North Korea - How did we get here? by Emily Winkler28

1910 - 1945 • Korea Fighting for Independence From Japan

ecwinkler28_1 — 2023-11-03 17:53:41 UTC

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea and tried to rid the country of Korean culture and named its empire in Korea "Chosen". Until 1941, when Korea declared war on Japan, and the United States and Soviet Union had their back. This matters because if Korea had never gained independence from Japan, the population of Koreans would drastically drop. At the moment Japan is already a very sophisticated and wealthy country, can you imagine if they had more land and resources than they already did? If they kept the Korean territory and never became allies with us, they could have posed a big threat.

1945 - 1950 • Territory Splitting

ecwinkler28_1 — 2023-11-03 18:26:27 UTC

When the United States and the Soviet Union were helping gain independence from Japan, the United States proposed to temporarily split the country to help rid it of the Japanese. The Soviet Union agreed to the proposal and the Japanese surrendered but the land was never combined again. The Soviet Union ended up supporting the North and The United States ended up supporting the South. This matters because if Korea ended up conjoining back together and separating their differences after being split we could've prevented probably the entire war. North Korea is still isolated and an unsafe country, but if Korea was conjoined Korea could've been a safe place for everyone, and we would not have any trouble with Korea like we do at the moment.

2002 • North Korea Lets Small, Semi-Private Markets Start

mesmith281_1 — 2023-11-06 13:14:59 UTC

Due to the absence of the U.S.S.R.'s financial help (since the 1990s), North Korea suffered from famine. North Korea was having trouble locating resources, agricultural production, and managing the economy. Possibly to halt the population decline (because of hunger) and to get the problem off its hands, the North Korean government allowed some semi-private markets to function. But this was not too much of a step up, because the North Korean government didn't and still won't protect the people in its country that much more than allowing semi-private markets. This is most likely because the North Korean government doesn't want to give power to the citizens to make the citizens anywhere close to the power of the government to maintain a dictatorship. This matters because, if it hadn't been for the North Korean government's slight bit of leniency, a lot of North Korean citizens would be starving. If only the North Korean government hadn't waited until the country's financial situation and hunger had reached unbearable, the businesses and cities would be prospering more than today. The North Koreans could've gotten started on businesses before North Korea got so baren and starved of resources.

1994 • The U.S. Signed the Agreed Framework with North Korea

mesmith281_1 — 2023-11-06 13:16:38 UTC

In 1994, The U.S. signed a deal with North Korea called the Agreed Framework. This deal made it so the North Korean facilities were regulated by the UN and banned from working. Plus, the deal moved North Korea's nuclear facilities to Yongbyon, 60 miles north of North Korea's capital. In exchange for this, North Korea got assistance with energy efficiency and making light-water nuclear reactors (machines less useful for military use.) This deal created a friendly relationship between the U.S. and North Korea. This matters because the deal postponed North Korea from making nuclear weapons and had the U.S. make friends with North Korea, and so, until now, the U.S. hasn't had many head-to-head conflicts with North Korea. Also, if North Korea had a lot of time to side with Russia before now, Russia, China, and North Korea could very well have become a superpower that could overpower other countries, including the U.S., and spread communism.

2002 - Now • Conflicts Rise Between the U.S. and North Korea

mesmith281_1 — 2023-11-07 02:12:39 UTC

When George W. Bush became president (2001), he started to put out how he hated North Korea. This led Republicans to begin to contemplate ending the Agreed Framework. In 2002, a North Korean official told Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly that North Korea had been secretly developing its nuclear weapons by searching for highly enriched uranium, a substance used to detonate nuclear weapons. Highly enriched uranium was easier to hide progress with than the former plutonium-based system which required a reactor, like the one that was UN-monitored at Yongbyon. President Bush stopped the U.S. from exporting fuel to North Korea, part of the Agreed Framework; and North Korea set up high security and forced UN inspectors out of North Korea. The deal was broken. This incident led to further disputes and conflicts between the U.S. and North Korea. This event matters because it led to the constant uneasy cycle of North Korea and the U.S. trying to obtain bigger and stronger weapons than each other. If North Korea didn’t start secretly making more nuclear weapons, there would be much more peace today and the Agreed Framework deal wouldn’t have been broken.

