*S*H, 50 years on: the anti-war sitcom was a product of its time, yet its themes are timeless<p>MASH, stylised as M*A*S*H, is the story of a rag-tag bunch of medical misfits of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital thrown together against the horrors of the Korean war in the 1950s. The series endured for 11 seasons, from September 1972 to the final episode in 1983. </p>
<p>Originally it was centred on two army surgeons, the wisecracking but empathetic Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce, played by Alan Alda, and the deadpan “Trapper” John McIntyre, played by Wayne Rogers.</p>
<p>The show had an ensemble cast and different episodes would often focus on one of the featured characters. </p>
<p>There was the meek Corporal “Radar” O'Reilly, cross-dressing Corporal Klinger, the easy-going Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake and pious Father Mulcahy. The antagonists, conniving Major Frank Burns and Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, were foils for Hawkeye and Trapper but occasionally were central characters in some episodes too.</p>
<p>Based on the 1970 movie, itself based on a novel, MASH was designed as a “black comedy” set during the Korean War. </p>
<p>It was really a thinly veiled critique of the war in Vietnam raging at the time. </p>
<p>The creators of the show knew they wouldn’t get away with making a Vietnam war comedy. Uncensored news broadcasts showing the viciousness of Vietnam were transmitted straight to the American public who were, by now, growing jaded of the increasingly brutal war.</p>
<p>Setting the series 20 years earlier allowed the creators to mask their criticisms behind a historical perspective – but most viewers realised the true context.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2NWDgMpQvu8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/alan-alda-on-the-art-of-science-communication-i-want-to-tell-you-a-story-55769">Alan Alda on the art of science communication: 'I want to tell you a story'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An anti-war sitcom</h2>
<p>What started as a criticism of the Vietnam war soon evolved into one for all wars. </p>
<p>In many episodes, audiences would be reminded of the horrors of lives lost in the fighting on the line, and the angst and trauma faced by those behind the line. </p>
<p>It didn’t matter which war this was, MASH was saying all wars are the same, full of shattered lives.</p>
<p>Cloaking this message in comedy was the way the creators were able to make it palatable to a wide audience. </p>
<p>The early seasons have a distinctive sitcom feel to them, mostly as a result of the series co-creators, Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds, who were from a comedy background. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p8mct8jgGl0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>When both creatives left by the end of season five the show took a more dramatic turn.</p>
<p>In particular, Alda became more involved in the writing and took it into a more dramatic direction, toning down the comedic elements. This was also reflected in the change of many of the secondary characters. </p>
<p>The philandering, practical joker Trapper was replaced by the moral and professional BJ Hunnicutt, the snivelling Frank Burns by the pretentious Charles Winchester, the laconic Henry Blake with the officious Sherman Potter, and the complete absence of Radar after season eight. The voice of the series took on a noticeably Hawkeye focus.</p>
<p>As the Vietnam war ended in 1975, the tone of the show also changed. It became less political and focused more on the dilemmas of the individual characters. The laugh track was toned down. But this did not make the show any less popular. </p>
<p>Audiences responded strongly to the anarchic anti-authoritarianism of Hawkeye and Trapper/BJ. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GUeBMwn_eYc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Almost all the characters are anti-war, reflecting the growing antagonism the American public was feeling towards the Vietnam war and war fatigue in general, post-Vietnam. </p>
<p>Even Frank and Hot Lips, the most patriotic characters, sometimes questioned if the war was worth all the suffering and death. And the series reminded people the humour used was not meant to disrespect those fighting but as a coping mechanism of the trauma by those involved.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/accidental-napalm-turns-50-the-generation-defining-image-capturing-the-futility-of-the-vietnam-war-175050">'Accidental Napalm' turns 50: the generation-defining image capturing the futility of the Vietnam war</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A timeless classic</h2>
<p>That’s not to say there aren’t issues with the show when looked at with modern sensibilities. </p>
<p>Contemporary audiences would find problems with some of the representations of characters and issues addressed in the series. Corporal Klinger would today be seen as contentious. His penchant for dressing in women’s clothes was not because he was trans or interested in drag, but because he was trying to get a “Section 8”, or mental health, discharge. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ad3qEFJCTew?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Many of the female characters were also relegated to little more than two-dimensional romantic interests or background characters. </p>
<p>The only woman who starred with a significant recurring role was “Hot Lips” Houlihan but, as the nickname implies, she was often the butt of sexualised humour. </p>
<p>This has not stopped the show maintaining its popularity in the continual re-runs it gets on cable and streaming services. </p>
<p>MASH was a product of its time, yet its themes on the absurdity of war are universal. It became more than a TV show: a shared cathartic experience for war-weary audiences. </p>
<p>At its heart is the eclectic mix of dysfunctional characters who use humour to laugh in the face of adversity. This is what makes MASH a timeless classic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Sparkes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>MASH was designed as a ‘black comedy’ set during the Korean War. It was really a thinly veiled critique of the war in Vietnam, which was raging at the time.Daryl Sparkes, Senior Lecturer (Media Studies and Production), University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1738092021-12-17T13:28:04Z2021-12-17T13:28:04ZKim Jong Un’s decade in power: Starvation, repression and brutal rule – just like his father and grandfather<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438092/original/file-20211216-21-hgrrmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C68%2C3468%2C2525&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Repression running in the genes?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/banner-showing-the-defaced-photos-of-north-korean-leaders-news-photo/916922932?adppopup=true">Jenni Lim/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By the grim metric of fatalities in the first 10 years of a dictator’s rule, Kim Jong Un has yet to match the records set by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, or father, Kim Jong Il – the two tyrants who reigned by terror in North Korea before him.</p>
<p>For now, the number of people Kim Jong Un has personally ordered killed – such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/12/12/kim-jong-un-just-had-his-own-uncle-killed-why/">his uncle in 2013</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/11/kim-jong-nam-half-brother-north-korea-leader-was-cia-informant">half-brother in 2017</a> – is <a href="https://www.chosun.com/politics/north_korea/2021/12/15/4BWXWMPFZBD63NMEG2OLYZKYUQ/">likely</a> <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/nksc-purge-02222019182245.html">to number in the hundreds</a>.</p>
<p>But his decade in power, which began after his <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/kim-jong-il-leader-of-north-korea-dies">father’s death on Dec. 17, 2011</a>, has proved a disaster for people living in the communist nation. The isolationist state has become even more so, as the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/29/asia/north-korea-covid-executions-trade-intl-hnk/index.html">northern border to China closed</a> during the coronavirus pandemic – cutting off an escape route for those desperate to flee. Meanwhile, food insecurity means that “an entire generation of children” are undernourished, as the <a href="https://dprkorea.un.org/en/9983-statement-mr-tapan-mishra-un-resident-coordinator-dprk-release-2019-needs-and-priorities-plan">United Nations has reported</a>.</p>
<p>Concrete numbers of how many have died from <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/KP/A_76_392_AdvanceUnedited.pdf">starvation and malnourishment-related conditions such as diarrhea and pneumonia</a> under Kim are difficult to come by. But as a <a href="https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/sung-yoon-lee">scholar of Korean history</a>, I believe the young dictator – who turns 38 next January – has the capacity to surpass even the ghastly death tolls of his two familial predecessors.</p>
<h2>Three generations of misery</h2>
<p>Kim Jong Un’s first decade in power has seen a continuation of the deadly repression and failed policies that have kept North Koreans living in fear and under the threat of starvation for the last 70 years.</p>
<p>The Korean War that the current leader’s grandfather started in 1950, just two years after founding North Korea, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war#:%7E:text=Korean%20War%20Casualties,-The%20Korean%20War&text=Nearly%205%20million%20people%20died,more%20than%20100%2C000%20were%20wounded">claimed upwards of 4 million lives</a> – most were North Korean civilians killed by the United Nations coalition that came to defend South Korea.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elderly woman and her grandchild wander among the debris of their wrecked home in the aftermath of an air raid by U.S. planes over Pyongyang, the Communist capital of North Korea. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438095/original/file-20211216-21-1xi3s04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438095/original/file-20211216-21-1xi3s04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438095/original/file-20211216-21-1xi3s04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438095/original/file-20211216-21-1xi3s04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438095/original/file-20211216-21-1xi3s04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438095/original/file-20211216-21-1xi3s04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438095/original/file-20211216-21-1xi3s04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civilians bore the brunt during the Korean War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-elderly-woman-and-her-grandchild-wander-among-the-debris-news-photo/2695084?adppopup=true">Keystone/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once his campaign to take South Korea by force was thwarted by the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=85">1953 armistice</a>, Kim Il Sung turned to purging pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese party officials who had dared to criticize him. The North Korean leader went on a killing spree in which thousands of party officials were <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1906/Doc_-_Dec_16_2021_-_3-42_PM.pdf?1639688104">killed or expelled</a> from the Workers’ Party of Korea.</p>
<p>His son, Kim Jong Il, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/19/timeline-kim-jong-il">inherited power in July 1994</a> and oversaw a <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/35-million-dead-how-north-korea-literally-starved-death-1990s-190454">devastating famine</a> in which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/20/world/korean-famine-toll-more-than-2-million.html">upwards of 2 million</a> people starved to death.</p>
<p>But instead of buying food, Kim Jong Il sought aid, most of which he <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/famine-in-north-korea/9780231140003">diverted to North Korea’s military</a>. At the height of the famine in 1997, the U.S. State Department <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/pyongyangs-hunger-games.html">estimated North Korea’s military budget as US$6 billion</a>. During those dark times, Kim spent over a billion dollars a year on his missile programs alone and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/coidprk/pages/commissioninquiryonhrindprk.aspx">over $600 million on luxury goods imports</a>.</p>
<p>He also managed to eke out enough money to build an estimated $800 million mausoleum for his dead father – one in which he himself was entombed in December 2011 after succumbing to a suspected heart attack.</p>
<p>Had he spent <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/coidprk/pages/commissioninquiryonhrindprk.aspx">just $200 million of his wealth each year</a> on grain and distributed it fairly, no one would have died. Instead, as the 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report on Human Rights in North Korea alleges, Kim Jong Il <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=14255&LangID=E">committed the “inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation</a>.”</p>
<p>The same claim could be made against Kim Jong Un during his decade in power. Faminelike conditions have been observed in the mid-2010s and have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/1/humanitarian-disaster-looms-in-north-korea">resurfaced during the pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>Even before Kim sealed the border with China in January 2020, North Korea recorded food shortages of <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/05/1037831">around 1.36 million metric tons in 2018</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/world/asia/north-korea-food-shortage.html">and 2019</a>.
His solution has been to rely on aid and, in October, telling his people to <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/now/north-korea-urges-citizens-eat-202541304.html">eat less until 2025</a>. Meanwhile, during his 10 years in power, Kim has diverted around a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-starving-his-people-pay-nuclear-weapons-573015">quarter of North Korea’s GDP toward the military</a>.</p>
<p>And under Kim Jong Un it has only become harder for North Koreans to escape chronic hunger. During the famine in the 1990s, many North Korean people were able to escape to China in search of food, despite attempts by Kim Jong Il to block them.</p>
<p>In the first year of Kim Jong Un’s rule, the number of escapees who made their way to South Korea <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-KRTB-3426">dropped in half from the previous year to approximately 1,500</a>.</p>
<p>And in the past nearly two years of lockdown under Kim, border-crossing has become far more difficult. In 2021, the number <a href="https://www.unikorea.go.kr/eng_unikorea/relations/statistics/defectors/">is expected to be well below 100</a>.</p>
<h2>A deadly legacy</h2>
<p>When Kim came to power in December 2011, <a href="https://www.nbr.org/publication/the-boy-who-would-be-king-can-kim-iii-last/">I predicted</a> his rule would be marked neither by reform nor power-sharing but extreme internal repression and strategic threats against neighbors.</p>
<p>Sadly, these projections have been proved right. The past decade has seen a continuation of the atrocious human rights record of Kim’s predecessors and a great leap forward on the despotic dynasty’s missile programs. North Korea has fired off over <a href="https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/dprk/">130 missiles over the last 10 years</a>, punctuated by three intercontinental ballistic missile blasts in 2017. Of the four nuclear tests, the last in 2017, was <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-nuclear-commander-assumes-north-korea-tested-h-bomb-sept-3/">a thermonuclear bomb</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>These lethal weapons are custom made for threatening the U.S. with a nuclear war while Kim <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/world/asia/north-korea-kim-jong-un-nuclear.html">dangles the possibility of peace</a>, thus <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/kim-yo-jong-north-korea-to-strengthen-preemptive-strike-ability.html">compelling Washington to withdraw</a> U.S. troops and strategic weapons from South Korea – as Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, called for in August.</p>
<p>Kim Jong Un’s apparent goal is to render Washington’s longtime non-nuclear ally, Seoul, vulnerable to his nuclear-armed state bent on completing its “supreme national task” of completing the “great Juche Revolution” – the absorption of the south and unifying the Korean peninsula on North Korean terms.</p>
<p>A nuclear war, even if limited, could cause civilian deaths in the millions – a horrendous feat already achieved under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.</p>
<p>What is different under Kim Jong Un is that he has built the capacity to inflict much more carnage on the outside world, including the U.S.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sung-Yoon Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kim Jong Un has followed his father and grandfather in ruling by fear. The coronavirus pandemic has made North Korea ever more isolated, while expanded military capabilities make it a growing threat.Sung-Yoon Lee, Professor in Korean Studies, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1689062021-09-29T16:00:46Z2021-09-29T16:00:46ZNorth Korea: the rise and rise of ‘first sister’ Kim Yo-jong<p>When the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-leader-repeats-call-declaration-end-korean-war-2021-09-21/">called for</a> an end to the war on the Korea peninsula recently, the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/09/24/north-korea-rejects-south-koreas-call-to-officially-declare-end-to-70-year-war/?sh=8f307a959e1a">initial response</a> was a rebuff from North Korea’s vice foreign minister. This has been the standard response from Pyongyang whenever the idea has been raised of turning the 1953 armistice between the two warring Koreas into an actual peace treaty. </p>
<p>So it was something of a surprise when, the following day, a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58675703">rather warmer message</a> emerged from Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, who declared the idea “admirable”. She specified a number of pre-conditions which would need to be met, though: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What needs to be dropped is the double-dealing attitudes, illogical prejudice, bad habits and hostile stand of justifying their own acts while faulting our just exercise of the right to self-defence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is the sort of message one would usually expect to come from Kim Jong-un himself, so it prompted a round of discussion from the media’s Korea watchers as to how much weight the world can give a statement from his younger sister. </p>
<h2>Who is Kim Yo-jong?</h2>
<p>The supreme leader’s sister first came to international attention in 2018, when she became the first member of North Korea’s Kim dynasty to visit South Korea in an official capacity. She was part of the nation’s delegation to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, at which the two countries competed as one team. She held a meeting with President Moon and appeared in photo opportunities alongside US Vice President Mike Pence and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Footage of her dominated coverage in North Korea.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-bLgqRcniPA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Following <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/11/kim-yo-jong-north-korea-south-media-regime-olympics">what was reported</a> as her diplomatic triumph at the Winter Olympics, her profile grew as she met with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and was present at all three face-to-face meetings between her brother and US President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Little is known about Kim Yo-jong’s childhood, though – even her date of birth is clouded in uncertainty. She is the youngest child of former supreme leader Kim Jong-il’s relationship with Ko Yong-hui, who was originally from Japan and thus would have been regarded as being from a lower caste in Korea’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/05/north-koreas-caste-system">complex “songbun” system</a> if Kim Jong-il had not removed the official record about her origin. Kim Yo-jong is understood to have attended the same private school with her elder brother in Bern, Switzerland, after which she attended Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, where she studied computer science.</p>
<p>By 2009, Kim Jong-il’s ill-health made the succession a matter of urgent debate and it became increasingly clear that Kim Jong-un was being groomed to take over the leadership on his death. But at Kim Jong-il’s funeral, <a href="https://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/kim-family/kim-yo-jong/">Kim Yo-jong was photographed</a> alongside senior family members.</p>
<p>She has twice been elevated to the politburo, in 2017 to 2019 and 2020 to 2021. In addition, she is also a leader of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, in which capacity she has boosted the cult of personality surrounding her brother as well as making regular statements about North Korean foreign relations.</p>
<p>She is believed to be married to Choe Song, the younger son of the Korean Workers’ Party secretary, Choe Ryong Hae, which gives her another source of political power.</p>
