Responsibility of the Partition
At the Yalta conference, Harry Truman proposed to Stalin to divide the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel due to growing ideological divides between North and South. As such, the West is responsible for the creation of North Korea. Juche developed as a response to foreign occupation and meddling, and the Western partition would only be seen by Kim Il-Sung as fodder for more nationalism and anti-imperialism in his new philosophy.
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Both Syngman Rhee, left, and Kim Il-Sung, right, were supporters of Korean unification, but their ideological differences kept these leaders from achieving their goals. History.com
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"Working in haste and under great pressure, we had a formidable task: to pick a zone for the American occupation. Neither Tic nor I was a Korea expert, but it seemed to us that Seoul, the capital, should be in the American sector. We also knew that the U.S. Army opposed an extensive area of occupation. Using a National Geographic map, we looked just north of Seoul for a convenient dividing line but could not find a natural geographical line. We saw instead the thirty-eighth parallel and decided to recommend that ... [Our commanders] accepted it without too much haggling, and surprisingly, so did the Soviets."
- Colonel Dean Rusk, August 14, 1945 |
[The partition] made no sense economically or geographically."
- Colonel Dean Rusk, August 14, 1945
- Colonel Dean Rusk, August 14, 1945
The 38th parallel from the South Korean side. Britannica Image Quest
Legitimacy of Korean Governments
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South Korea contends that it is the only lawful government on the peninsula. North Korea also claims that the southern government is a "puppet clique" governed by "US imperialists."
North Korean Opinion on Division
"The division of Korea into north and south has caused immeasurable misery and distress particularly to the south Korean people. South Korea today has been completely turned into a colony of the US imperialists, into their military base of aggression… the south Korean people are going hungry in rags, doubly and triply exploited and oppressed, many of them roaming the streets in quest of work and living in a state of constant anxiety with all hopes blighted."
– Kim Il-Sung, Let Us Embody the Revolutionary Spirit of Independence, Self-Sustenance and Self-Defense More Thoroughly in All Fields of State Activity, December 16, 1967 International Opinion on Division
"There has been established a lawful government (the Government of the Republic of Korea)… that this Government is based on election which were a valid expression of the free will of the electorate of that part of Korea… and that this is the only such Government in Korea."
– UN Resolution 195, praising South Korea while condemning the North |
UN Resolution 195, regarding the legitimacy of the Korean governments. UN. org
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