Cold War Conflicts
Overview
Korea
At the end of World War II, the Korean peninsula had been liberated from Japanese occupation. Following the partition of the peninsula into Soviet and United States zones of occupation (North and South Korea, respectively), North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 and launched the Korean War. In 1953, this war ended in armistice, and the two Koreas remained distinct countries and hostile to one another for the duration of the Cold War, with the North aligned with the Soviet Union and the South allied with the US.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the Korean War in the context of the Cold War and Communist expansion.
- Examine political, social, and economic developments in North and South Korea during the Cold War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
April Revolution: a popular uprising in April 1960 led by labor and student groups, which overthrew the autocratic First Republic of South Korea under Syngman Rhee
August Faction Incident: a 1956 attempted removal of Kim Il-sung from power by leading North Korean figures from the Soviet-Korean faction and the Yan’an faction, with support from the Soviet Union and China
Bodo League: an official “re-education” movement whose members were communists, communist sympathizers, or actual and alleged political opponents of the President of South Korea Syngman Rhee
Coup d’état of December Twelfth: a military coup d’état which took place on December 12, 1979, in South Korea
Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty: a 1910 treaty between representatives of the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire that formally annexed Korea following the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905
Japan–Korea Protectorate Treaty: a 1905 treaty between the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire that deprived Korea of its diplomatic sovereignty and made it a protectorate of Imperial Japan, which was influenced by Imperial Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905
Jeju uprising: an attempted insurgency on the Korean province of Jeju Island followed by a brutal anticommunist suppression campaign that lasted from April 3, 1948, until May 1949
Juche: the official state ideology of North Korea, described by the regime as Kim Il-sung’s “contribution to national and international thought,” which claims that an individual is “the master of his destiny” and calls for the economic self-reliance of North Korea
June 29 Declaration: a speech by Roh Tae-woo, presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Justice Party of South Korea, on June 29, 1987, in which he promised significant concessions to opponents of the incumbent authoritarian regime of Chun Doo-hwan, who had been pressing for democracy
June Democracy Movement: a nationwide democracy movement in South Korea that generated mass protests from June 10 to June 29, 1987 and forced the ruling government to hold elections and institute other democratic reforms
Korean Demilitarized Zone: a highly militarized strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that was established at the end of the Korean War to serve as a buffer zone between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea)
Korean War: A 1950 – 1953 military conflict that began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea
March 1st Movement: one of the earliest public displays of Korean resistance during the ruling of Korea by Japan, which was initiated by activists reading the Korean Declaration of Independence and followed by massive demonstrations
May 16 coup: a military coup d’état in South Korea in 1961, organized and carried out by Park Chung-hee and his allies who formed the Military Revolutionary Committee; an event that rendered the democratically elected government of Yun Bo-seon powerless and ended the Second Republic
Miracle on the Han River: a phrase that refers to the period of rapid economic growth in South Korea following the Korean War (1950 – 1953), during which South Korea transformed from a poor developing country to a developed country
People’s Republic of Korea: a short-lived provisional government organized with the aim to take over control of Korea shortly after the surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of World War II
Provisional People’s Committee: the official name of the provisional government governing the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula following its post-World War II partition by the United States and the Soviet Union after the defeat of the Empire of Japan in 1945
Russo-Japanese War: a 1904 – 1905 war fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea
The United States Army Military Government in Korea: the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from September 8, 1945, to August 15, 1948
Japan's Annexation of Korea
In 1897, Joseon—a Korean kingdom founded in 1392—was renamed the Korean Empire, and King Gojong became Emperor Gojong. The imperial government aimed to establish a strong and independent nation by implementing domestic reforms, strengthening military forces, developing commerce and industry, and surveying land ownership.
Russian influence was strong in the Korean Empire until Russia was defeated by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War (1904 – 1905). Japan won the war with Russia, thus eliminating Japan’s last rival to influence in Korea. Two months later, Korea was obliged to become a Japanese protectorate by the Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty of 1905 and pro-Japanese reforms were enacted, including the reduction of the Korean Army from 20,000 to 1,000 men.
Many Korean intellectuals and scholars set up various organizations and associations, embarking on movements for independence. And in 1907 Gojong was forced to abdicate after Japan learned that he sent secret envoys to the Second Hague Conventions to protest against the protectorate treaty, leading to the accession of Gojong’s son, Emperor Sunjong.