<h2>Heir apparent?</h2>
<p>How much power does Kim Yo-jong actually wield? One incident from June 2020 shows the extent to which she can exercise her will in North Korea. In retaliation for South Korean defectors’ use of balloons to drop propaganda leaflets into the North, she warned that she had ordered the department in charge of inter-Korean affairs to “decisively carry out the next action”, adding that: “Before long, a tragic scene of the useless north-south joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen.”</p>
<p>The following day the building was blown up, suggesting that when Kim Yo-jong orders something, it happens.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l75Qtm1D_6s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Another interesting episode can cast some light over power relations between herself and her brother. In March 2020, Kim Yo-jong issued her first official statement, lashing out at South Korea’s presidential office, the so-called Blue House, which had called on the North to halt its live fire exercises. She referred to the leadership as “a mere child” and “a burnt child dreading fire”. </p>
<p>Two days later Kim Jong-un sent a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/koreas-kim-expresses-condolences-virus-korea-69405503">message of condolence</a> over the outbreak of COVID-19 in the South. This “underlined his unwavering friendship and trust toward President Moon and said that he will continue to quietly send his best wishes for President Moon to overcome”. The message had Korea watchers confused as to whether the siblings were at loggerheads over North-South relations or whether this was a display of “good cop-bad cop” diplomacy.</p>
<p>This is a family where many of the possible male contenders for power have been executed or assassinated – including Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s half brother who <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39048796">was murdered</a> with the nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia in 2017; and his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was reportedly executed by firing squad in 2013 after being accused of being a counter-revolutionary. So the status of Kim Yo-jong’s relationship with her brother is as scrutinised as Kim Jong-un’s physical health when it comes to if – and when – she might be in a position to challenge for ultimate power in North Korea. </p>
<p>In North Korea, it seems that to achieve the leadership it’s necessary to seize the grip of the trinity power of the military, party and people. Both Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un became leading figures of the National Defence Commission (NDC) – the military – as well as the party through the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP). They had both developed their cult of personality, giving them access to the people. </p>
<p>Kim Yo-jong may have achieved name recognition in her capacity as a spokesperson on foreign relations and has access to power in the KWP. But she has not yet been appointed to a position at the NDC. If that happens any time soon, it might be a sign that North Korea is preparing for its first woman leader.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sojin Lim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The increasing prominence of Kim Jong-un’s younger sister has prompted speculation about whether she is positioning herself for ultimate power in North Korea.Sojin Lim, Reader in Asia Pacific Studies (with special reference to Korea), MA North Korean Studies Course Leader, Co-Director of the International Institute of Korean Studies, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1650582021-08-13T12:28:36Z2021-08-13T12:28:36ZIn Afghanistan, the US again gets to choose how it stops fighting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415722/original/file-20210811-23-2zz46b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5991%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. military is handing the keys over to Afghan forces.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Archive/Story-Article-View/Article/477816/corps-of-engineers-transfers-om-to-afghans/">Joe Marek/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As headlines proclaim the “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/30/politics/afghanistan-war-ending-biden-war-on-terror/index.html">end</a>” of “<a href="https://whyy.org/episodes/ending-americas-longest-war/">America’s longest war</a>,” President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of the remaining U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan is being covered by some in the news media as though it means the end of the conflict – or even means peace – in Afghanistan. It most certainly does not.</p>
<p>For one thing, the war is not actually ending, even if the <a href="https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/former-cia-officer-explains-how-us-operations-in-afghanistan-will-continue/">U.S. participation in it is dwindling</a>. Afghan government forces, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57682290">armed and equipped with U.S. supplies</a> – at least for the moment – will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/us/politics/taliban-afghanistan-united-states.html">continue to fight the Taliban</a>. </p>
<p>Disengagement from an armed conflict is common U.S. practice in recent decades – since the 1970s, the country’s military has simply left Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan. But for much of the country’s history, Americans won their wars decisively, with the complete surrender of enemy forces and the home front’s perception of total victory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a battle, with U.S. forces on the right, led by Andrew Jackson, and British forces invading by sea from the left" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415723/original/file-20210811-23-1q1088z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A clear U.S. victory in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 let Americans think they had won the War of 1812.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://history.house.gov/Blog/2015/January/1-8-Second-Battle-New-Orleans/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A history of triumph</h2>
<p>The American Revolution, of course, was the country’s first successful war, creating the nation. The War of 1812, sometimes called the <a href="http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/madison/aa_madison_war_1.html">Second War of Independence</a>, failed in both its goals, of ending the British practice of <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/1812-impressment.html">forcing American mariners into the Royal Navy</a> and conquering Canada. But then-Major General Andrew Jackson’s overwhelming <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/war-1812/battles/new-orleans">triumph at the Battle of New Orleans</a> allowed Americans to think they had won that war.</p>
<p>In the 1840s, the U.S. defeated Mexico and <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/mexican-american-war/mexican-american-war">seized half its territory</a>. In the 1860s, the United States <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history">defeated and occupied</a> the secessionist Confederate States of America. In 1898 the Americans <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/ojeda.html">drove the Spanish out</a> of Cuba and the Philippines.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/u-s-entry-into-world-war-i-1">America’s late entry into World War I</a> tipped the balance in favor of Allied victory, but the postwar acrimony over America’s refusal to enter the League of Nations, followed by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, eventually <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/foreword">soured Americans on the war’s outcome</a> as well as any involvement in Europe’s problems.</p>
<p>That disillusionment led to the strident campaigns to prevent the U.S. from intervening in World War II, with the slogan “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/America-First-Committee">America First</a>.” When the U.S. did enter the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt demanded the “<a href="https://fdr.blogs.archives.gov/2017/01/10/the-casablanca-conference-unconditional-surrender/">unconditional surrender</a>” of both Germany and Japan.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/world-discovered-nazi-death-camps-020933983.html">discovery of the Nazi death camps</a> gave the war its profound justification, while the Japanese surrender on the battleship Missouri in 1945 became a symbol of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/from-colony-to-superpower-9780199765539?cc=us&lang=en&">unparalleled American power and victory</a>. It was perhaps captured best by the words of the American general who accepted that surrender, Douglas MacArthur: “<a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurfarewelladdress.htm">In war there is no substitute for victory</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white image of officials signing a document aboard a warship" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415725/original/file-20210811-15-e1pt2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in August 1945, the U.S. occupied Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2013648116/">U.S. Navy, via Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lasting connections</h2>
<p>After World War II, the United States kept substantial military presences in both Germany and Japan, and encouraged the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2014/06/06/the-lessons-from-us-aid-after-world-war-ii">creation of democratic governments</a> and the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/mouse-that-roared/oclc/1112131683">development of what ultimately became economic powerhouses</a>.</p>
<p>The U.S. stayed in those defeated nations not with the express purpose of rebuilding them, but rather as part of the post-war effort to <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/17601.htm">contain the expanding influence</a> of its former ally, the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>Nuclear weapons on both sides made <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-wars-end-why-we-always-fight-the-last-battle/oclc/758535136">all-out war between the superpowers</a> unthinkable, but more limited conflicts were possible. Over the five decades of the Cold War, the U.S. fought at arm’s length against the Soviets in Korea and Vietnam, with outcomes shaped as much by domestic political pressures as by <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/fearing-the-worst/9780231192743">foreign policy concerns</a>. </p>
<p>In Korea, the war between the communist-backed North and the U.S.- and U.N.-backed South ended with a 1953 <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/armistice-ends-the-korean-war">armistice that ended major combat</a>, but was not a victory for either side. U.S. troops <a href="https://www.usfk.mil/">remain in Korea</a> to this day, providing security against a possible North Korean attack, which has helped allow the South Koreans to develop a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/South-Korea/Labour-and-taxation#ref34970">prosperous democratic country</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A view of a line of people climbing to a rooftop where a helicopter waits" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415728/original/file-20210811-21-1bz0lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The evacuation of Saigon in 1975 after the North Vietnamese victory was an iconic embarrassment for the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/employee-helps-vietnamese-evacuees-onto-an-air-america-news-photo/517431890">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A humbling loss</h2>
<p>In Vietnam, by contrast, the U.S. ended its involvement with a treaty, the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/paris-peace-accords-signed">Paris Peace Accords of 1973</a>, and pulled out all U.S. troops. Richard Nixon had vowed early in his presidency that he would not be “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/remembering-vietnam-online-exhibit-episodes-9-12">the first American president to lose a war</a>,” and used the treaty to proclaim that he had achieved “<a href="https://qz.com/689961/watch-peace-with-honor-richard-nixons-1973-speech-on-the-end-of-us-involvement-in-vietnam/">peace with honor</a>.”</p>
<p>But all the peace agreement had really done was create what historians have called a “<a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1190-4.html">decent interval</a>,” a two-year period in which South Vietnam could continue to exist as an independent country before North Vietnam rearmed and invaded. Nixon and his chief foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger, were <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809095377">focused on the enormous domestic pressure</a> to end the war and get American prisoners of war released. They hoped South Vietnam’s inevitable collapse two years later <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809095377">would be blamed on the Vietnamese themselves</a>.</p>
<p>But the speed of the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, symbolized by <a href="https://diplomacy.state.gov/u-s-diplomacy-stories/fall-of-saigon-1975-american-diplomats-refugees/">masses seeking helicopter evacuations</a> from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, revealed the embarrassment of American defeat. The <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809095377">postwar flight</a> of millions of Vietnamese made “peace with honor” an empty slogan, hollowed further by the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/pol-pot">millions murdered in Cambodia</a> by the Khmer Rouge, who overthrew the U.S.-supported government as troops withdrew from Southeast Asia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A military vehicle sits between a fence and a roll of barbed wire" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415729/original/file-20210811-13-3aol8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The U.S. is leaving Bagram Airfield, the country’s largest base, and other military installations in Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-view-of-bagram-airfield-the-biggest-us-military-news-photo/1233781771">Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The choice to withdraw</h2>
<p>President George H.W. Bush thought the decisive American victory in the Persian Gulf War in February 1991 “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PPP-1991-book1/html/PPP-1991-book1-doc-pg195-2.htm">kicked the Vietnam syndrome</a>,” meaning that Americans were overcoming their reluctance to use military force in defense of their interests.</p>
<p>However, Bush’s 90% popularity at the end of that war faded quickly, as Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein remained in power and the U.S. economic recession took the spotlight. One bumper sticker in the 1992 presidential campaign said, “<a href="https://topbumperstickers.com/saddam-hussein-has-a-job-do-you/">Saddam Hussein has a job. Do you?</a>” </p>
<p>In 2003 President George W. Bush sought to avoid his father’s mistake. He sent troops <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/war-in-iraq-begins">all the way to Baghdad</a> and ousted Saddam, but this decision embroiled the United States in a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iraq-War">frustrating counterinsurgency</a> war whose popularity rapidly declined. </p>
<p>Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 in part on contrasting the bad “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/17/barack-obama-veterans-speech">war of choice</a>” in Iraq with the good “war of necessity” in Afghanistan, and then <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-announces-end-of-iraq-war-troops-to-return-home-by-year-end/">withdrew from Iraq</a> in 2011 while <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Afghanistan-War/The-Obama-surge">boosting American forces in Afghanistan</a>. However, the <a href="https://www.state.gov/about-us-the-global-coalition-to-defeat-isis/">rise of the Islamic State group</a> in Iraq required Obama to send American forces back into that country, and the Afghanistan surge <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/09/surge-report-card/">did not yield anything</a> approaching a decisive result.</p>
<p>Now, Biden has decided to end America’s war in Afghanistan. Public opinion polls indicate <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/562897-partisan-split-seen-in-new-poll-on-withdrawal-from-afghanistan">widespread support</a> for this, and <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/biden-unmoved-afghan-exit-taliban-172431943.html">Biden seems determined</a>, despite the advice of the military and predictions of civil war. The fact that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-pledges-withdraw-troops-afghanistan-christmas-taliban-cheer-n1242590">President Donald Trump also wanted to pull out of Afghanistan</a> would seem to indicate there is little domestic political risk. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, history offers another possibility. A rapid takeover of the country by the Taliban, with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/taliban-has-not-changed-say-women-facing-subjugation-in-areas-of-afghanistan-under-its-extremist-rule-164760">subsequent persecution of women</a> and domestic opponents of the regime, may well produce a backlash among millions of Americans who follow foreign policy only episodically and when dramatic events occur. </p>
<p>Just as the brutality of Islamic State executions led U.S. forces back into Iraq, a Taliban takeover could make the Biden withdrawal of the relatively small American force seem an <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/3138126/ex-president-karzai-says-us-failed-afghanistan-total">unforced error and an expression of American weakness</a>. </p>
<p>As much as it might seem that Americans today want to stop their “<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/american-endless-wars/">endless wars</a>,” the humiliation, repression and carnage involved in a Taliban triumph may well cast a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-vietnam-war-afghanistan-withdrawal-george-w-bush-11626729633">profound and damaging shadow</a> over the entire Biden presidency.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Alan Schwartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For much of the country’s history, Americans won their wars decisively, with the complete surrender of enemy forces and the home front’s perception of total victory.Thomas Alan Schwartz, Professor of History, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321402020-02-25T11:43:32Z2020-02-25T11:43:32ZCrash Landing on You: Korean drama crosses the north-south divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316441/original/file-20200220-92497-1w5x5ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C1774%2C896&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Border-crossing lovers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/world/asia/trump-kim-vietnam-summit.html">failure of talks</a> between US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and as the excitement about the prospect of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/27/north-south-korea-summit-leaders-promise-lasting-peace-denuclearisation-kim-jong-un-moon-jae-in">formal inter-Korean peace agreement</a> has waned, a television series has focused on the ties that bind the two Koreas. </p>
<p>Crash Landing on You, the last episode of which aired in early February, achieved the <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/02/18/crash-landing-on-you-topples-goblin-as-highest-rated-drama-in-channels-history.html">highest ratings</a> in the history of South Korean TV channel TVN and has caught the imagination of <a href="https://www.koreatechdesk.com/k-drama-crash-landing-on-you-on-netflix-international-is-capturing-hearts-eyeballs-worldwide/">audiences wordwide</a>.</p>
<p>The ambitious, cross-border storyline involves a wealthy South Korean heiress who accidentally paraglides on to the wrong side of the military demarcation line where she meets and falls in love with a North Korean soldier. Their meeting sets the stage for a tale which continually references the complexity of the inter-Korean division.</p>
<p>The drama reverses the old Korean saying, “<em><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fworld%2fasia_pacific%2fsouth-korea-went-gaga-over-a-north-korean-singer-just-wait-until-the-rest-arrive%2f2018%2f01%2f22%2fecf39004-ff7e-11e7-93f5-53a3a47824e8_story.html">nam nam, buk nyeo</a></em>”, or “southern man, northern woman” as representative of the ideal Korean couple. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317048/original/file-20200225-24655-1tl4mc8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poster to promote the summit between North and South Korea, Seoul City Hall, April 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah A Son</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead it presents the audience with a strong but sensitive North Korean male lead and a career-driven but kindhearted female lead. Their story plays out both north and south of the border which divides the two countries, which remain officially at war.</p>
<p>North Korean escapees in South Korea <a href="http://www.dailian.co.kr/news/view/863686">have described the series</a> as a fairly accurate representation of ordinary life in the north – including the local dialect, the availability of South Korean products in the markets as well as the frequency of power blackouts, the prevalence of bribery and the privileged lives of the elite. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1229454240252170241"}"></div></p>