2003 - 2009 • The Six-Party Talks

ecwinkler28_1 — 2023-11-07 19:38:12 UTC

These discussions were held between Russia, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States. In 2005 after much convincing, North Korea agreed to stop using and making any of their nuclear weapons. In 2007 the six parties met again and agreed on certain steps they would take to solve this dilemma. It took some convincing to see eye-to-eye about the agreement between all the countries. After all the work they put into their commitment to denuclearize North Korea, it was all for not as in 2009 they stopped talking and never reached any unity. This would affect Russia and China because if tensions rose in North Korea more than they already have, they would receive a large amount of refugees that would halt their economic growth. But this would also affect Japan and South Korea because if North Korea kept the nuclear weapons, it would take a toll on their National Security. This most importantly matters because North Korea never agreed to stop making and using its nuclear weapons they are still a certain threat as one of the only nine countries that has nuclear weapons.

2018 • The Singapore Summit

ecwinkler28_1 — 2023-11-07 19:41:07 UTC

Kim Jong Un expressed the idea to meet with Trump. He released U.S. detainees and destroyed a nuclear test site to show how much he wanted this meeting. Trump therefore ended up accepting the invitation. The North Korean and United States leaders met for the first time in Singapore to try to come together to make peace that'll last. They were both talking about what they would do to create peace and suggested dismantling their own military and weaponry operations. After the meeting, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un stated the issue of North Korea's Nuclear problem to be "solved". This matters because North Korea proposed this meeting, and if we don't try to make amends with North Korea, they'll think that we don't care about trying. Or they might see us as a possible threat or as a country that is demanding to get everything their way, and that could make the US more of an "unliked" country. If the US was more of an "unliked" country they could lose allies for their unpopularity. If so, it would be hard to defend ourselves if lots of powerful countries thought we were not willing to make peace, but this is only if it gets extreme.

2001 - 2003 • The "Axis of Evil"

ecwinkler28_1 — 2023-11-07 19:51:24 UTC

President Bush named North Korea, Iran, and Iraq the "Axis of Evil", and started to place sanctions on North Korea. The exposure of the Nuclear Posture Review, a plan that the Bush administration stated that the U.S. could use nuclear weapons if conflicts broke out with North Korea, got Kim Jong Il's attention. He said that that rule was not fair with their U.S. security assurances and wanted to be able to make nuclear weapons to defend North Korea from the U.S. After the Agreed Framework deal was broken, the Kim Jong Il said he'd only stop his country from making nuclear weapons if the U.S. stopped the plan to target North Korea with nuclear weapons, but that he was up for negotiations. The U.S. government responded with the idea that North Korea had to stop all of its nuclear weapon production for there to be negotiations, which set both countries on edge and (kind of) frozen to make any moves. This matters because it set the friendliness for a lot of the future deals/talks between North Korea and the U.S. If the Bush administration had just accepted the negotiation requests from the North Korean government, maybe there wouldn't be conflicts between North Korea and the U.S. now, and the communism in North Korea could even be turned to democracy if the U.S. and North were nicer to each other.

1951 - 1953 • Korean War Stalemate

ecwinkler28_1 — 2023-11-07 19:56:17 UTC

There were alternating invasions between North and South Korea during the Korean War. After the Chinese pushed the conflicts back to the area of the 38th Parallel, the war eased and both sides stopped fighting, reinforcing their positions and defense. At least for the Americans, many war veterans were filtered out for new and less-experienced ones. It felt like the war was at a dead point. By the end of the stalemate, the Korean War Armistice was signed. This is important because the war would definitely take at least a few years to go through, with multiple big countries involved. If the stalemate hadn't occurred, the wartime would wear down all of the countries and simply cause more poverty around the world. It would've been especially bad for the U.S., with the new military workers being brought in as the war was going on.

1951 - 1953 • Signing of the Korean War Armistice

ecwinkler28_1 — 2023-11-07 20:01:48 UTC

1951 - 1953 was when the negotiations to sign the Armistice were taking place. There were 158 meetings between representatives from The UNC, (The United Nations Command) The KPA, (The Korean People's Army), and The CPVA, (The Chinese People's Volunteer Army). After all those meetings, the Armistice established the DMZ (demilitarized zone) near the 38th parallel so the war didn't start up again. Some things stated in the agreement include; no citizen shall be permitted to cross the DMZ without permission from the other side. There shall be no hostile act against the DMZ. This is a very long Armistice designed to make sure a war like this never breaks out again in Korea. This matters because if North Korea and South Korea were never able to reach an agreement with each other there could've been some even more severe consequences. An example of this could be if the Korean War didn't end for several more years until an agreement could be reached, lots of more lives could be lost as well as the U.S.'s soldiers. That would've lost more resources and the tension regarding allies/enemies could increase our alliance with South Korea, and keep decreasing it with countries like North Korea and China. Since the Armistice was signed and countries agreed to peace before it got too bad, all of this was avoided. But our relationships with China and North Korea, still aren't thriving like the U.S. might've hoped.