In 1910, Japan effectively annexed Korea by the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty. While Japan asserts that the treaty was concluded legally, this argument is not accepted in Korea because it was not signed by the Emperor of Korea, as was required, and violated international convention on external pressures regarding treaties.
Korea was controlled by Japan under a Governor-General of Korea until Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945, with de jure sovereignty deemed to have passed from the Joseon dynasty to the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
Japanese Rule Begins
After the annexation, Japan set out to repress Korean traditions and culture and implement policies primarily for Japanese benefit. European-style transport and communication networks were established across the nation to extract resources and labor. The banking system was consolidated and Korean currency abolished. The Japanese removed the Joseon hierarchy, destroyed much of the ancient imperial palace, and replaced it with the government office building.
Many Japanese settlers were interested in acquiring agricultural land in Korea even before Japanese land ownership was officially legalized in 1906. Japanese landlords included both individuals and corporations such as the Oriental Development Company. Many former Korean landowners and agricultural workers became tenant farmers after losing their entitlements almost overnight.
By 1910, an estimated 7% to 8% of all arable land was under Japanese control. This ratio increased steadily. By 1932, the ratio of Japanese land ownership increased to 52.7%. The level of tenancy was similar to that of farmers in Japan but in Korea, the landowners were mostly Japanese, while the tenants were all Koreans. As was often the case in Japan, tenants were required to pay more than half their crop as rent, forcing many to send wives and daughters into factories or prostitution so they could pay taxes. Ironically, by the 1930s, the growth of the urban economy and the exodus of farmers to the cities gradually weakened the hold of the landlords.
After Emperor Gojong died in 1919 amidst rumors of poisoning, independence rallies against the Japanese took place nationwide: the March 1st Movement. This movement was suppressed by force and about 7,000 Koreans were killed by Japanese soldiers and police. An estimated 2 million people took part in pro-liberation rallies, although Japanese records claim participation of less than half million. This movement was partly inspired by United States President Woodrow Wilson’s speech of 1919, declaring support for right of self-determination and an end to colonial rule for Europeans. No comment was made by Wilson on Korean independence.
The Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was established in Shanghai, China, in the aftermath of March 1 Movement, which coordinated the liberation effort and resistance against Japanese control. The Provisional Government is considered the rightful government of the Korean people between 1919 and 1948, and its legitimacy is enshrined in the preamble to the constitution of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). In Korea itself, continued anti-Japanese uprisings, such as the nationwide uprising of students in November 1929, led to the strengthening of military rule in 1931. In 1929, protests by Koran high school students against Japanese occupation inspired protests nationwide that last for five months.
After the outbreaks of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and World War II, Japan attempted to exterminate Korea as a nation. The continuance of Korean culture itself became illegal. Worship at Japanese Shinto shrines was made compulsory. The school curriculum was radically modified to eliminate teaching of the Korean language and history. The Korean language was banned, Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese names, and newspapers were prohibited from publishing in Korean. Numerous Korean cultural artifacts were destroyed or taken to Japan. According to an investigation by the South Korean government, 75,311 cultural assets were stolen from Korea during this period.
Korea during World War II
Starting in 1939, organized official recruitment of Koreans to work in mainland Japan were instituted to address Japanese labor shortages that resulted from conscription of Japanese males; the recruitment of Korean workers was initially conducted through civilian agents but later involved elements of coercion. As the labor shortage increased, by 1942 the Japanese authorities extended the provisions of the National Mobilization Law to include the conscription of Korean workers for factories and mines on the Korean peninsula, Manchukuo, as well as the involuntary relocation of workers to Japan itself as needed.
Of the 5.4 million Koreans conscripted, about 670,000 were taken to mainland Japan for civilian labor. Those who were brought to Japan were often forced to work under appalling and dangerous conditions. Although Koreans were often treated better than laborers from other countries, their long work hours, as well as lack of food and medical care, still led to many deaths. The number of deaths of Korean forced laborers in Korea and Manchuria is estimated to be between 270,000 and 810,000. Most Korean atomic-bomb victims in Japan were drafted for work at military industrial factories in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Starting in 1944, Japan began the conscription of Koreans into the armed forces. All Korean males were drafted to either join the Imperial Japanese Army, as of April 1944, or work in the military industrial sector, as of September 1944. Ethnic Koreans were not desired by the Japanese military until 1944 when the tide of WW II turned dire. Until 1944, enlistment in the Imperial Japanese Army by ethnic Koreans was voluntary and highly competitive. The acceptance rate reveals discrimination, as it went from 14% in 1938 to a 2% acceptance rate in 1943, while, at the same time, the raw number of applicants increased from 3000 per annum to 300,000.