<p>The drama <a href="http://www.dailian.co.kr/news/view/863686">has also been praised</a> by North Korean escapee organisations in South Korea for breaking down stereotypes of North Korea and its people, whose image has long suffered as a result of inter-Korean tensions and a lack of positive cross-border, people-to-people contact.</p>
<p>The election of Moon in 2017 and his stated aim of working towards a formal peace agreement facilitated a new phase of inter-Korean rapprochement and several <a href="https://www.38north.org/tag/inter-korean-summit/">high-profile meetings</a> between the leaders of the two Koreas and the United States in 2018-19. But the warm atmosphere of 2018 and hopes for greater inter-Korean engagement have since cooled, following the breakdown of US-North Korea negotiations on de-nuclearisation and the failure of South Korea to broker any further progress. </p>
<h2>Painful past</h2>
<p>The inter-Korean division as a great tragedy and the unnatural situation on the peninsula is a theme that runs strongly throughout Crash Landing on You’s storyline. The love between the northerner and the southerner, seemingly destined to unite but kept apart by arbitrary forces beyond their control, mirrors the bitter narrative of the two Koreas, which has spanned more than 70 years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316909/original/file-20200224-24690-1oo7jke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316909/original/file-20200224-24690-1oo7jke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316909/original/file-20200224-24690-1oo7jke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316909/original/file-20200224-24690-1oo7jke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316909/original/file-20200224-24690-1oo7jke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316909/original/file-20200224-24690-1oo7jke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316909/original/file-20200224-24690-1oo7jke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 38th parallel which divides the two Koreas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Viewers are reminded of the interminability of the Korean War when the central characters take refuge in an abandoned house within the demilitarised zone which still divides the peninsula. There they find a water bowl sitting atop a traditional Korean storage jar, which the North Koreans explain was left out as part of a Shamanistic prayer ritual for a son sent to war between 1950 and 1953, in the hope of a return which never came.</p>
<h2>Talking politics</h2>
<p>The real-life representations in the script were aided by the work of assistant script writer and North Korean escapee, Kwak Moon-Wan, who studied film in Pyongyang before coming to the South. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/korean/51519885">Kwak told the BBC</a> he was keen to avoid political controversy and unnecessary demonisation of the North Korean regime in his writing. The drama’s lead villain is therefore portrayed as being driven by his own corruption and personal vendetta rather than acting on orders from higher up.</p>
<p>Yet in a poignant scene where an anguished North Korean officer confesses his guilt for aiding in the murder of an innocent man on orders from his superior, the officer laments: “If that’s my mission given by the country … don’t you think that’s too cruel?” The viewer also can’t help but note the fear surrounding mention of the North Korean Ministry of State Security and the structures of surveillance that pervade daily life among the North Korean characters.</p>
<p>On the other side of the divide, South Korea is painted in a markedly more flattering light. Explicit reference to the comparative sophistication of all things southern – from fashion to the dialect – is frequent. When some of the northern characters find themselves in the South, their childlike wonder at the sheer abundance of apparent luxury is consistent with the southern view of their northern cousins as provincial and unworldly. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317046/original/file-20200225-24672-14pqaae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317046/original/file-20200225-24672-14pqaae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317046/original/file-20200225-24672-14pqaae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317046/original/file-20200225-24672-14pqaae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317046/original/file-20200225-24672-14pqaae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317046/original/file-20200225-24672-14pqaae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317046/original/file-20200225-24672-14pqaae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tale of love and friendship across borders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At other times, that provincial simplicity, manifested in a slower, low-tech pace of life in the North, as well as close appreciation of the seasons and of nature, is presented as a virtue lost in the hectic pace of the urban South.</p>
<p>Academic scholarship on the prospects for the future unification of the two Koreas <a href="https://www-tandfonline-com.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/14631369.2016.1151236">has warned</a> of the threat to North-South reconciliation posed by the sheer scale of the <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/divided-korea">socio-cultural divide</a>, which would take much more than a political agreement to overcome.</p>
<p>Through the re-framing of stereotypes, albeit with some creative licence, Crash Landing on You arguably humanises the North for its audience in ways that inter-Korean dialogue has not in recent years. Despite its soft-focus romanticisation of the political situation, Crash Landing on You brings the pain of the division to a personal level for a generation of Koreans who, unlike their grandparents, have no memory of what it was like to be a single nation. </p>
<p>While forays into such fraught territory in <a href="https://link-springer-com.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/article/10.1007/s12140-009-9086-z">South Korean popular culture</a> have had mixed results over the years, the success of this story suggests there is still room to explore new ways to reignite affection between the people of North and South Korea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah A. Son does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A cross-border love story set on the Korean peninsula is the most popular television drama in South Korean history.Sarah A. Son, Lecturer in Korean Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1255632019-11-05T12:17:01Z2019-11-05T12:17:01ZHealth care workers wanted: A veteran needs you to work at a VA hospital<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298180/original/file-20191022-55701-1edbckp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vietnam veteran Marvin Nolin of Dover, Tenn., visits the Poppy Wall of Honor on the National Mall in Washington, Friday, May 24, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Memorial-Day-Poppy-Wall/be41383df08249b992e0a7b14d526f96/4/0">Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Flying home from Florida recently, I was seated across the aisle from an elderly man wearing a hat identifying himself as a Marine. His wife sat next to him and helped him store his cane in the overhead bin. </p>
<p>I noticed that at least five of the boarding passengers thanked him for his service when they walked past him in the bulkhead row. Most were women who appeared middle-aged and all appeared sincere. One passenger shook his hand while asking him when he served; his wife answered for him saying: “He doesn’t hear so good anymore … he served in Korea.” He and his wife held hands on take-off and landing.</p>
<p>At every home football and basketball game at the University of Michigan, the announcer mentions the name of a veteran and describes what he or she did during their military career. The announcer usually gets about 10 seconds into the description before the crowd begins to stand, applauding loudly. The veteran appears on the widescreen monitors smiling and waving to the audience. The veterans so honored range from soldiers who served in World War II to those of more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>I know these fellow Americans well. I care for them as chief of medicine at my university’s VA hospital, and have done so <a href="https://theconversation.com/caring-for-veterans-a-privilege-and-a-duty-67823">for over two decades</a>. And I love them. They are a special type of person and sometimes hail from humble beginnings; rarely will they have a degree from a well-known university. </p>
<p>I am sad to see that they have far fewer visitors than patients at other academic medical centers. When gas prices rise, the number of visitors appears to fall further since money for long car rides is not in the budget. Other than their beloved animals, they are often alone in this world, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4671760/">suffer disproportionately</a> from mental health and substance use issues. They are also among the most grateful patients I have ever cared for and the most deserving of superb care.</p>
<h2>An honor to serve, and a desire to serve better</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298183/original/file-20191022-55685-ponfki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298183/original/file-20191022-55685-ponfki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298183/original/file-20191022-55685-ponfki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298183/original/file-20191022-55685-ponfki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298183/original/file-20191022-55685-ponfki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298183/original/file-20191022-55685-ponfki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298183/original/file-20191022-55685-ponfki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Veterans often obtain health care at VA hospitals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/veterans-memorial-day-service-588832613?src=WkO5weF-rb1AyChndjDFnw-1-31">flysnowfly</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am proud to be <a href="https://catalyst.nejm.org/videos/the-va-mission-care-final-salute/">a naturalized citizen</a> of a country that honors those who have served – and currently serve – in the armed forces. I suspect my colleagues who work in the approximately 1,000 VA hospitals and clinics around the country work there because they, too, love these Americans. We certainly do not work at the VA due to the pay, prestige, press coverage, or the ease with which things are done within this massive bureaucracy. I often quip: “I love working <em>at</em> the VA; I don’t love working <em>for</em> the VA.” </p>
<p>Hospital CEOs at the VA – the top position in the medical center – make an <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/US-Department-of-Veterans-Affairs-Medical-Director-Salaries-E41429_D_KO34,50.htm">annual salary of approximately US$230,000 </a> whereas the CEO of hospitals outside of the VA, including nonprofit organizations, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2019/06/26/top-u-s-non-profit-hospitals-ceos-are-racking-up-huge-profits/#5d9e115819df">typically make twice that amount</a> and often far more. </p>
<p>To use my VA hospital – <a href="https://www.evideon.com/results/va-ann-arbor-healthcare-system-exceeds-national-averages-in-satisfaction">one of the country’s highest</a> in inpatient veteran satisfaction – as an example, we desperately need <a href="https://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-19-00346-241.pdf">more people willing to work at the VA</a>. We recently had to close 15% of our inpatient beds for approximately two months due to a nursing shortage. </p>
<p>Veterans who wanted to be admitted and cared for in our hospital were sent elsewhere during this time. We also have open positions for physicians that are unfilled, and not just positions that pay much more in the private sector such as cancer specialists and those who perform complicated procedures; more primary care physicians would be extremely welcome.</p>
<p>It is not just front-line providers that are needed – we also need superb and consistent leaders. During the nearly five years I have led the internal medicine service, I have had five different hospital CEOs and four different chiefs of the medical staff.</p>
<h2>Veterans need better care</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298185/original/file-20191022-55650-ii2vn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298185/original/file-20191022-55650-ii2vn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298185/original/file-20191022-55650-ii2vn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298185/original/file-20191022-55650-ii2vn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298185/original/file-20191022-55650-ii2vn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298185/original/file-20191022-55650-ii2vn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298185/original/file-20191022-55650-ii2vn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The VA Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ann-arbor-miusa-march-29-2016-398086051?src=ZDM9Y34HPjAfG0KNfTIrFQ-1-4">Barbara Kalbfleisch/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Currently, <a href="https://www.vacareers.va.gov/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2-z4i-Gq5AIVef_jBx2MXgqiEAAYASAAEgJUAPD_BwE">thousands of job openings in the VA</a> exist across the country for physicians, nurses and physician assistants.</p>
<p>President <a href="https://www.vfw.org/media-and-events/latest-releases/archives/2018/6/president-trump-signs-va-mission-act">Trump signed the Mission Act</a> in June 2018 after it passed the House with a vote of 347-70 and the Senate with a vote of 92-5. It went into effect June 6, 2019. Veterans now have far greater choice than ever before so the VA must now compete with the private sector and differentiate ourselves from what the community can offer veterans. The Mission Act makes it much easier for veterans to receive care in the community with the VA picking up the expense. </p>
<p>One way we are differentiating is by focusing on telehealth and a new initiative referred to as “Whole Health” which is designed <a href="https://www.va.gov/patientcenteredcare/explore/about-whole-health.asp">to address all the needs of the veteran</a> including their physical and spiritual well-being, personal surroundings, nutrition, relationships and mental wellness.</p>
<p>Part of the focus at our hospital will also be on creating an environment that cultivates “sacred moments” between veterans and their provider. A <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150105170243.htm">sacred moment</a> is said to occur when there is a brief period in which the patient or provider or both experience the feeling of being deeply interconnected, transcendent and boundless, which can lead to the emotional experience of awe, humility, gratitude and serenity.</p>
<h2>Heartbreak and hurt among Vietnam vets</h2>
<p>I had one such experience a few months ago. My patient was in his 70s and had served in Vietnam; his family had migrated from Mexico decades ago. He was hospitalized due to kidney problems stemming from high blood pressure. One afternoon during my daily visit, he mentioned that he attributed much of his high blood pressure to his war-related stress. I asked him to tell me more and assumed I would hear about the horrors that he faced while in Vietnam. To my surprise, he identified his negative feelings stemming primarily from how he was treated when he returned to America after Vietnam. As he broke down in tears, he told me that he was spat upon, yelled at, and called a “baby killer.”</p>
<p>I was a child when Vietnam ended, so I don’t have an independent recollection of how our Vietnam veterans were treated. However, I have <a href="https://www.history.com/news/vietnam-war-veterans-treatment">heard and read enough stories</a> about that period in U.S. history that I am sorry that we did not do better for our returning veterans. I suspect part of the reason that we thank veterans when we see them now – on the street or on an airplane – is that we are repaying that debt. An additional way to thank veterans for their service is to serve them during their time of medical need. To my fellow clinicians: We need you to work at VA. Please help.</p>
<p><em>This article reflects the views of the author only and not the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>You respect facts and expertise. So do The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=yourespect">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125563/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanjay Saint receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, </span></em></p>Americans say they love their veterans, but a sad fact has emerged that betrays that profession. Huge vacancies in VA medical centers means that veterans are not getting the health care they need.Sanjay Saint, George Dock Professor of Medicine, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1227042019-09-04T11:53:08Z2019-09-04T11:53:08ZFor some children born abroad, US citizenship has never been a guarantee<p>The Trump administration <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/policymanual/updates/20190828-ResidenceForCitizenship.pdf">announced</a> on Aug. 28 that it would revoke the longstanding policy of granting citizenship to some children of parents stationed abroad who are U.S. citizens and government employees or members of the U.S. armed forces.</p>
<p>Public uproar ensued, including the use of the hashtag <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-military-families-children-overseas-troops-automatic-citizenship-1456710">#Trumphatesmilitaryfamilies</a>. </p>
<p>The policy requires a more <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/29/755506286/what-do-new-citizenship-rules-for-kids-of-u-s-military-workers-abroad-mean">complicated application process for citizenship for</a> children born to parents who became U.S. citizens after their children were born; who are U.S. citizens but have never lived in the U.S.; who are naturalized citizens and do not meet U.S. residency requirements; and to adopted children of parents serving overseas. </p>
<p>But historically, not all children born of U.S. citizen service members stationed overseas have been granted U.S. citizenship nor legal recognition. </p>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28732">“Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines,”</a> I document the longstanding precariousness of U.S. citizenship for children born to Filipina mothers and U.S. servicemen. </p>
<h2>Filipino Amerasian children</h2>
<p>Christopher Acebedo, now in his 40s, is the son of a Filipina woman and U.S. naval seaman who was stationed at the U.S. Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines in the late 1970s. </p>
<p>The U.S. Subic Bay Naval Base was a logistics and maintenance hub for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War and a popular destination for “rest and relaxation” for service personnel during that time. </p>
<p>His mother attempted an illegal abortion but failed. She gave birth to Christopher and abandoned him; he was raised by his grandmother. He eventually lived at the <a href="https://www.preda.org/about/about-preda/">PREDA Center</a>, a nonprofit organization run by Father Shay Cullen, an Irish missionary priest. The center helped sexually exploited women and children. </p>
<p>Christopher is just one of hundreds of thousands of Amerasian children across Southeast Asia who represent a legacy of the Vietnam War. Although I’m unaware of a global estimate, in the Philippines alone there are an estimated <a href="https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol46/iss5/6">23,000 to 50,000 Amerasians</a>.</p>
<p>These children, whose mothers are local women and fathers are U.S. servicemen, <a href="http://amerasianresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/CHHSS2012CambodiaContinuingConundrumfinalpdf.file_.pdf">are often born into poverty and face discrimination</a> within their communities. Many are stigmatized in their home countries, since their mothers are presumed to be sex workers. They are often <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Filipino_Amerasians.html?id=nftvAAAAMAAJ">abandoned by their biological fathers and, at times, even their extended maternal family</a>. Without their biological father’s legal recognition, they are not entitled to U.S. citizenship.</p>
<p>Christopher was one of three named Amerasian children, and one Filipina mother, in a class action lawsuit against the United States in 1993. This lawsuit was filed by American lawyer Joseph W. Cotchett on behalf of an estimated 8,600 Filipino Amerasian children in Olongapo, the city surrounding the former naval base. </p>
<p>The filers argued that the U.S. government shared “joint legal responsibility with those who fathered the children left behind with the withdrawal of the Naval personnel.” Because they were abandoned, Cotchett argued, the Amerasian children were entitled to damages. </p>
<p>Cotchett relied on the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/tucker_act">U.S. Tucker Act</a> as the basis of his argument. The act states that a contract with the U.S. military, whether written or implied, is a contract with the U.S. generally.</p>
