- Michael J. Seth
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Conclusion
Korea’s past century, its intensive colonial occupation, its arbitrary division, and most striking of all, the radically different trajectories pursued by the two halves is without a comparable example in modern history. No modern nation ever developed a more isolated and totalitarian society than North Korea, nor such an all-embracing family cult. No society moved more swiftly from extreme poverty to prosperity and from authoritarianism to democracy than South Korea.
Yet due to their common historical inheritance, the two Koreas share many features.
1. Nationalism – rooted from ethnically homogenous society
2. Background – both Koreas are the product of the highly turbulent middle third of the twentieth century. The mass uprooting of the Korean people caused by wartime Japan’s mobilizations, the dislocations that followed division, and the Korean War all helped to shake up society and break up traditional, rigid class lines, making society more fluid, more open to change and mobility. In North Korea, that social mobility was initially revolutionary, but then that society began to rigidify as a new hierarchical social order emerged. The social revolution in South Korea was at first less marked, as old elites consolidated power, but the Korean War, land reform, mass education, and rapid industrialization established a semi-meritocracy, provided many avenues for upward mobility, and created a new middle-class society.
3. Geopolitical situation – The modest-size Korean peninsula is almost completely encircled by three of the most formidable states in history: China, Russia, and Japan. Korea has no neighbors its own size. With the American occupation of Japan in 1945, Korea acquired a fourth powerful neighbor: the United States. Each of these much more populous and powerful states intervened and occupied at least part of Korea in the century after the country was forced to open its doors to the world. Korea could only survive and flourish as an independent entity by skillfully playing off the great powers around it or seeking one as a protector. The fear of foreign domination and the frustrations of dependency partly account for the intensity of Korean nationalism and determined efforts of the North and the South to acquire military and economic strength.
4. Historic – The ROK and the DPRK also have been shaped by Korea’s long history of centralized, bureaucratic rule. During the Choson period, 1392-1910, an elaborate system of government was administered from the capital down to the county level. There was little local autonomy. The colonial administration reinforced this pattern, with the state organs penetrating to the township and village level. It was also more authoritarian and militarized than the dynastic state, and it introduced the practice of mass mobilization to achieve state goals. Both Koreas, consequently, were highly centralized states. The centralized nature of both states is reflected in their capitals. Pyongyang totally dominates North Korea, it is where all the members of the elite live, and although the size has been kept to a modest 2-2.5 million by strict internal migration controls, it is still much larger than any other city in the country. Seoul, lacking such internal migration controls, grew into a megacity with a population that has reached 10 million, more than 18 million if the suburban “satellite cities” are included, two-fifths of the country’s total. It is the largest industrial center, the financial hub, and the political capital. It is also the educational center, with all the best universities located there, and the cultural and intellectual center.
5. Economic nationalism – directs the economy using centralized planning. The goals of the governments in both Koreas remained similar: to make their states strong and independent through economic development. Both were able tap into a strong sense of national pride to mobilize the population for these aims.
Yet the shared inheritance of the two Koreas led them into different paths. North Korea pursued a model of development that proved to be an economic and historical dead end. The desire to be self-sufficient, to be free from foreign domination despite its precarious geopolitical terrain and modest size, had disastrous consequences for the North. It could not flourish in a world dominated by global capitalism. Attempts by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to do so began to resemble the futile efforts at isolation pursued more than a century earlier by the Taewongun.
South Korea’s more chaotic but more pluralistic society proved more successful in bringing prosperity if not self-sufficiency. This was in part because its economic and political links to the United States and Japan proved more effective in developing its economy.
Crucial role of the United States needs to be acknowledged.
The American legacy in modern Korea is an ambiguous one. Despite the important influence that American missionaries had as agents of modernization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the U.S. government was largely indifferent to Korea, willing to let it become part of the Japanese Empire. When the United States did actively intervene in Korean affairs, the result was catastrophic, since it was the United Sates that was initially responsible for the division. The American military intervention in the Korean War turned what would have been a short if nasty civil war, into a three year global conflict that devastated the country and left it divided. Washington tolerated military governments, American firms took advantage of the suppression of labor movements, and the U.S. military presence may have contributed to the tensions between two Koreas.
Yet South Korea enormously benefitted by the U.S. involvement. The United States opened its markets to Korean exports and poured in development aid. Its universities educated many tens of thousands of Koreans. It plugged Korea into the global society and provided the security needed to attract foreign investment. And for all its tolerance of military rulers, the United States acted as a check on authoritarianism, allowing space for a pluralistic society to grow. North Korea, by contrast, had no similar external check on the ambitions and visions of its authoritarian leaders; and the regime effectively eliminated any element of pluralism.
None of this detracts from the strengths of South Korean society, which made possible its transition to developed status in just several decades. South Korean leaders, while sometimes brutal, corrupt, and self-serving, also made some wise choices, sometimes against American advice. The South Korean people endured many hardships and made many sacrifices, and they were able to draw upon many resources from their cultural heritage and recent history. Their preoccupations with educational attainment, pursuit of status, sense of national purpose, and openness to change were all crucial elements. Especially important was the Korean tradition of looking outside their society for examples of excellence and then trying to emulate them. Tragically, although North Korea shared the same historical inheritance and its people exhibited the same sense of hard work and national purpose, the interplay of historical contingency and policy choices brought about very different outcomes.
The great tragedy of modern Korean history has been the nation’s division. In the six decades since the two states were created, the Koreans have continued to think of themselves as one people. Almost universally, the division of the country has been regarded as “unnatural” and unification at some point inevitable. However, as the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of the two republics passed, there was no obvious path to reunification. Nor was it clear just how far the two Koreas have pulled apart and become not only two states but also two cultures. Only if and comprehend the significance of this division and the insights into history it provides; and only then will the hopes of Koreans to create a modern nation be fulfilled.
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1) US must have the clear streategy toward Korea.
2) Two Korean states must find the way to reunify themselves.
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