Around 200,000 girls and women, many from China and Korea, were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers as the so-called “comfort women.” It was not until 2015 that Japan formally apologized for enslaving Korean women and girls and offered a monetary restitution of 8.3 million dollars. By then, very few of the women and girls who survived sexual torture were still alive.
Koreans, along with many other Asians, were experimented on in Unit 731—a secret Japanese military medical experimentation unit in World War II. General Shiro Ishii, the head of Unit 731, revealed during the Tokyo War Crime Trials that 254 Koreans were killed in Unit 731. Some historians estimate up to 250,000 total people were subjected to human experiments. A Unit 731 veteran attested that most that were experimented on were Chinese, Koreans, and Mongolians.
Economic Growth Controversy
The industrialization of the Korean Peninsula began with the Joseon dynasty while Korea was still independent, but vastly accelerated under Japanese occupation. The rapid growth of the Korean economy under Japanese rule, which as historians note cannot be ignored in the analysis of the later economic success of South Korea, continues to be the subject of controversy between the two Koreas and Japan. While the growth is unquestionable, North Korea and South Korea point to alleged long-term negative repercussions caused by how the acceleration of industrialization under Japanese occupation was executed, which was for the purposes of benefiting Japan while exploiting the Korean people and marginalizing Korean history and culture, as well as while exploiting the Korean Peninsula environment.
End of World War II: Division of Korea
In November 1943, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek met at the Cairo Conference to discuss what should happen to territories occupied by Japan and agreed that Japan should lose all the territories it had conquered by force. In the declaration after the conference, Korea was mentioned for the first time. The three powers declared that they were “mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea […] [and had] determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.”
At the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Yalta Conference in 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join its allies in the Pacific War within three months of victory in Europe. On August 8, 1945, after three months to the day, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Soviet troops advanced rapidly, and the U.S. government became anxious that they would occupy Korea.
On August 10, 1945, two young officers—Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel—were assigned to define an American occupation zone. Working on extremely short notice and completely unprepared, they used a National Geographic map to decide on the 38th parallel. They chose it because it divided the country approximately in half but would also place the capital city Seoul under American control. No experts on Korea were consulted. The two men were unaware that 40 years earlier, Japan and Russia had discussed sharing Korea along the same parallel. The division placed sixteen million Koreans in the American zone and nine million in the Soviet zone. To the surprise of the Americans, the Soviet Union immediately accepted the division.
General Abe Nobuyuki, the last Japanese Governor-General of Korea, had established contact with a number of influential Koreans since the beginning of August 1945 to prepare for the evacuation of Japanese forces. Throughout August, Koreans organized people’s committee branches for the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence headed by Lyuh Woon-hyung, a moderate left-wing politician. On September 6, 1945, a congress of representatives convened in Seoul and founded the short-lived People's Republic of Korea.
In December 1945 at the Moscow Conference, the Allies agreed that the Soviet Union, the U.S., the Republic of China, and Britain would take part in a trusteeship over Korea for up to five years in the lead-up to independence. Most Koreans demanded independence immediately, with the exception of the Communist Party, which supported the trusteeship under pressure from the Soviet government. A Soviet-U.S. Joint Commission met in 1946 and 1947 to work towards a unified administration but failed to make progress due to increasing Cold War antagonism and Korean opposition to the trusteeship. Meanwhile, the division between the two zones deepened. The difference in policy between the occupying powers led to a polarization of politics and a transfer of population between North and South. In May 1946, it was made illegal to cross the 38th parallel without a permit.
U.S. Occupation of the South
The United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from September 8, 1945, to August 15, 1948. On September 7, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur announced that Lieutenant General John R. Hodge was to administer Korean affairs, and Hodge landed in Incheon with his troops the next day. The Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, which had operated from China, sent a delegation with three interpreters to Hodge, but he refused to meet with them.
The USAMGIK tried to contain civil violence in the south by banning strikes and outlawing the People’s Republic of Korea and the people’s committees. Things spiraled quickly out of control, however, with a massive strike in September 1946 by 8,000 railway workers in Busan, which quickly spread to other cities in the South. On October 1, police attempts to control protesters in Daegu caused the death of three student demonstrators and injuries to many others, sparking a mass counter-attack that killed 38 policemen. In Yeongcheon, a police station came under attack on October 3 by a 10,000-strong crowd who killed over 40 policemen and the county chief. Other attacks resulted in the deaths of about 20 landlords and pro-Japanese officials. The U.S. administration responded by declaring martial law, firing into crowds of demonstrators, and killing an undisclosed number of people.