<p>Cotchett argued that the U.S. military entered into a contract with the Olongapo government when it helped establish and run a clinic since 1974 to treat sexually transmitted infections of local sex workers and when it assisted in regulating sex work in the area. As a consequence, the suit claimed, the U.S. military was jointly responsible for the children fathered by U.S. servicemen and the children were owed damages because they were abandoned after the U.S. military withdrew from the Philippines. </p>
<p>The case was dismissed by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in 1993. Cotchett and his legal team failed to gain recognition or financial assistance for the Filipino Amerasian children left behind by the U.S. servicemen stationed at Subic Bay. </p>
<h2>Congressional attempts for recognition</h2>
<p>In 1981, Jeremiah Denton, a Republican senator from Alabama, introduced the Amerasian Act to Congress. The act would provide an immigration pathway for Amerasian children born in east and Southeast Asia during the Korean and Vietnam wars. </p>
<p>The original Senate proposal included references to Amerasian children born in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan. The bill passed in 1982, but <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/97th-congress/senate-bill/1698">the final, enacted version</a> excluded children born in the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290394/original/file-20190831-166001-1hki918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290394/original/file-20190831-166001-1hki918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290394/original/file-20190831-166001-1hki918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290394/original/file-20190831-166001-1hki918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290394/original/file-20190831-166001-1hki918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290394/original/file-20190831-166001-1hki918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290394/original/file-20190831-166001-1hki918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amerasian children pose in front of cathedral in Ho Chi Minh City in 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS461066-Vietnam-War-Amerasia-/dadd900a3f3543f9bb0631681de5e1b5/14/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although no reason is explicitly given as to why these countries were taken out of the proposed law, the Philippines and Japan have long hosted U.S. military bases. So, too, were these countries outside the combat zone, and contiguous land areas, ravaged by the Vietnam War. </p>
<p>In 1993, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/2429">House Resolution 2429</a> was introduced to Congress by Lucien E. Blackwell, a black congressman and army veteran. This resolution would have added Filipino Amerasians into the Amerasian Act. But it died in a subcommittee, never even voted on by Congress.</p>
<p>For Amerasians included in the Amerasian Act, migration to the U.S. did not guarantee a good life or acceptance. <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/children-of-the-vietnam-war-131207347/">According to Smithsonian Magazine</a>, an estimated 26,000 Amerasians from Vietnam migrated to the U.S. through the multiple laws aimed at assisting this group. </p>
<p>“No more than 3% found their fathers in their adoptive homeland. Good jobs were scarce,” wrote David Lamb. “As many as half remained illiterate or semi-illiterate in both Vietnamese and English and never became U.S. citizens. The mainstream Vietnamese-American population looked down on them.”</p>
<p>Today, many, if not most, of the estimated 25,000 to 50,000 Amerasians in the Philippines <a href="https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/aalj/vol2/iss1/4/">remain without economic support</a>. They do not have U.S. citizenship, because their biological fathers do not claim or legally recognize them, and neither does the U.S. military. Nor do they qualify for visa preference specified in the Amerasian Act. </p>
<p>U.S. citizenship has never been guaranteed to all children born to U.S. citizen service members. For those children born in the shadows of overseas U.S. military bases to local women, their citizenship status, ability to migrate to the U.S. and claims to financial support and legal recognition have long been contested.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Reyes has received fellowships, awards and/or grants from the American Association of University Women, National Science Foundation, American Sociological Association, Institute of International Education, Law and Society Association, National Women’s Studies Association, and National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan.</span></em></p>For children born in the shadows of overseas US military bases to local women, their citizenship status has long been contested.Victoria Reyes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California, RiversideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1132362019-03-13T10:41:25Z2019-03-13T10:41:25ZWhy North Korean prosperity would be the ruin of Kim Jong Un<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263215/original/file-20190311-86710-1jzgdmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An employee watches a bank of TV's broadcasting a news report on a Hanoi summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, in Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 28, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pictures.reuters.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0BXZSHJPHA1U&SMLS=1&RW=1264&RH=744&PN=3&POPUPPN=125&POPUPIID=2C0BF1QPBTOGB">Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vietnam seemed like the perfect place for Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/politics/vietnam-summit-donald-trump-kim-jong-un/index.html">meet in late February for their latest summit</a> on denuclearization. At Hanoi’s posh Metropole Hotel, Trump hoped to convince Kim to abandon nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions against North Korea, which would <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/trump-north-korea-economic-rocket-kim-jong-un.html">spur needed economic development</a> in that country. </p>
<p>North Korea’s economy has been in dire straits since the Soviet Union – which had propped up its communist regime – collapsed in the early 1990s. Starvation remains common in North Korea, where 10.5 of its 25 million people <a href="https://borgenproject.org/tag/poverty-in-north-korea/">are undernourished</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Vietnam – once <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam/overview">one of the world’s poorest countries</a> – has prospered. Its communist government <a href="http://www.nira.or.jp/past/publ/review/2000spring/06thang.pdf">introduced free-market reforms</a> in the late 1980s after the <a href="http://www.nira.or.jp/past/publ/review/2000spring/06thang.pdf">failure</a> of its Soviet-style <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/centrally-planned-economy.asp">planned economy</a>, permitting the private ownership of businesses and farms after years of controlling all markets.</p>
<p>Referencing Vietnam’s economic success story, President Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1100012620441100290?lang=en">wrote on Twitter</a> on February 8: “With complete Denuclearization, North Korea will rapidly become an Economic Powerhouse” too.</p>
<h2>The communist divide</h2>
<p>As a historian, I disagree with Trump’s view that Vietnam <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-us-wants-north-korea-to-follow-the-miracle-of-vietnams-path-it-might-be-disappointed/2019/02/24/be77f83c-352e-11e9-8375-e3dcf6b68558_story.html?utm_term=.1ff8b4e6c37d">is the blueprint</a> for North Korea.</p>
<p>I am currently writing a college textbook on the history of Germany, my country of birth. The Vietnam summit came while I was focused on the chapter about <a href="http://tadamtransnationalhistory.com/Welcome.html">East Germany’s transition</a>, in the 1990s, from a Soviet-style socialist economy to a more free-market economy.</p>
<p>In my assessment, North Korea is much more similar to Cold War-era East Germany than it is to modern Vietnam.</p>
<p>Both North Korea and East Germany were separated by communism from the other half of their once-unified nation. They are countries founded entirely on the rejection of their capitalist brothers.</p>
<p>The Korean peninsula has been split in two since 1945, when Soviet and American troops liberated it from Japan at the end of World War II. The Allies divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with the Soviets occupying the North and the Americans occupying the South.</p>
<p>This split deepened in June 1950, when the communist North tried to unify the country under its rule, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/world/asia/korean-war-history.html">invading the South</a>. Korea’s <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war">civil war</a>
turned into a proxy Cold War as communist China aided North Korea and the U.S. <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/korean-conflict">sent troops to defend the South Koreans</a>. A 1953 armistice has divided the Korean peninsula ever since.</p>
<p>Like Korea, Germany was also <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/berlin-wall-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-barrier-that-divided-east-and-west-9847347.html">split into two competing states</a>. Capitalist West Germany and communist East Germany existed side by side, divided by the Berlin Wall, from 1945 to 1990.</p>
<p>Initially, East Germany’s centralized, planned economy was quite successful in rebuilding the country after the war. But by the mid-1960s, economic growth had slowed, resulting in a shortage of consumer and industrial products.</p>
<p>To reinvigorate the economy, East German leader Walter Ulbricht began <a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/htn_0018-439x_2002_num_4_1_2826">relaxing the government’s grip on the economy</a>. Managers of state-run enterprises were given decision-making power over what goods to produce, a role previously retained by the government, and allowed to keep some of their profits. Banks got permission to extend loans to the businesses of their choice, helping them grow and invest. </p>
<p>Even though productivity, wages and availability of consumer goods all increased, East Germany abruptly abandoned these reforms in the early 1970s. </p>
<p>It was not because they did not work. Rather, according to my research and the historian <a href="https://www.bpb.de/160233">Joerg Roesler</a>, East Germany began to fear that its liberal economy was starting to make it look dangerously similar to West Germany.</p>
<p>In 1968, the Soviets had <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/soviet-invasion-czechoslavkia">invaded neighboring Czechoslovakia</a>, terminating its experimentation with both economic and political liberalization. The East German government worried that its economy had become a little too liberal, too.</p>
<p>East Germany’s attempt to preserve communist rule by maintaining authority over its faltering economy proved futile. On Oct. 3, 1990, Germany was <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/this-day-in-politics-081922">reunified under West German control</a>.</p>
<h2>Reunification</h2>
<p>The economy has always been at the heart of communism. A planned economy is what set countries like the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Vietnam apart from capitalist democracies. For <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/lenin-socialism.htm">communist leaders</a> like Vladimir Lenin and Fidel Castro, it’s what made them superior.</p>
<p>Plenty of communist governments have managed to mix some free-market capitalism into their socialist economies without endangering the Communist Party’s monopoly on power – Vietnam, <a href="https://theconversation.com/castros-conundrum-finding-a-post-communist-model-cuba-can-follow-81242">Cuba</a> and <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/china-lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-is-historic-world-bank-117101300027_1.html">China</a> top among them.</p>
<p>The transition toward capitalism in those countries has come at the cost of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-13945072">social inequalities</a>. Freer markets have created a growing class of wealthy entrepreneurs, while some more marginal populations have remained <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/world/americas/as-cuba-shifts-toward-capitalism-inequality-grows-more-visible.html">excluded from these new riches</a>.</p>
<p>Still, vastly improved living conditions have actually <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-cuba-the-post-fidel-era-began-ten-years-ago-71720">boosted the legitimacy of communist governments</a> in Vietnam, Cuba and China. </p>
<p>East Germany and North Korea differ from these examples. They are halves of a whole. </p>
<p>The planned economy doesn’t just inform their political system – it is the sole reason for their existence. East Germany and North Korea were born to offer an economic alternative from their capitalist compatriots.</p>
<p>If these countries cease to present a clear economic alternative that distinguishes them from their capitalist brother-country, history shows, they are absorbed by them. </p>
<p>My research suggests that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-timeline---fast-facts/index.html">denuclearization</a>, the lifting of U.S. <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-know-about-sanctions-north-korea">sanctions</a> and a transition into market socialism would trigger an East Germany-style existential crisis for North Korea. That’s because a prospering economy would eliminate the very reason for North Korean existence, obviating the rationale for Kim’s totalitarian policies, anti-American rhetoric and isolation. </p>
<p>For North Korea’s all-powerful leader, a failing centralized economy and a grip on power that’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-02/north-korea-nukes-dapper-new-kim-jong-un-is-playing-an-old-game">guaranteed by the threat of nuclear warfare</a> is better than a vibrant capitalist economy. </p>
<p>Kim <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/opinion/kim-jong-un-moon-economic-development-north-korea-denuclearization.html">promised North Koreans better living conditions</a> after succeeding his father, dictator Kim Jong Il, in 2011. But what he really needs are economic reforms that boost the economy without <a href="https://theconversation.com/castros-conundrum-finding-a-post-communist-model-cuba-can-follow-81242">threatening the communist character</a> of North Korea’s economy. </p>
<p>No post-Cold War country has managed it yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Adam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Without its communist Soviet-style economy, North Korea would just be South Korea.Thomas Adam, Professor of Transnational History, University of Texas at ArlingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012362018-08-30T21:53:07Z2018-08-30T21:53:07ZWhy Canadians pay little attention to their military<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232192/original/file-20180815-2921-1gbq68k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the Canadian Forces march during a Remembrance Day ceremony in Vancouver, B.C., on Nov. 11, 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Canadians <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dnd-canadians-military-poll-1.4754083">are in a sleepy state when it comes to their military</a> according to a column earlier this summer by the CBC’s Murray Brewster, who reported on the results of a poll by the Earnscliffe Strategy Group.</p>
<p>The poll found that awareness of, and familiarity with, the Canadian Armed Forces was generally very low, and virtually non-existent among younger Canadians.</p>
<p>None of this should come as a surprise to those who study Canadian military history and civil-military relations in Canada.</p>
<p>About the only foreign war Canada has fought in the past 120 years that did not create significant political tensions for a Canadian government <a href="http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/korean-war">was the Korean War.</a> </p>
<p>Every other conflict raised serious questions about Canadian unity, Canadians’ level of comfort with their nation at war and serious social and political issues about the way Canadian governments have run the wars they have led their country into.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.museedelaguerre.ca/cwm/exhibitions/boer/boerwarhistory_e.shtml">The South African War of 1899-1902</a>, also known as the Boer War, badly divided the country along linguistic lines.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-dreadful-history-of-children-in-concentration-camps-98549">The dreadful history of children in concentration camps</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Canada was not yet a constitutionally independent country. It was in the process of searching for ways to reconcile the strong imperial feelings of many Canadians who saw their identity as directly linked to the growing power of the British Empire, and those who wished to strike out on their own to find a path to equality within the empire. Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier was among those hoping for a more autonomous path, if not eventual independence.</p>
<p>Yet suddenly Canada was dragged into a war a half a world away and became a nation willing to shed blood to serve her imperial master.</p>
<h2>Initial Quebec support</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/">First World War</a> seemed at first to unite Canadians, especially when Laurier, now leader of the opposition, pledged to support the war against imperial Germany. Even French-Canadian nationalist leader <a href="https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/people/canadian-leaders/henri-bourassa/">Henri Bourassa</a> was initially willing to endorse Canadian participation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232191/original/file-20180815-2900-3vvxs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232191/original/file-20180815-2900-3vvxs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232191/original/file-20180815-2900-3vvxs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232191/original/file-20180815-2900-3vvxs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232191/original/file-20180815-2900-3vvxs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232191/original/file-20180815-2900-3vvxs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232191/original/file-20180815-2900-3vvxs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Donald James, a merchant navy veteran, attends a commemorative event on the centennial of the Last Hundred Days of the Great War in Halifax on Aug. 8, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in reality, this was a war that pitted committed British Canadian nationalists against Canadians who saw nothing but another imperial adventure sucking in Canadian blood and treasure. <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/feature/the-legacy-of-canadas-wwi-conscription-crisis-quebec-nationalism">The 1917 Conscription Crisis</a> left at least a 50-year mark on Canadian politics and damaged relations between Anglophones and Francophones.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/second-world-war-wwii/">During the Second World War,</a> the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King tried much harder than the government of Robert Borden in the First World War to demonstrate that this was “Canada’s War.” The government argued that Canadian interests were at stake and a united Canada was fighting as an ally to Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States against the Axis of evil. </p>
<p>But even so, there was bitter opposition to conscription, and a decidedly uneven distribution of volunteers for the Canadian Army overseas.</p>
<h2>Korean war largely ignored</h2>
<p>Canadian involvement in the Korean War saw universal support in French Catholic, anti-Communist Quebec, and in anti-Communist English-speaking Canada, but after the first year or so, the conflict became a truly small war with clashes in no man’s land and fights for random hills or defensive lines that took on American names — the Kansas Line, the Wyoming Line, the Jamestown Line. Back home, Canadians seemed to have forgotten that their army was still fighting in far-off Korea.</p>
<p>After Korea, Canadians didn’t actually go to war again until the <a href="http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/canadian-armed-forces/persian-gulf">first Gulf War,</a> and we only sent aircraft that took almost no combative action and medical units with some infantry to guard them. </p>
<p>Few Canadians seemed to realize we were at war. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232193/original/file-20180816-2921-3vajx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232193/original/file-20180816-2921-3vajx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232193/original/file-20180816-2921-3vajx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232193/original/file-20180816-2921-3vajx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232193/original/file-20180816-2921-3vajx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232193/original/file-20180816-2921-3vajx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232193/original/file-20180816-2921-3vajx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Canadian Forces LAV passes by a group of Afghans and their donkey in the Arghandab district just north of Kandahar city on Sunday, June 14, 2009. The Canadians were providing support to an Afghan National Police sweep of the area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We never went to Vietnam as the Australians did, and we did not take part in President George W. Bush’s <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/03/19/canada-iraq-war_n_2902305.html">war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq</a>. </p>
