north korea through the looking glass

[...]... nationalistic North Korea The Republic of Korea, however, uses the Korean name Taehan Minguk (The Great Korean Republic),an expression derived from the Chinese,and the South Korean people refer to themselves as Hanguk saram, from the Chinese name for the Han or Korean people Taking the name of their country and their people from an older and more independent Korean dynasty than do the South Koreans, the North Koreans... ideologize and isolate North Korea is all the more remarkable because during the Choson dynasty the people living in the northern part of Korea were more pragmatic than those living in the more isolated    southern part Since Korea s principal trade routes lead north to China, the Koreans living in the North were the travelers and traders of Korean society Northern border cities like Uiju (now... legitimacy North Korean historiography traces the DPRK’s lineage from the founder of Korea the (probably mythical) Tangun through Old Choson, to Koguryo ,the northernmost of the Three Kingdoms (first through seventh centuries A.D.).3 Koguryo fought fiercely to keep its independence from China, whereas its fellow Paekche in the southeast part of the Korean Peninsula maintained a cordial relationship with the. .. politics and national defense Finally, the Korean War, even if it was viewed as a civil war in North Korea, placed North Korea firmly in the communist camp in the eyes of the rest of the world Despite the desire of Koreans in both halves of the peninsula to reunite, the two Koreas became caught on separate sides of the global struggle between communism and democracy Only as the cold war ended forty years later... families would later join them.A much smaller number of South Koreans fled to the North to escape persecution by the anticommunist South Korean government The Korean War shaped North Korea as much as did its enduring cold war commitment to communism .The two Korean states (for that is essentially what they became) harbor deep distrust toward one another Both Korean governments, using the rationale of national... power Koreans who had fled to China, Russia,and the United States returned to the fray of Korean politics .The American and Soviet troops that accepted the Japanese surrender south and north of the 38th Parallel tried to impose some social and political order in their respective jurisdictions,initially at least with the prospect of preparing the Koreans to rule themselves In the southern half of the peninsula... remain in South Korea, North Korea can hold the moral high ground by claiming to be the only independent state on        the Korean peninsula Of course there are other measures of dependence, such as reliance on foreign powers for economic aid and military support On these measures North Korea has fallen woefully short of the Juche idea But “on the ground” North Korea has Juche... provided a gateway to China Kaesong, located in the southern part of North Korea, was a lively city noted for its shrewd merchants The center of Confucianism, however, was much farther south, in the present-day province of Kyongsang in the southeast corner of the peninsula Kim succeeded in turning North Korea into the more isolated and ideological part of Korea, smothering its traditional pragmatism.But even... state North Korea shares a border on the north with China, and for a few miles on the northeast, with Russia It is separated from South Korea, officially known as the Republic of Korea or ROK, by a no-man’s-land called the demilitarized zone, which separates two armies poised to resume or prevent— depending on one’s point of view the hostilities interrupted by the 1953 cease-fire agreement ending the Korean... settle for an armistice signed by North Korea, China, and by the United States representing the UN forces South Korea s Syngman Rhee refused to sign, holding open the option of launching a punishing attack on North Korea to reunite the country, after the manner of Chiang Kai-shek’s plan to retake the Chinese mainland The Korean War destroyed much of North and South Korea s infrastructure, and more tragically,killed .