Although the military government in South Korea was hostile to leftism from the beginning, it initially tolerated the activities of left-wing political groups, including the Korean Communist Party. However, this period of reconciliation did not last long. Within a short time, the military government actively disempowered and eventually banned popular organizations that were gaining public support. The justification was the USAMGIK’s suspicion that they were aligned with the Communist bloc, despite professing a relatively moderate stance compared to the actual Korean Communist Party, which was also banned.
Among the earliest edicts promulgated by USAMGIK was to reopen all schools. No immediate changes were made in the educational system, which was simply carried over from the Japanese colonial period. In this area as in others, the military government sought to maintain the forms of the Japanese occupation system. Although it did not implement sweeping educational reforms, the military government did lay the foundations for reforms that were implemented later. In 1946, a council of about 100 Korean educators was convened to map out the future path of Korean education.
Soviet Occupation of the North
When Soviet troops entered Pyongyang, they found a local branch of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence operating under the leadership of veteran nationalist Cho Man-sik. The Soviet Army allowed these people’s committees, which were friendly to the Soviet Union, to function. Colonel-General Terentii Shtykov set up the Soviet Civil Administration, taking control of the committees and placing Communists in key positions.
In 1946, a provisional government called the Provisional People's Committee was formed under Kim Il-sung, who had spent the last years of the war training with Soviet troops in Manchuria. Conflicts and power struggles ensued at the top levels of government in Pyongyang as different aspirants maneuvered to gain positions of power in the new government. The government instituted a sweeping land-reform program: land belonging to Japanese and collaborator landowners was divided and redistributed to poor farmers. Landlords were allowed to keep only the same amount of land as poor civilians who had once rented their land, thereby instituting a far more equal distribution of land. The farmers responded positively, while many collaborators and former landowners fled to the south. According to the U.S. military government, 400,000 northern Koreans went south as refugees.
Failed UN Intervention
With the failure of the Soviet-U.S. Joint Commission to make progress, the U.S. brought the problem before the United Nations in September 1947. The Soviet Union opposed UN involvement, but the UN passed a resolution on November 14, 1947, declaring that free elections should be held, foreign troops should be withdrawn, and a UN commission for Korea—the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea—should be created. The Soviet Union boycotted the voting and did not consider the resolution to be binding, arguing that the UN could not guarantee fair elections. And in the absence of Soviet cooperation, it was decided to hold UN-supervised elections in the south only.
The decision to proceed with separate elections in the south was unpopular among many Koreans, who rightly saw it as a prelude to a permanent division of the country. General strikes in protest against the decision began in February 1948. In April, Jeju islanders rose up against the looming division of the country, and South Korean troops were sent to repress the rebellion. Tens of thousands of islanders were killed, and, by one estimate, 70% of the villages were burned by South Korean troops. What began as a demonstration commemorating Korean resistance to Japanese rule ended with this Jeju Uprising, an attempted insurgency against the scheduled election on the Korean province of Jeju Island. A brutal anticommunist suppression campaign by the South Korean government lasted until May 1949. Although atrocities were committed by both sides, the methods used by the South Korean government to suppress the rebels were especially cruel, including random executions of women and children. In the end, between 14,000 and 30,000 people died as a result of the rebellion, or up to 10% of the island’s population. Some 40,000 others fled to Japan to escape the fighting. The uprising flared up again with the outbreak of the Korean War.
Despite opposition to elections, on May 10, 1948, South Korea held a general election. On August 15, the Republic of Korea formally took over power from the U.S. military, with Syngman Rhee as the first president. In North Korea, meanwhile, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was declared on September 9, 1948, with Kim Il-sung as prime minister. On December 12, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly accepted the report of UNTCOK and declared the Republic of Korea (South Korea) to be the “only lawful government in Korea.”
Unrest continued in South Korea after independence in 1948. Since President Rhee’s regime excluded communists and leftists from southern politics, these disenfranchised groups headed for the hills to prepare for guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK government. While Rhee indeed aimed to eradicate communist and leftist groups, the anti-communist slogans were applied to eradicate all his actual and alleged political opponents and establish his authoritarian rule by inciting fear among the civilians with no ties to communism or politics. By early 1950, Syngman Rhee had jailed about 20,000 – 30,000 alleged communists, and about 300,000 suspected communist sympathizers enrolled in the Bodo League re-education movement.