<p>When we went <a href="http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/canadian-armed-forces/afghanistan">to war in Afghanistan</a>, Canadians were initially enthusiastic after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but the longer we stayed without any indication of where the war was going, the more support for the war fell. </p>
<p>What is the main lesson the current government has learned from this history? </p>
<p>Hide the military as much as possible. That way there’s fewer political problems and national unity issues, no fierce debates about national apathy, no assertions of where Canadian interests lie or ought to lie. Instead, fall back on age-old slogans about protecting Canada and protecting North America, and helping out allies when called upon to do so — sometimes.</p>
<p>Fund just enough military to protect our sovereign borders, which are largely not threatened by anyone. That way we haven’t solved any military problems, but we have debated them away, which is just as good for most Canadians. And in the next election, there will be no military matters to worry about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David J. Bercuson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canadians’ indifference to their military isn’t so surprising. Almost every military conflict has raised serious questions, and spurred divisive debate, about Canadian unity and independence.David J. Bercuson, Program Director, Canadian Global Affairs Institute and Director of the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/981822018-06-12T14:48:07Z2018-06-12T14:48:07ZTrump-Kim summit: North Korean leader emerges a clear winner as Donald Trump reverts to type<p>At first glance, it is easy to call <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-north-korea-summit-three-things-trump-and-kim-need-to-talk-about-97959">the meeting</a> between US president, Donald Trump, and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un, “historic” and “unprecedented”. It was the first meeting between sitting leaders of the two countries, which are still <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10165796">technically in a state of war</a>.</p>
<p>You could also call it a success – preparations and schedules were respected, the media had ample opportunity to take shots of the two men shaking hands in front of the colourful display of 12 intermingled American and North Korean flags – and they were also privy to comments by the two leaders, including Kim in one of his very rare appearances in front of the foreign press. </p>
<p>The meeting was also a success from a security and optics points of view: smiles were exchanged, in-depth discussions took place between cabinet members, nobody went off script and there were no security breaches, thanks to ironclad preparations by their Singaporean hosts.</p>
<p>Now that both leaders are on their way back to their own countries, we are left with many photos of the bromance du jour, as well as a signed statement – and a plethora of questions. What should we take away from this historic moment? Here are three key points:</p>
<h2>1. Ultimately it was North Korea’s day</h2>
<p>Kim has managed to build upon the work of his father and grandfather and secured the highest form of recognition that there is – a bilateral meeting with the president of the most powerful country on the planet. </p>
<p>And North Korea did not have to pay a cent for it: China <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-10/kim-jong-un-surprises-by-flying-in-to-summit-with-air-china/9855232">furnished a plane</a>, Singapore <a href="https://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/singapore-footing-us15m-summit-bill-pm/news-story/2978c2e2c7b2a0bb4e84a0c804acd1a6">footed the US$15m-plus bill</a> for the summit, and the media distributed images of the North Korean leader parlaying on equal terms with the US president to the entire world. It’s a resounding success for Kim – and one that is likely to be exploited back home for political purpose. </p>
<h2>2. What is written in the agreement</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/12/full-text-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-statement">joint document</a> signed by both parties shows the craftiness and hardline approach the DPRK has taken to the summit. Though the agreement commits both parties to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula – removing all nuclear weapons from the region, including potential American weapons – the DPRK has only reiterated, in writing, its commitment to “work towards” this aim.</p>
<p>This is certainly not the pledge for the unilateral dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear programme that the US has always pushed for. </p>
<h2>3. What is not written in the agreement</h2>
<p>The agreement shows a clear miss from the United States, as there are no mentions of <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/bolton-pompeo-trump-and-kim-all-have-different-ideas-about-what-the-d-in-cvid-stands-for.html">CVID</a> (“complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement”) of North Korean nuclear capabilities – something that was talked about a great deal in the run up to the meeting. </p>
<p>Given that Trump and his secretary of state, <a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/848732.html">Mike Pompeo</a>, and national security adviser, <a href="http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/news_In_detail.htm?No=136287">John Bolton</a>, have signalled that they would accept nothing short of CVID, this is a giant omission. Essentially, this should be read as a refusal from the DPRK to state that they would denuclearise unilaterally. </p>
<h2>4. Putting words into action</h2>
<p>The agreement provides very vague concepts for a new US-DPRK relationship – one that will without a doubt also change the nature of balance and geopolitics in East Asia and relationships with other regional actors such as South Korea, Russia, China and Japan. </p>
<p>The first concrete action was for the American president to announce he intends to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/12/politics/trump-us-military-war-games-south-korea-intl/index.html">call a halt to the annual war game exercises</a> organised between the US and South Korea (the <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-is-war-on-the-cards-again-97216">most recent exercises</a> nearly derailed the inter-Korea summit a few weeks ago). This is an important step toward confidence building for both sides of the summit and one that should be praised. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uQqLHWdd-5E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But it is important to note that Trump’s rationale was to scrap the war games, not because they offend and worry the DPRK – but, as he himself stated to the media, because they cost a lot of money. And money – especially the way Trump thinks the rest of the world takes advantage of the US – was a theme the US president returned to repeatedly in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/6/12/17452624/trump-kim-summit-transcript-press-conference-full-text">post-summit press conference</a>.</p>
<p>Trump also talked about real estate <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f733b7d4-6e22-11e8-92d3-6c13e5c92914">development opportunities</a> in the DPRK. In essence, Trump’s money-focused transactional nature took only a few hours to surface after his handshake with Kim. But peace has a cost and, given the current US narrative that seeks to avoid foreign entanglement and is fed up with spending money on international commitments, it will require the United States to manage its shaky alliances if this is to be a realistic prospect. </p>
<p>And as reactions are starting to pour in from world leaders, it is important to remember that the summit has given the DPRK legitimacy on the world stage, while there was little talk of how this legitimacy was acquired: essentially by developing nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>Kim is a dictator who has purged a number of rivals while starving and oppressing his own population. Ultimately, Trump has just willingly sat down with a villain and not gained much in the way of concessions in return.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Grzelczyk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Looking at the agreement, it appears that Kim Jong-un has outmanoeuvred Donald Trump.Virginie Grzelczyk, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/957302018-04-29T19:59:16Z2018-04-29T19:59:16ZNorth Korea wants to a strike a deal – is Trump the right man for the job?<p>After a fearful year of brinksmanship, the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-korean-peace-process-is-underway-but-it-still-depends-on-the-us-and-china-94327">summit</a> between South Korean president Moon Jae-In and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un was a beautiful moment of hope. The two leaders stepped back and forth over the Military Demarcation Line between their two countries and shared Korean cold noodles brought specially from a famed Pyongyang restaurant. They planted a tree and fed it water from two rivers, North Korea’s Taedong and South Korea’s Han. </p>
<p>Given the number of nuclear tests and missile launches the north has conducted since the last summit between two Korean leaders, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/04/koreas.summit/">all the way back in 2007</a>, the spectacle of Moon and Kim smiling as they crossed their shared border has sent a wave of relief around the world. It seems Moon Jae-In’s gamble of inviting North Korea to the winter Olympics has paid off in spades.</p>
<p>Everyone has now returned safely home, but the near euphoria is still palpable. With reports that Kim apparently told his southern counterpart that giving up his nuclear weapons is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/world/asia/north-korea-trump-nuclear.html">very much on the table</a>, many are staring to hail this as a new era in inter-Korean relations. Some appear to already believe that the technically-still-underway Korean War is just about over – and Donald Trump in particular is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-43895428">already claiming credit</a>. </p>
<p>The idea that Trump is solely responsible for this breakthrough is, of course, preposterous. If anyone deserves primary credit it’s Moon, who staked his political career on engaging the North Koreans during the Olympics. But soon, Trump will have a chance to show his mettle, as his administration is busy <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-might-come-of-a-donald-trump-meeting-with-kim-jong-un-93149">preparing its own summit</a> with the North Korean leader. </p>
<p>It’s certainly too early to nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. But if his administration does somehow manage to normalise relations on the Korean peninsula, it will be important to ask why he has apparently succeeded where many others – including Nobel Peace Prize laureates <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34277960">Barack Obama</a>, the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/nobel-peace-prize">International Atomic Energy Agency</a>, and former South Korean president <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2000/press.html">Kim Dae-jung</a> – have floundered. Unfortunately for Trump’s self-esteem, top of the list of reasons must be not his own geopolitical nous, but circumstance.</p>
<h2>Right place, right time</h2>
<p>It’s undeniable that throughout 2017, the Trump administration was heavily involved in pressing for extensive sanctions at the United Nations Security Council. Those sanctions focused on blocking most of the north’s conventional trade links, a move which had not previously been attempted in earnest. But the reality is that the Trump administration inherited a political situation that was, as renowned conflict professor <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2008/12/20/ripeness-the-importance-of-timing-in-negotiation-and-conflict-resolution/">I William Zartmann</a> would say, “ripe”. </p>
<p>Sometimes called “hurting stalemate”, a “ripe moment” in a conflict comes when the suffering and costs faced by one or both sides force open a window of opportunity. This is what has happened on the Korean peninsula. For all the nuclear breakthroughs, the north’s economy has very little room to breathe thanks to the sanctions. </p>
<p>South Korea and Japan are now facing a North Korea that is equipped with a broadly credible nuclear deterrent and Trump’s mixed messages towards them have confused their once dependable security relationships with the US. It is at just these sort of moments that breakthroughs in seemingly intractable conflicts are often made.</p>
<p>North Korea is seen very differently today than it was in the aftermath of the Cold War. Back then, it was a famine-stricken country apparently on the verge of collapse, supposedly led by an irrational tyrant, and probably bluffing about its nuclear machinations. For all those reasons, talking to it wasn’t a priority. Instead, patience was needed. In the case of the Obama administration, this principle was revived and taken to the extreme as a policy of “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/strategic-patience-has-become-strategic-passivity/">strategic patience</a>”. And if stopping the north from going nuclear was the intention, that approach backfired spectacularly – Pyongyang was ultimately simply not interested in dropping its guns just to get to a negotiating table. </p>
<p>Only now, after a programme of tests that got it admitted to the world’s exclusive nuclear club, is North Korea ready to talk openly with the US about a dramatic change of course. So what kind of talks will these be?</p>
<h2>Just another deal</h2>
<p>In his own telling, Trump is a man who likes to talk and make deals – almost regardless of who is on the other side of the table. That said, judging by his first year or so in office, he is less interested in making new deals than in leaving or threatening to leave existing ones, notably the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-trump-kills-nafta-remedies-for-canada-and-mexico-91129">North American Free Trade Agreement</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-iran-nuclear-deal-means-and-what-it-doesnt-44685">Iranian nuclear deal</a>. </p>
<p>But a deal is not enough – what is needed is confidence building, a far more complex task. It demands clear communication lines between all sides as all the actors remove their threat mechanisms and replace them with new connections that ultimately become more important. For that to happen, Trump and his allies will have to accept the fact that, by virtue of its nuclear know-how, North Korea is no longer weak. It will not accept anything that will force it to disarm first.</p>
<p>Making deals with the North Koreans is in fact relatively easy, and many have been struck before. Among them are the 1953 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/10165796">Korean Armistice</a>; the 1972 <a href="http://www2.law.columbia.edu/course_00S_L9436_001/North%20Korea%20materials/74js-en.htm">North-South Joint Statement</a>, which set out principles for reunification; the 1994 <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-uss-1994-deal-with-north-korea-failed-and-what-trump-can-learn-from-it-80578">Agreed Framework</a>, which provided a complex mechanism to manage the north’s nuclear energy needs; the 2000 <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/791691.stm">North-South Joint Declaration</a>, which sought to end the armistice; the 2007 <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/791691.stm">Inter-Korean Eight-Point Agreement</a>, calling for new peace talks; and the 2012 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-korea-north-usa-leap/insight-obamas-north-korean-leap-of-faith-falls-short-idUSBRE82T06T20120330">Leap Day</a> agreement with the US, where Pyongyang agreed to stop its missile and nuclear tests.</p>
<p>That the list of deals is this long proves that adding yet another entry won’t in itself mean much. Trump needs to offer the north, not just a friendly handshake, but concrete measures and guarantees – and those will have to go well beyond what we’ve seen in the last week. </p>
<p>Turning off the speakers that blast propaganda across the border from both sides is a nice gesture, while reopening a telephone hotline between the two Koreas is useful – and sending Mike Pompeo (now Trump’s secretary of state) to Pyongyang paved the way for further discussion. But none of these steps has cost any of the parties anything substantial. More importantly, the north has not publicly promised to unconditionally renounce its nuclear weapons programme – it has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/world/asia/north-korea-trump-nuclear.html">offered to dismantle the programme</a>, but only if the US promises never to invade it. </p>
<p>Even if a concrete deal of some kind is struck, the test will be whether, once it is done, the US can project the confidence and stability needed for all parties to actually fulfil their commitments. And that would demand the Trump administration exercise clear, stable leadership of a calibre it has yet to muster on any front.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Grzelczyk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump has always traded on his image as a master dealmaker – but many deals have been done with North Korea before.Virginie Grzelczyk, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/906542018-02-16T14:28:32Z2018-02-16T14:28:32ZTaking poo samples to school was an essential part of South Korea’s modernisation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206600/original/file-20180215-131038-666yzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/parasitic-nematode-worm-roundworm-ascaris-lumbricoides-409541308?src=Q19pwUXTmZxHmVGB0SS1Dg-1-89">Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A North Korean soldier <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/21/asia/north-korea-defector/index.html">recently escaped</a>
across the demilitarised zone, the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, and a remnant of the July 1953 ceasefire to the Korean conflict. On his arrival in South Korea, much was made of the precarious state of his health. Following surgery to treat the soldier’s wounds, his South Korean medical team made an interesting update. The patient was in recovery, but his body remained filled with intestinal parasites, taken as a sign of North Korea’s underdeveloped public health system. One worm reportedly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/17/north-korean-defector-parasitic-worm-parasites-south-korea">reached 27cm in length</a>, indicating that it had been living in the man’s gut for a significant amount of time.</p>
<p>This use of public health as a metric for social and political conditions holds a much longer history on the Korean peninsula, and indeed, throughout much of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Farewell-God-Plague-Chairman-Campaign-ebook/dp/B01A6P5P0I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515982343&sr=8-1&keywords=miriam+gross">North-East Asia</a>. The focus on intestinal parasites dates to the early 1960s, when the two Koreas were locked in a bitter competition for political and economic legitimacy. South Korea, with ambitions of sending its citizens abroad to undertake work opportunities in West Germany and South-East Asia, became acutely conscious of the issue as younger Koreans underwent medical exams and crossed international borders in large numbers.</p>
<p>The drive to eliminate parasites began modestly with the formation of KAPE (Korea Anti-Parasite Eradication) in 1964, a grass-roots organisation led by scientists and activists. But it then expanded into a national form, and took on a heated ideological fervour.</p>
<h2>Night soil</h2>
<p>South Korea was primarily an agricultural nation following its independence in 1948, yet lacked access to chemical fertiliser. This meant that the fields producing its food supply were typically covered with “<a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-american-cities-were-full-of-crap">night soil</a>”, human excrement collected for this purpose. Even after washing, consumables produced in these fields therefore contained a diversity of parasites. South Koreans therefore consumed and reintroduced these parasites into their bodies in a cyclical fashion in the course of eating. </p>
<p>This is an issue common to many developing countries. For South Korea, the problem was exacerbated when the peninsula’s division left much of the chemical industry in the north, meaning a loss of access to fertiliser. Then the Korean War (1950-1953) and its aftermath brought a second wave of devastation. This kept the issue in the background until the early 1960s, when post-war recovery allowed for the identification of new goals.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206758/original/file-20180216-131024-1arslrs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An adult giant roundworm. Length 15 to 35 cm (the females tend to be the larger ones).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ascaris_lumbricoides.jpeg#/media/File:Ascaris_lumbricoides.jpeg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The national anti-parasite campaign was launched in 1969, and targeted children of school age. These campaigns made a strong impression in Korean popular culture and historical memory. And it’s not hard to work out why. Twice a year, South Korean schoolchildren were required to bring their stool samples to school in small paper bags, and pass these to their teacher. Upon collection, the biological samples became the property of the state, which subjected them to analysis by microscope, looking for the telltale presence of parasite eggs, especially the giant roundworm.</p>
<p>The image of lines of schoolchildren presenting “samples” to their teacher, and that of teams of technicians peering through microscopes, became an integral part of South Korea’s story of transformation and modernisation. Such disciplined bodies meant a “cleaner”, healthier population, one training for new tasks and job sites. This was particularly important as South Korea expanded its ambitions to include new construction sites, first in South-East Asia and later, the Middle East.</p>
<p>Following analysis, students identified with parasites were asked to ingest <a href="https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/anthelminthics">anthelmintics</a>, pills designed to kill the parasites living in their bodies. In some cases, these drugs were not entirely effective. Another common and extremely uncomfortable experience was that of expelling live parasites from one’s body, only partially stunned by the medication. If this visceral experience has been largely left out of the historical narrative, it is because Koreans tend to recall it in a more humorous vein, reflecting an earlier time of struggle and privation, before they became a “modern” nation.</p>
<h2>The politics of parasites</h2>
<p>The school campaigns continued until the 1990s, but the main focus – a reduction in the baseline rate of parasite infection – began to show signs of impact almost immediately. In 1969, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2532657/">the rate of infection</a> was enormously high, and for a diversity of parasites. These figures <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2532657/">dropped rapidly</a>, reaching single digits, in some cases, by the early 1990s. </p>
<p>But this “success” story was not without its tensions. Students from rural communities affected by parasites sought to evade the scrutiny of the state, often out of shame and embarrassment. In some cases, students skipped school on sample day, or substituted their pet’s sample to avoid personal scrutiny. In turn, the state’s inspection regime had to learn how to exclude certain types of parasites from the sampling process, recognising that these items were derived from animal samples (mainly cats or dogs) and not humans.</p>
<p>The ability to process these materials at the national level also represented an unusual technical collaboration undertaken with international partners, in this case Japan. Japanese overseas aid brought microscopes, trained health professionals, and materials to South Korea after 1965 – Japan had undergone its own parasite problems in the aftermath of World War II. Japan’s rapid economic recovery meant that it could share the knowledge with Korea about a decade after its own experience. Today, sites such as the <a href="http://www.kiseichu.org/e-top">Meguro Parasitological Museum</a> in south-west Tokyo preserve this fascinating history.</p>
<p>The two nations subsequently joined together to help lead APCO (Asian Parasite Control Organization), formed in 1974, and designed to provide outreach to partners in East and Southeast Asia, following upon the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5642846/">Japanese</a> and Korean post-war developmental experiences. Similar stories might be told for China during this same period, and for numerous countries grappling with these issues today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John P DiMoia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Parasites are not only a personal health problem – they are political too.John P DiMoia, Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909312018-02-09T02:07:11Z2018-02-09T02:07:11ZTwo Koreas working together on Winter Olympics is a small but important step toward peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205010/original/file-20180206-14111-14fs17j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Korean President Moon Jae-in is pushing for a thawing of the relationship between the Koreas through events such as the Winter Olympics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jeon Heon-Kyun</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Korean President Moon Jae-in <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/moon-jae-ins-olympic-realpolitik/">wants to use</a> his country’s hosting of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang to renew the inter-Korean relations that have become strained over the past ten years under two conservative governments. There are calls for all parties to maintain the peaceful momentum beyond the Games.</p>
<p>North Korea <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/09/north-south-korea-talks-winter-olympics-nuclear">sending multiple delegations</a> to the Olympics is also welcome, especially after its <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-assumptions-we-make-about-north-korea-and-why-theyre-wrong-84771">series of military provocations</a> in 2017. But the mistrust between the two nations is so deep that there are more sceptics than enthusiasts as the Games begin.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-assumptions-we-make-about-north-korea-and-why-theyre-wrong-84771">Five assumptions we make about North Korea – and why they're wrong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A backlash to North Korea’s involvement</h2>
<p>Several joint events between the two Koreas will take place in Pyeongchang. Among these are the two teams marching together at the opening ceremony. This is expected to be a highlight.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205001/original/file-20180206-14083-1brp0hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Athletes from the two Koreas marched under the unified Korean flag at the Sydney Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Blake</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I remember the teary moments when the North and South Korean athletes entered the stadium together <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/sep/11/northkorea.sydney">at the 2000 Sydney Olympics</a>, bearing the big blue unified Korean flag. It was as if the two Koreas had finally ended five decades of conflict and hatred after the 1953 armistice. </p>
<p>The overwhelming emotion was felt not only among Koreans, but also the international audience tuned into the ceremony.</p>
<p>In the same year, the two Koreas’ leaders – South Korea’s Kim Dae-jung and the north’s Kim Jong-il – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jun/14/northkorea3">met for the first time</a>.</p>
<p>Eighteen years on, the mood has totally changed. While Moon’s domestic supporters welcome the government’s efforts to bring about peace through sport, critics are mocking the event as the <a href="https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/-pyongyang-olympics---protests-over-joint-korean-hockey-team-9926260">“Pyongyang Olympics”</a>. They believe North Korea is deciding the terms of their participation, and that it is manipulating South Korea.</p>
<p>Conservative newspaper The Chosun Ilbo <a href="http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2018/01/24/2018012401363.html">has reported</a> the South Korean government is censoring speeches by Thae Yong-ho, the highest-ranking North Korean refugee living in Seoul – an allegation that has been denied. </p>
<p>Others have alleged the Moon administration is silencing pessimism about the prospect of improved inter-Korean relations after the Olympics.</p>
<p>But, contrary to the critics’ claim on media censorship, the open criticism and pessimism is in itself proof of a free media. South Korea is a democracy – and that democracy was only won back last year after <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/26/hundreds-thousands-gather-south-korea-protest-against-president/">peaceful candlelight demonstrations</a> helped lead to the ouster of then-president Park Geun-hye, who is now in jail awaiting trial on corruption charges. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205003/original/file-20180206-14096-1pw2lxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205003/original/file-20180206-14096-1pw2lxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205003/original/file-20180206-14096-1pw2lxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205003/original/file-20180206-14096-1pw2lxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205003/original/file-20180206-14096-1pw2lxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205003/original/file-20180206-14096-1pw2lxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205003/original/file-20180206-14096-1pw2lxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protestors against North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympics burned the north’s flag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Yonhap</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Small steps toward peace</h2>
<p>What’s being missed is the considerable amount of support from South Koreans.</p>
<p>I arrived in Seoul on the evening of February 1, when the North Korean athletes were arriving at Yangyang Airport near Pyeongchang. I’ve spoken to street food vendors, shop owners, and young workers about how they feel about North Korea’s participation in the Olympics, and all said it was welcome news.</p>
<p>The 50-year-old Asiana pilot who flew South Korean athletes to a North Korean ski resort said it was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… personally an overwhelming experience but also a good opportunity for the country and the nation. Before we talk about unification, we need to do exchanges first so that we overcome our differences. I wish there will be more inter-Korean exchanges and we can travel to each other’s side freely.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The role of women in improving inter-Korean relations is also noticeable. The decision to form a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-06/winter-olympics-language-problems-unified-korea-ice-hockey-team/9399410">joint women’s ice hockey team</a> may be seen as a government intervention, but it is also a rare opportunity for North and South Korean athletes to try working together as a team. Korean women have shown a great deal of pragmatism in difficult times. </p>
<p>I am in Pyeongchang for the Games. I welcome the North Korean athletes and delegation’s participation at the Olympics and am looking forward to their performance. It’s the North Korean people who need to be engaged with whenever an opportunity rises, and the regime that should be punished for bad behaviour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90931/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay Song does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The mistrust between the two Koreas is so deep that there are more sceptics than enthusiasts over North Korea’s involvement in the Winter Olympics.Jay Song, Senior Lecturer, Asia Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909022018-02-06T11:35:23Z2018-02-06T11:35:23Z5 things to know about North and South Korea<p><em>Editor’s note: Professor Ji-Young Lee of American University answers five questions to help put issues related to North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities into context.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Why is there a North and a South Korea?</strong></p>
<p>Before there was a North and South Korea, the peninsula was ruled as a dynasty known as Chosŏn, which existed for more than five centuries, until 1910. This period, during which an independent Korea had diplomatic <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/chinas-hegemony/9780231179744">relations with China and Japan</a>, ended with imperial Japan’s annexation of the peninsula. Japan’s colonial rule lasted 35 years.</p>
<p>When Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, the Korean peninsula was split into two zones of occupation – the U.S.-controlled South Korea and the Soviet-controlled North Korea. Amid the growing Cold War tensions between Moscow and Washington, in 1948, two separate governments were established in Pyongyang and Seoul. Kim Il-Sung, leader of North Korea, was a former guerrilla <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-real-north-korea-9780199390038?cc=us&lang=en&">who fought under Chinese and Russian command</a>. <a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8995-9780824831684.aspx">Syngman Rhee</a>, a Princeton University-educated staunch anti-communist, became the first leader of South Korea.</p>
<p>In an attempt to unify the Korean peninsula under his communist regime, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5740.html">Kim Il-Sung invaded the South</a> in June 1950 with Soviet aid. This brought South Korea and the United States, backed by United Nations, to fight against the newly founded People’s Republic of China and North Korea. An armistice agreement ended hostilities in the Korean War in 1953. Technically speaking, however, the two Koreas are still at war.</p>
<p><strong>Beyond the political divide, are Koreans in the North and South all that culturally different? If so, how?</strong></p>
<p>Koreans in the South and North have led separate lives for almost 70 years. Korean history and a collective memory of having been a unified, independent state for over a millennium, however, are a powerful reminder to Koreans that they have shared identity, culture and language. </p>
<p>For example, in both Koreas the history of having resisted Japanese colonialism is an important source of nationalism. Both North and South Korean students learn about the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-real-north-korea-9780199390038?cc=us&lang=en&">1919 March 1 Independence Movement</a> in school.</p>
<p>Consider, too, the Korean language. About 54 percent of North Korean defectors in South Korea say that they have <a href="http://www.nkrf.re.kr/nkrf/archive/archive_01/kolas/kolasView.do?key=70048046&kind=DAS&q2=">no major difficulty understanding</a> Korean used in South Korea. Only 1 percent responded that they cannot understand it at all. </p>
<p>However, the divergent politics of North and South Korea have shaped differences in Koreans’ outlook on life and the world since the split. South Korea’s vibrant democracy is a result of the mass movement of students, intellectuals and middle-class citizens. In <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0109.xml">North Korea</a>, the state propaganda and ideology of Juche, or “self-reliance,” were used to consolidate the Kim family’s one-man rule, while reproducing a certain mode of thinking designed to help the regime survive.</p>
<p><strong>What have we learned from North Korean defectors who settled in South Korea?</strong></p>
<p>As of September 2016, an estimated 29,830 North Korean defectors are <a href="http://eng.unikorea.go.kr/content.do?cmsid=3892">living in South Korea.</a> From them, we’ve learned the details of people’s everyday life in one of the world’s most closed societies. For example, they’ve reported that despite crackdowns, more North Koreans are now watching South Korean TV dramas. </p>
<p>In North Korea, repression, surveillance and punishment are pervasive features of social life. The state relies heavily on coercion and terror as a means of sustaining the regime.</p>
<p>Still, not all North Koreans are interested in defecting. According to <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/marching-through-suffering/9780231171342">anthropologist Sandra Fahy</a>, interviewees said they left the North reluctantly driven primarily by famine and economic reasons, rather than political reasons. A majority of them missed home in the North. </p>
<p>However, Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to the South in 2016, believes that Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could face a popular uprising or elite defection as North Koreans have increasingly become <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTvNBfdjuJI">disillusioned with the regime.</a></p>
<p><strong>What is the history of U.S. relations with South Korea, and where do they stand now?</strong></p>
<p>The purpose of the U.S.-South Korea alliance has changed little since its formation in 1953. This has much to do with continuing threats from North Korea. </p>
<p>However, despite differences in their approach to North Korea, President George W. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun took a major step toward transforming the Cold War alliance into a “<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/07/joint-declaration-commemoration-60th-anniversary-alliance-between-republ">comprehensive strategic alliance</a>.” Under President Barack Obama and South Korean presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, many believed the U.S.-South Korea alliance was at its best. Under their leadership, Washington and Seoul agreed to expand the alliance’s scope to cover nontraditional threats, like terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other global challenges like piracy and epidemic disease, while coordinating and standing firm against North Korea’s provocations. </p>
<p>Now, with Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump as new presidents of South Korea and the United States, there is a greater degree of uncertainty. Among other things, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-we-may-terminate-us-south-korea-trade-agreement/2017/04/27/75ad1218-2bad-11e7-a616-d7c8a68c1a66_story.html?utm_term=.7220866a5910">Trump criticized</a> the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, while insisting Seoul pay for THAAD, a U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/world/asia/trump-south-korea-thaad-missile-defense-north-korea.html?_r=0">missile defense system deployed in South Korea</a>. Moon, whose parents fled the North during the Korean War, is likely to put inter-Korean reconciliation as one of his top priorities. This may collide with the current U.S. approach of imposing sanctions against North Korea. </p>
<p><strong>Is reunification of the two Koreas feasible?</strong> </p>
<p>More than half of South Koreans believe that reunification is necessary. But they don’t think it can happen anytime soon. According to a <a href="http://tongil.snu.ac.kr/xe/sub410/87822">2017 Unification Perception Survey</a> conducted by Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, only 2.3 percent of South Koreans believe that unification is possible “within 5 years,” while 13.6 percent responded “within 10 years.” </p>
<p>Still, 24.7 percent of South Koreans don’t think that unification is possible. </p>
<p>Three noteworthy developments toward reunification include the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/korea-4july-communique72">July 4 South-North Joint Communique</a> in 1972, <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/korea-reconciliation-nonaggression91">the Basic Agreement</a> in 1991 and <a href="http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/061300korea-summit.html">the first inter-Korean summit</a> in 2000. However, these past attempts show that the momentum of inter-Korean reconciliation has not been sustainable in the face of North Korea’s defiant nuclear provocations.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-things-to-know-about-north-and-south-korea-77441">July 5, 2017</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ji-Young Lee received funding from the Academy of Korean Studies (Competitive Research Grant, 2013), for a book project on historical international order in Asia.</span></em></p>North and South Korea explained in five questions and answers.Ji-Young Lee, Assistant Professor, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/902292018-01-31T19:04:31Z2018-01-31T19:04:31ZWhy a first strike option on North Korea is a very bad idea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204122/original/file-20180130-38213-15dzwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Unification flags hang on a military fence near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The prospect of South Korean and North Korean athletes <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-18/pyeongchang-north-and-south-korea-agree-to-joint-team/9338032">marching together under a “unification” flag</a> at this month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics signifies a brief respite in tensions rather than being a genuine thawing on the Korean peninsula.</p>
<p>After an initial surge of optimism in response to Pyongyang’s decision to accept Seoul’s offer to march as one Korea, reality has started to bite with the mechanics of implementing the deal.</p>
<p>While welcoming the Pyeongchang initiative, many South Koreans have <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/winter-olympics-2018/the-problem-with-combined-korea-ice-hockey-team/news-story/7236e50861fb3f4dc7fa3677fba2d39d">pushed back</a> against the decision to merge both countries’ women’s ice hockey teams, calling out the sexist nature of the decision (not a single woman was involved in determining the merger).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, citing “insulting” behaviour on the part of South Korean media, the North Koreans have <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2018/01/30/0301000000AEN20180130000200315.html">cancelled</a> a joint cultural performance with South Korea, scheduled for next week.</p>
<p>Understandably, the Pyeongchang “thaw” has attracted major headlines. But it obscures the significant possibility that we will witness major conflict on the Korean peninsula in 2018. </p>
<p>The South Korean government has worked hard to engage North Korea in structured dialogue in an effort to defuse the nuclear-armed state’s continued military threats. But there is nonetheless a growing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/04/three-months-avert-us-strike-north-korea-nuclear-missile-kim-jong-un">risk</a> that the Trump administration will authorise limited military strikes against the North’s weapons of mass destruction, conceivably within the next few months.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-winter-olympics-and-the-two-koreas-how-sport-diplomacy-could-save-the-world-89769">The Winter Olympics and the two Koreas: how sport diplomacy could save the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Despite extracting a commitment from the US that any military action against North Korea is contingent on first gaining South Korea’s endorsement, there is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/south-korea-strong-concerns-us-strike-north-korea-cia-korea-expert-says-2018-1">justifiable concern</a> among South Koreans that the Trump administration will act unilaterally if US intelligence assesses Pyongyang is about to deploy an operational nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force.</p>
<p>Given the extent to which we have underestimated the sheer pace of North Korea’s nuclear and missile development over the past decade, this intelligence assessment might happen sooner than we think. Donald Trump would then face a difficult problem: how to avoid being the president who allowed North Korea to achieve the capability to hit the US homeland with nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Since coming to power, the Trump administration <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/international/368046-trump-officials-debating-possibility-of-targeted-strike-against-north">has been deliberating</a> over whether to carry out preventive strikes to degrade Pyongyang’s ability to sprint to the finish line of acquiring a deployable ICBM that can hit the continental US with a nuclear payload.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-using-military-force-against-north-korea-89747">increasingly popular assumption</a> is that the price of living with a nuclear-armed North Korea that can destroy prime targets on the US mainland is higher than risking a second Korean War. And this is not just the musings of a few hardheads in the Pentagon: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-usa-poll/u-s-majority-backs-military-action-vs-north-korea-gallup-poll-idUSKCN1BQ1LP">a growing number of Americans</a> believe some form of military action against North Korea is justified if sanctions and diplomacy fail to achieve denuclearisation.</p>
<p>Most worrying of all, a belief seems to be gathering pace that the US can somehow launch “surgical” military strikes while containing a larger conflict, because Kim Jong-un will not respond for fear of triggering an overwhelming retaliatory response.</p>
<p>There are two basic flaws underlying what <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-01-09/myth-limited-strike-north-korea">one expert</a> has termed “the myth of the limited strike”. The first, and most obvious, is that it’s highly unlikely Kim Jong-un will believe the Trump administration’s assurances that “surgical” strikes are not the opening phase of an all-out US assault aimed at overthrowing the regime. </p>
<p>When the US goes to war, it tends to go full throttle – in recent times, this has translated into regime change (think of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya). Why would the leadership in Pyongyang assess that this time around would be any different?</p>
<p>The second major flaw in the argument is that what is portrayed as limited in Washington, and among some <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/08/its-time-to-bomb-north-korea/">armchair strategists</a> supporting this course, will inevitably be seen in Pyongyang as a major assault on North Korean territory and its prized strategic assets.</p>
<p>Even in the scenario that Kim Jong-un actually believed the Trump administration did not intend to implement regime change, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/12/north-korea-strike-nuclear-strategist-216306">Van Jackson</a> notes, his position as North Korean supreme leader would be untenable domestically if he did not respond with force.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-assumptions-we-make-about-north-korea-and-why-theyre-wrong-84771">Five assumptions we make about North Korea – and why they're wrong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Pyongyang would have a compelling incentive to retaliate early with any nuclear reserve that survived a US first strike. In this scenario, the North Korean leadership would confront a stark choice of either using these weapons of mass destruction to maximum effect or risk losing them in follow-on US precision munition strikes.</p>
<p>As I have argued <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/north-korea-dangeously-rudimentary-nuclear-command-and-control-systems">elsewhere</a>, like all new nuclear powers, North Korea will place a premium on permissive command and control systems that allow authorities to use nuclear weapons whenever they want. This will be reflected in a hair-trigger launch posture if it perceives an imminent threat.</p>
<p>Whichever way you cut it, a US first strike against North Korea would almost certainly trigger major war on the Korean peninsula, with a high risk of escalation to full-scale nuclear conflict. While the appalling humanitarian consequences of this don’t need to be spelt out, the strategic illogic of the arguments advocating a first strike must be continually reinforced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew O'Neil receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australia-Korea Foundation.</span></em></p>Whichever way you cut it, a US first strike against North Korea would almost certainly trigger major war on the Korean peninsula, with a high risk of escalation to full-scale nuclear conflict.Andrew O'Neil, Dean and Professor of Political Science, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900712018-01-24T11:37:46Z2018-01-24T11:37:46ZIs a unified Korea possible?<p>North and South Korean athletes <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/17/asia/north-south-korea-olympics-flag-intl/index.html">will march</a> under one flag during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea. </p>
<p>The “Korean Unification Flag” is both a highly symbolic marker of reconciliation and a reminder of a divided Korea, a condition that has lasted since 1945.</p>
<p>As a scholar of East Asian international relations, I’m fascinated by the question of reunification that has been a <a href="https://www.northkoreaintheworld.org/inter-korean/inter-korean-dialogue">mainstay of reconciliation and dialogue</a> between North and South Korea. Unfortunately, history suggests such efforts to reunite the peninsula as a single country often don’t go far. </p>
<h2>What Koreans think</h2>
<p>Most South Koreans are not optimistic about reunification. According to a <a href="http://tongil.snu.ac.kr/xe/sub410/87822">2017 Unification Perception Survey</a> conducted by Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, 24.7 percent of South Koreans don’t think that unification is possible. Only 2.3 percent of South Korean respondents believe that unification is possible “within 5 years,” while 13.6 percent responded “within 10 years.”</p>
<p>However, the same survey indicates that 53.8 percent of South Koreans believe that reunification is necessary.</p>
<p>Beyond that, however, there is little consensus as to what kind of country a unified Korea should be. Nearly half of South Korean respondents want to keep <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0110.xml">South Korea’s democratic political system</a>, while 37.7 percent support some form of hybrid, a compromise between the South and <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0109.xml">North Korean systems</a>. Still, 13.5 percent of South Koreans answered that they prefer the continued existence of two systems within one country.</p>
<h2>Three strikes</h2>
<p>The first time North and South Korea held talks since the 1950-53 Korean War was in 1971. They agreed on basic principles of the reunification. According to the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/korea-4july-communique72">July 4 South-North Joint Communique</a>, reunification should be achieved through 1) independent efforts of the two Koreas, 2) peaceful means, and 3) the promotion of national unity transcending differences in ideologies and systems.</p>
<p>Despite its significance for later agreements, this détente soon collapsed due to the leaders’ lack of genuine intention to follow through. North Korea viewed the inter-Korean dialogue as a way to wean South Korea <a href="http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112243">away from the U.S. and Japan</a>. South Korean leader Park Chung-Hee saw it as a useful tool for <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072312&content=reviews">consolidating his authoritarian rule</a>.</p>
<p>In the late 1980s, tides shifted as the Cold War broke down and inter-Korean reconciliation once again seemed possible. The 1988 Seoul Olympics spurred South Korea to pursue improved relations with communist countries to ensure their participation. The Olympics hosted a record number of countries from both blocs of the Cold War, including the Soviet Union and China. This, even in the face of North Korea’s attempt to throw the games off by bombing a South Korean airliner killing 115 people in 1987. With the help of South Korea’s rising international status and <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/korea-under-roh-tae-woo-democratisation-northern-policy-and-inter-korean-relations/oclc/431702428">active diplomacy</a> toward normalizing relations with the Soviet Union and China, Pyongyang agreed to talks with Seoul.</p>
<p>By 1991, North and South Koreans had once again come around to the idea of reconciliation and signed <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/korea-reconciliation-nonaggression91">the Basic Agreement</a>. In it, Koreans defined their relationship not as two separate states, but rather one going through a “special interim” – a process toward ultimate reunification. In 1992, they produced the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/korea-denuclearization92">Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula</a>. However, by the end of 1992, inter-Korean relations grew seriously strained. North Korea refused to accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and objected to the resumption of a U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise.</p>
<p>Another milestone took place in 2000. North and South Korea <a href="http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/061300korea-summit.html">held the first summit</a> that amounted to the most <a href="http://www.unikorea.go.kr/eng_unikorea/relations/statistics/exchanges/">substantial and frequent</a> engagement between the two Koreas yet. South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and his successor Roh Moo-Hyun’s Sunshine Policy meant to provide for a gradual change of North Korea toward the reunification through inter-Korean cooperation on humanitarian, economic, political, social and cultural issues. But in the face of Pyongyang’s continued provocations and nuclear development program, this type of engagement-oriented policy had serious limits. Over time, it <a href="http://www.dailynk.com/korean/read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=34592">became less and less popular</a> with the public.</p>
<p>The conservative governments that followed upheld the goal of the reunification, but made inter-Korean reconciliation conditional upon Pyongyang’s behavior. North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, and provocations like <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/09/13/south.korea.cheonan.report/index.html">a torpedo attack on a South Korean navy ship</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/world/asia/24korea.html?pagewanted=all">the shelling of a South Korean island</a>, backpedaled much of the progress made during the 2000 summit. </p>
<p>After three major attempts and failures, is reunification feasible in 2018?</p>
<p>What these past talks show is that reconciliation has not been sustainable without the tangible progress in eliminating North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.</p>
<p>At the same time, the current South Korean President Moon Jae-In is more open to departing from the more conservative approach and pursuing engagement without such assurances. This may be a game changer. Without a doubt, he is much more proactive about creating opportunities for inter-Korean reconciliation. </p>
<p>President Moon faces the same harsh realities as his predecessors. With Pyongyang’s increased threat, the South Korean government will have to work more closely with other countries currently implementing sanctions against Pyongyang. If Seoul works out a deal for inter-Korean exchanges and joint projects and North Korea continues to engage in a provocation, skeptical South Koreans <a href="http://www.eai.or.kr/data/bbs/eng_report/201101281811046.pdf">will not likely support</a> the government’s engagement policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ji-Young Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>North Korea has taken up the South’s invitation to the Olympics, but a quick look at the history of North-South talks suggests that unity is not as close as it may seem.Ji-Young Lee, Assistant Professor, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/868092017-12-12T12:05:08Z2017-12-12T12:05:08ZThe two Koreas have tried to make peace before – and they could do so again<p>With tension on the Korean Peninsula higher than it’s been for years and fears are surging on all sides that a full-blown conflict is nearer than ever. But as the war of words between Washington and Pyongyang gets ever more lurid, with missile and warhead tests on one side and military exercises and flypasts on the other, it’s easy to forget that North and South Korea have made serious efforts to defrost their relationship before.</p>
<p>On July 7 1988, with the Cold War coming to an end, South Korean President Rho Tae-woo announced his plan to “actively promote exchanges of visits between the people of South and North Korea, including politicians, businessmen, journalists, religious leaders, cultural leaders, artists, academics and students”. This South Korean policy, called Nordpolitik, was <a href="http://www.38north.org/2014/03/afostercarter032614/">modelled on West Germany’s Ostpolitik</a>. But it took more than ten years to begin these exchanges. </p>
<p>In 2000, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/791691.stm">the two leaders of South and North Korea met in Pyongyang</a> for the first time since the division of the Korean peninsula. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung reassured North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il, who was worried that North Korea would meet a fate similar to East Germany, that the South Korean proposal for a peacebuilding process was not to absorb North Korea, but to <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2016/07/when-sunshine-ruled-on-the-korean-peninsula/">promote peaceful coexistence</a>. </p>
<p>After their first summit, the South and North Korean governments expanded several cross-border peacebuilding activities, <a href="http://www.38north.org/2010/03/why-the-sunshine-policy-made-sense/">such as</a> humanitarian, development, and economic cooperation, business, and socio-cultural exchanges. Within a few years, <a href="https://ecos.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/lehrstuhl_wirtschaft_ostasien/Dokumente/Vienna_Working_Papers_Vol.1_No.1.pdf">as part of these activities</a>, more than half a million people crossed the border between North and South Korea. Almost 2m South Korean tourists visited North Korea.</p>
<p>And yet today, the inter-Korean peacebuilding of the 2000s looks like a long-lost dream. What went wrong? </p>
<h2>Pushed to the limit</h2>
<p>Some say the breaking point was <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/sunshine-policy-defense-engagement-path-peace-korea">the hardline changes</a> in US and South Korean policy toward North Korea after 9/11, epitomised by George W. Bush’s “<a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html">Axis of Evil</a>” speech. Others say the north is to blame because of its <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1094179/the-impossible-state/">nuclear ambitions</a>. But what both arguments have in common is North Korea’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-koreas-deep-sense-of-national-identity-is-the-main-obstacle-to-nuclear-negotiations-72686">deep sense of insecurity</a>, which goes back more than 60 years. </p>
<p>When Japan was defeated in World War II, the Korean independence movement and <a href="http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/07/180_180890.html">its provisional government</a>, who had long fought Japanese colonial rule, were not recognised as victors. Instead, the northern half of Korea was put under Soviet control and the south was occupied by the US, effectively <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-things-to-know-about-north-and-south-korea-80583">dividing the Korean peninsula in two</a>. </p>
<p>The first North Korean leader, Kim Il-sung, seemed convinced he could resolve this division by force, but his attack on South Korea in 1950 and the ensuing <a href="http://www.modernlibrary.com/2011/07/11/the-korean-war/">Korean War</a> almost cost North Korea its existence. Only Chinese intervention saved it, and the war was suspended (though not ended) by the Armistice Treaty of 1953. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NTFreay3bOA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But North Korean memories of how US bombers destroyed their country and how close the US came to using the atomic bomb on North Korea, are still very much alive, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/31/fear-north-korea-us-diplomatic-ballistic-tests">may be stronger</a> after the end of the Cold War. </p>
<p>North Korean leaders have for decades used the spectre of an American attack to <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/ReportoftheCommissionofInquiryDPRK.aspx">justify their authoritarian rule</a>. The continuous economic sanctions and displays of military power by the US and South Korea <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/failed-diplomacy/">did not deter North Korean plans to develop nuclear weapons</a> in order to ensure its survival, and instead seem to have given the North Korean dictatorship fodder for its rhetoric.</p>
<h2>Not backing down</h2>
<p>As if to validate the rhetoric of the North Korean regime, the US president, Donald Trump, successfully persuaded South Korea to <a href="http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/11/205_238939.html">purchase more American weapons</a> during his recent visit to East Asia. The US and South Korea are planning yet another <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/11/24/0200000000AEN20171124007151315.html">joint military drill from December 4-8</a>, in which about 230 warfare aircraft will participate in a show of force. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, North Korea fired another ballistic missile on November 28, once again claiming that their development of nuclear and missile technology is not “<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21731796-rhetoric-accompanying-launch-was-relatively-muted-north-korea-tests-its-most-powerful?cid1=cust/ddnew/email/n/n/20171129n/owned/n/n/ddnew/n/n/n/nNA/Daily_Dispatch/email&etear=dailydispatch">to pose any threat to any country</a>”, but to defend North Korea from the US threat.</p>
<p>Putting aside debate around the nature of the North Korean regime, the insecurity experienced by a conflict party is not a phenomenon unique to the Korean conflict. Several contemporary peace processes, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/divided-korea-can-learn-from-northern-ireland-s-peace-process-1.3224007">such as the Northern Ireland peace process</a>, show that without addressing the issue of insecurity, any agreement would not be possible. </p>
<p>Would peacebuilding mean simply appeasing a regime that is playing with nuclear fire – or is it perhaps a better option than “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0163660X.2016.1232635">smart sanctions</a>” and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/11/north-korea-us-south-korea-huge-military-exercise">military exercises</a>? For South Korean civil society groups, who can remember <a href="https://www.38north.org/2016/11/eweingartner111416/">crossing borders, building relationships, and re-humanising each other</a>, peacebuilding is still regarded as the best way to neutralise the nuclear ambitions of the North Korean leadership and improve the human rights conditions of the North Korean people.</p>
<p>After all, it is about coming up with a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09512748.2015.1022586?scroll=top&needAccess=true">more effective strategy</a> for peace in the Korean peninsula, and beyond. If war is not an option, the inevitable process to build peace must resume.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dong Jin Kim receives funding from the European Union and the Irish Research Council (Irish Research Council Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND Collaborative Research Fellowships for a Responsive and Innovative Europe). His research project is entitled 'Comparative Studies on the Peace Processes in Northern Ireland and Korea: Toward Strategic Peacebuilding'. The research is carried out in partnership with Corrymeela, Northern Ireland.</span></em></p>For a brief moment at the turn of the millennium, it seemed Seoul and Pyongyang were starting to open up to each other.Dong Jin Kim, Research Fellow, Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/824232017-10-30T01:50:53Z2017-10-30T01:50:53ZDon’t rely on China: North Korea won’t kowtow to Beijing<p>Those who want to end North Korea’s nuclear threats often point to China as the sole actor who could save the day by making Kim Jong-Un and his regime stand down. </p>
<p>Beijing provides about 90 percent of imports that North Koreans rely on, mainly food and oil. So, the argument goes: China could significantly diminish those threats by shutting off its economic lifeline to North Korea.</p>
<p>Donald Trump has tweeted about his disappointment that China does “NOTHING for us with North Korea” when “China could easily solve this problem!” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"891442016294494209"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s not just a view held by politicians. Many academics and policy analysts in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYFI-ngE7WU">the United States</a>, <a href="http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a592023.pdf">South Korea</a> and Japan agree that China holds the magic key to making North Korea cease its nuclear activities. It is a view based on the assumption of a “patron-client” relationship between China and North Korea.</p>
<p>I have studied such lopsided alliances – including between <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520289819">the United States and South Korea</a> – and I’ve learned that no matter how in sync the national security goals of the two countries may be or how much the stronger power may have helped the weaker, the weaker never simply rolls over and obeys. </p>
<p>So, how much power can China really exercise over North Korea?</p>
<h2>Relations with China and Russia</h2>
<p>North Korea’s relations with its two major neighbors – China and Russia – over many decades suggest that Pyongyang is not easily restrained. </p>
<p>Let’s look at the history.</p>
<p>Kim Il-sung, the first leader of North Korea and the grandfather of Kim Jong-Un, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/883328823">played Beijing and Moscow off each other</a> in order to launch his attack on the South in 1950. </p>
<p>After the Korean War started, Soviet military and economic support as well as massive Chinese assistance in the form of troops saved North Korea from destruction by United Nations forces. After the war, Sino-Soviet economic and military assistance continued, but the Kim regimes have rarely mentioned them as necessary contributions to the North’s economic and military development. Instead, the Kim patriarchs and their chosen “revolutionary martyrs for the fatherland” take the credit in the state’s official narrative for “vanquishing” the capitalist enemies in the Korean War and for the continued survival of the country.</p>
<p>Moreover, during the Cold War, Pyongyang had few qualms about consistently pursuing a “North Korea first” policy even if it meant offending the two big Communist neighbors. </p>
<p>In the late 1950s to the late 1960s, <a href="http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780199964291.html">the Kim regime kicked out</a> Soviet and Eastern European students in North Korea. They banned the Pravda and the Chinese People’s Daily newspapers and publicly condemned Khrushchev’s “revisionism” and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Yet, all the while, North Korea milked both Moscow and Beijing for economic aid and technological assistance. </p>
<p>Over three generations, the Kim dynasty has made the manipulation of its large and powerful neighbors into an art form. North Korean regimes have never been in the habit of kowtowing to states that literally preserved its existence, helped feed its people and train its military.</p>
<h2>Recent times</h2>
<p>In recent years, China and Russia have been indispensable in providing North Korean elites sophisticated technical training. In one program, the regime culls the brightest of its approximately 5,000 to 6,000 “cyberwarriors” to <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/06/201162081543573839.htmlher">further their studies in “cyberhacking” in China and Russia</a>. But experts have noted that Pyongyang never demonstrates gratitude or indebtedness.</p>
<p>Rather, in the last two years, as China signed onto tougher United Nations Security Council sanctions, North Korea has been poking Beijing in the eye. </p>
<p>In September 2016, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/08/asia/north-korea-seismic-activity/index.html">Pyongyang tested missiles</a> at the start of the G-20 meeting of the world’s top economies, hosted by China. On <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/9/3/16248844/north-korea-nuclear-test-september-3-2017">Sept. 3, 2017, North Korea detonated its sixth</a> and most powerful nuclear device, a day before another major international gathering hosted by China. Many commentators have noted that Pyongyang’s timing was deliberate and aimed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/03/xi-jinping-dark-shadow-north-korea-nuclear-test-chinese-brics">embarrass</a> its benefactor for seeming to side with Washington.</p>
<p>Young Kim Jong-Un – just 33 – has been bolder and brasher in this regard than his dynastic predecessors. About a year after assuming the top leadership after the death of his father in 2011, Kim essentially kicked out its joint venture partner, <a href="http://www.nkeconwatch.com/2012/08/17/jvic-brokers-chinese-investment-in-dprk-mines/">Xiyang Group</a>. Xiyang Group is one of China’s largest mining and steel production companies and it had spent about US$40 million to develop iron ore extraction at Musan Mine. The desire to feed China’s steel mills aside, this big project was part of China’s effort to help develop its poor neighbor’s economy and infrastructure and guide it toward reform. </p>
<p>But tensions with Pyongyang began to emerge just as the contract was approved by North Korea. By 2012, these tensions had morphed into open conflict and physical violence. The North Koreans unilaterally annulled the contract, and used <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9483015/North-Korea-turns-to-China-for-economic-support.html">“violent methods”</a> against Xiyang staff like depriving them of power and water. North Korean security officials even had the audacity to wake up Xiyang’s Chinese workers and forcibly deport them in the dead of night back.</p>
<p>North Koreans are well-practiced in pushing around more powerful states, even benefactors who bear life-sustaining gifts. So, it’s reasonable to ask – why would they back down if the benefits are withdrawn? </p>
<p>China has geopolitical reasons for wanting to keep North Korea a buffer state and prevent a mass migration crisis on its border with North Korea. But Beijing also knows that Pyongyang does not bend to the will of others and could lash out at China, especially if there’s nothing more to gain from its only generous ally. Such an erosion of Sino-North Korean relations would also be a loss for the United States. At the least, Washington would lose Beijing as a scapegoat. Worse, it could lose an important partner in managing the crisis with Pyongyang.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine H.S. Moon has received fellowship and grant awards from the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the American Association of University Women, Luce Foundation, Japan Foundation-Center for Global Partnership. Currently, she is part of a group of authors for a project funded by the Academy of Korean Studies; the principal investigators are Michael Green and Victor Cha of Georgetown University.
Moon is a nonresident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution; a visiting associate at Harvard University Korea Institute, and a member of the U.S. National Committee on North Korea.</span></em></p>Politicians and pundits are overplaying China’s influence over Kim Jong-Un.Katharine H.S. Moon, Edith Stix Wasserman Professor of Asian Studies; Professor of Political Science, Wellesley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845302017-09-25T12:09:41Z2017-09-25T12:09:41Z‘Sound of a dog barking’: history reveals the significance of this North Korean insult to Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187360/original/file-20170925-26723-is0v03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/24130109334/in/photolist-bPrWXp-e1vbeg-bxsLJE-boMNWx-G6sg9r-Rh3gBa-HUj9vf-CJUWsg-TXvMES-TiXgnB-DK1F2u-SUkC3Y-RrtBY2-QbaBnf-aYqj5X-R796zY-8J44zG-6rm8QW-boMwVD-SwF7uh-dPjRV6-CVg9Ey-RqL5A2-boMvEn-boMNsp-Rg5JXU-3nEBqk-RfMTYe-F9bxZJ-CLi7PQ-UtTZAh-Uioaxs-UtTZD3-LPDYCp-UxwzVP-Q1Qt8b-QxDiZp-P86PAo-QHYMqY-JERuH3-XMaQjt-8c2Lpd-Q9XrGJ-UZCB3w-RgUQNh-NhBrCJ-QBR8GW-KikcZH-NW8QXE-nw7LH2">DonkeyHotey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the early 1990s, the North Koreans have been gaining increasing attention for their use of sharp language. In the latest such episode, Ri Yong-ho, the North Korean foreign minister, ridiculed US president Donald Trump, comparing his bombastic threats to the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/sep/21/north-korea-trumps-threat-was-sound-of-a-dog-barking-video">sound of a dog barking</a>”. </p>
<p>This may sound like a fairly standard put down, but in fact Ri’s language was carefully selected. In the Korean context, a comparison with a dog is deeply insulting, and this likely explains Kim Jong-un’s follow-up reference to Trump as a “frightened dog”, and other derisive references to his age. Such claims allow the North Korean leadership to present itself as defiant to the world community.</p>
<p>The Korean peninsula has a lengthy history of exchanging insults, with such propaganda dating to the period around the Korean War (1950-1953). This often involves comparing opponents to a beast or an animal by using phrases rooted in Korean culture. </p>
<p>This style of exchange began as early as 1948, when the United Nations sponsored the first elections to take place after the division of the peninsula into North and South Korea. It has intensified since the mid-1990s, as North Korea sought to acquire nuclear technology, and even more since 2006.</p>
<p>Today, North Korean propaganda posters commonly use phrases such as “American bastard” or “American imperialism”, depicting their opponent as an exaggerated, overly large American soldier. These soldiers often possess distorted facial features, and as a group, they may threaten a cowering group of Koreans, depicted as much smaller and without defence. If these images sometimes lack the personal nature of the exchanges between Kim and Trump, they still carry a charged significance, characterising Americans with extremely corrosive language. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187356/original/file-20170925-18946-18o8ktc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contemporary North Korean propaganda poster. ‘It’s fun to play a game of hitting the American bastard’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/82992618@N00/2604154887">(Stephan)/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This style of imagery reflects North Korean memory of the later stages of the Korean War, when the north was subjected to intense American bombing. Although these are contemporary posters, they continue to engage with the legacy of the war, reminding a North Korean audience of their historical antagonism with the US.</p>
<p>In contrast, American anti-Communist propaganda from the 1950s referenced images of international communism, depicting a series of strings connecting north-east Asia. In many cases, Joseph Stalin appears in the background, manipulating events from Moscow. Symbols of the US seldom appear: the country is instead represented within the group of the United Nations. Only in more recent years has this symbolism transformed, morphing into linguistic targeting of the North Korean leadership specifically, using the theme of madness and irrationality for Kim Jong-Il, and now his son, Kim Jong-un.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187389/original/file-20170925-17437-15jzbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187389/original/file-20170925-17437-15jzbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187389/original/file-20170925-17437-15jzbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187389/original/file-20170925-17437-15jzbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187389/original/file-20170925-17437-15jzbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187389/original/file-20170925-17437-15jzbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187389/original/file-20170925-17437-15jzbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Korean leaflet from the time of the Korean War: ‘Communism drains the farmers’ blood’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>South Korean propaganda is perhaps the least well-known. From their shared history as one nation, the two Koreas began to take on Cold War ideology following the Korean War, especially as each rebuilt and they became bitter competitors. In the mid-1960s, South Korea offered up images of a giant octopus, sometimes with the face of Mao, threatening Vietnam and South-East Asia with its grasping tentacles. </p>
<p>Under President Park Chung-hee (1961-1979), particularly in the 1970s, South Korean children received anti-communist education (“national ethics”) as part of the curriculum. In textbooks, North Koreans were often illustrated as demonic, inhuman figures, with claws for hands and horns on their heads. This type of imagery continued through the mid-1980s, until South Korea ended its own period of military rule.</p>
<p>The most startling transformation that came with this political change was the image of North Koreans, who were now depicted in South Korean film and popular culture as human beings. This new imagery reflected a period of thaw and concession, away from the previous exchange of insults. A popular film from the period, <a href="http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/jsp/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990076">The Spy</a> (1999), instead showed a North Korean spy going undercover on a mission, who comically does not know how to withdraw money, has trouble with simple conversations, and is robbed by strangers when he arrives in fast-paced South Korea.</p>
<p>If the style of harsh language persists between Trump and the North Korean leadership, it hints at much of this previous history. Such antagonism dates to the destruction of the Korean War and its aftermath. For their part, the South Koreans dropped much of their harsh dialogue in the late 1990s with the “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-korea-north-sunshine/sunshine-policy-failed-to-change-north-korea-report-idUSTRE6AH12520101118">Sunshine Policy</a>”, when President Kim Dae-jung sought to woo the North through a combination of diplomacy and aid. This has proved controversial, as the policy did not succeed in persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.</p>
<p>Harsh language is now a regular, almost daily, occurrence, passing back and forth between the United States and North Korea (although South Korean leaders continue to be targeted as well). This language is intended for a domestic as well as an international audience. In the North Korean sphere, the rhetoric creates a performance to keep the home front strong, and strengthens the position of North Korea’s elite political group within the eyes of its people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John P DiMoia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Korean peninsula has a lengthy history of exchanging insults.John P DiMoia, Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/836392017-09-08T05:58:03Z2017-09-08T05:58:03ZWhat the West gets wrong about North Korea’s motives, and why some South Koreans admire the North<p>North Korea’s sixth nuclear test on September 3 – of what was possibly a hydrogen bomb – prompted a flurry of Western media think pieces attempting to explain the past and predict the future. </p>
<p>Most left out important aspects of the current crisis, says analyst B.R. Myers, a South Korea-based academic expert on North Korean propaganda and author of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/books/excerpt-cleanest-race.html?mcubz=0">The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters.</a></p>
<p>In this Q&A, The Conversation asked Professor Myers to explain what most in the West are missing about the North-South conflict.</p>
<p><strong>You’re always complaining about press coverage of the Korean crisis. What is it you think people need to know more about?</strong></p>
<p>A major problem is the mischaracterisation of the government in Seoul as liberal, as if it were no less committed to constitutional values and opposed to totalitarianism than the West German social democrats were in the Cold War. This makes Westerners think, “North Korea can’t take over the South without a war, but it knows it can’t win one, therefore it must now be arming only to protect itself”. </p>
<p>In fact, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has pledged commitment to a North-South confederation, and stressed his opposition to any use of military force against the North, no matter what happens. That makes Moon’s current displays of military hardware seem pretty meaningless. </p>
<p>If Seoul and Washington are playing a good-cop, bad-cop game, it’s a terrible idea. The more placid South Korea appears, the more US troops look like the only real obstacle to unification. </p>
<p>Western media applaud Moon’s soft-line declarations, and they like it when the South Korean man in the street says he finds Trump scarier than Kim Jong Un. But there is a danger of Kim taking all these things the wrong way. </p>
<p><strong>You’ve written that some South Koreans admire the North, or at least, feel a sense of shared identity. Why is that? And can this persist in the current climate?</strong></p>
<p>Many intellectuals here admire the North for standing up to the world. It’s a right-wing sort of admiration, really, for a resolute state that does what it says. More common than admiration are feelings of shared ethnic identity with the North. We are perhaps too blinkered by our own globalism to understand how natural they are. </p>
<p>But the average South Korean’s pan-Korean nationalism is rather shallow. Most people here want to see symbolic shows of reconciliation with the North – like a joint Olympic team in 2018 – but they don’t want unification, least of all under Kim Jong Un’s rule. </p>
<p>And they want the US Army to stay here in case he gets the wrong idea. It’s understandable enough, but this crisis will soon force them to pick one side, and one side only. “No ally is better than one’s own race,” President Kim Young Sam (president of South Korea from 1993 to 1998) said, which no West German chancellor would have dreamed of saying. </p>
<p>Washington has let this stuff slide for a long time, but people there are now asking themselves, “Must we really expose America to a nuclear threat in order to protect moderate Korean nationalists from radical nationalists?”</p>
<p><strong>While the failures of the Vietnam War loom large, the US bungling of Korea is rarely discussed in “western media”. What’s the national memory of that war in both Koreas, and how is that impacting the current state of affairs?</strong></p>
<p>That memory impacts the current situation less than one might think. Foreigners assume that because of the war, the two sides must dislike each other more than West and East Germans did. The opposite is the case. Some of my students say, “The North would never attack us, we’re the same people,” as if the war never happened. And North Korea would now be just as committed to unification if it hadn’t. </p>
<p>You mention the Vietnam War. In some ways that’s the more relevant and topical event right now. Kim Il Sung (leader of North Korea from its inception in 1948 until he died 1994, and the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un) was struck both by Washington’s decision not to use nukes on North Vietnam and by its general reluctance to go all out to win. </p>
<p>I’m sure the ease with which bare-footed Vietcong marched into Saigon in 1975 now strengthens Pyongyang’s conviction that the “Yankee colony” will not last long after the colonisers pull out. </p>
<p>In South Korea, meanwhile, conservatives are now loudly invoking the story of South Vietnam’s demise. They say, “There too you had a richer, freer state, and it fell only a few years after US troops pulled out. Let’s not make the same mistake”. They point worriedly to President Moon Jae-in’s own remark that he felt “delight” when predictions of US defeat in Vietnam came true.</p>
<p><strong>How likely is a war?</strong></p>
<p>I agree with those who say North Korea knows a nuclear war is unwinnable. I also think it fancies its chances of a peaceful takeover too highly to want to risk a premature invasion while US troops are here. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the North’s legitimacy derives almost wholly from its subjects’ perception of perfect strength and resolve. This makes it harder for Pyongyang to back down than it was for Moscow during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.</p>
<p>Also, the North’s ideology glorifies the heart over the mind, instincts over consciousness, which makes rash decisions more likely to be made, even quite low down the military command structure. There is therefore a significant danger of some sort of limited clash at any time. But that has always been the case.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>B.R. Myers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>North Korea’s legitimacy derives almost wholly from its subjects’ perception of perfect strength and resolve. This makes it harder for Pyongyang to back down.B.R. Myers, Professor of International Studies, Dongseo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.