The Bodo League gathered suspected communist sympathizers or Rhee’s political opponents, but to fulfill the enrollment quota, many civilians with no ties to communists or politics were forced to become members. The majority of the Bodo League’s members were innocent farmers and civilians who were forced into membership. The Syngman Rhee government later executed many registered members of this league and their families at the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, as suspected communist sympathizers.
On December 24, 1949, South Korean Army massacred the 86 to 88 residents of Mungyeong. The victims were massacred because they were suspected communist supporters or collaborators (though some sources say nearly one-third of the victims were children). The government blamed the crime on marauding communist bands. By 1949, South Korean forces had reduced the active number of communist guerrillas in the South from 5,000 to 1,000.
The Korean War
Soviet ruling forces departed from North Korea in 1948 and American ruling troops finally withdrew from South Korea in 1949. However, with the approval and support of the Soviet leader, Stalin and the Chinese communist leader, Mao Zedong, the North Korean Communist leader, Kim Il-sung believed that an effort to unite the Korean Peninsula under communist control would be supported by much of the South Korean population. Consequently, North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, marking the outbreak of the Korean War.
Kim Il-sung believed that the communist guerrillas had weakened the South Korean military and that a North Korean invasion would be welcomed by much of the South Korean population. Kim began seeking Stalin’s support for an invasion in March 1949, but with Chinese Communist forces still engaged in the Chinese Civil War and American forces stationed in South Korea, Stalin did not want the Soviet Union to become embroiled in a war with the United States. By spring 1950, the strategic situation changed. The Soviets had detonated their first nuclear bomb in September 1949, American soldiers had fully withdrawn from Korea, and the Chinese Communists had established the People’s Republic of China. The Soviets had also cracked the codes used by the U.S. to communicate with the U.S. embassy in Moscow, and reading the dispatches convinced Stalin that Korea would not warrant a nuclear confrontation.
In April 1950, Stalin gave Kim permission to invade the South under the condition that Mao Zedong, the leader of China, would agree to send reinforcements if they became needed. Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces would not openly engage in combat to avoid a direct war with the Americans. Mao was concerned that the Americans would intervene but agreed to support the North Korean invasion.
Once Mao’s commitment was secured, preparations for war accelerated. Soviet generals with extensive combat experience from World War II were sent to North Korea as the Soviet Advisory Group and completed the plans for the attack.
While these preparations were underway in the North, there were frequent clashes along the 38th parallel, many initiated by the South. The Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) was being trained by the U.S. Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG). On the eve of the war, KMAG’s commander General William Lynn Roberts voiced utmost confidence in the ROK Army and boasted that any North Korean invasion would merely provide “target practice.” For his part, Syngman Rhee repeatedly expressed his desire to conquer the North. Despite the southward movement of the Korean’s People’s Army (KPA), U.S. intelligence agencies and UN observers claimed that an invasion was unlikely.
Outbreak of the War
At dawn on Sunday, June 25, 1950, the North Korean Korean People’s Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel behind artillery fire and invaded South Korea. The KPA justified its assault with the claim that ROK troops had attacked first, and that they were aiming to arrest and execute the “bandit traitor Syngman Rhee.” Fighting began on the strategic Ongjin peninsula in the west. There were initial South Korean claims that they had captured the city of Haeju, and this claim has led some scholars to argue that the South Koreans actually fired first. Within an hour, North Korean forces attacked all along the 38th parallel. The North Koreans had a combined arms force including tanks supported by heavy artillery. The South Koreans did not have any tanks, anti-tank weapons, or heavy artillery that could stop such an attack. In addition, South Koreans committed their forces in a piecemeal fashion, and these were routed within a few days.
On June 27, Rhee evacuated from Seoul with some members of the government. On June 28 at 2 a.m., the South Korean Army blew up the Hangang Bridge across the Han River in an attempt to stop the North Korean army. The bridge was detonated while 4,000 refugees were crossing it and hundreds were killed. Destroying the bridge also trapped many South Korean military units north of the Han River. In spite of such desperate measures, Seoul fell that same day. A number of South Korean National Assemblymen remained in Seoul when it fell and 48 subsequently pledged allegiance to the North. On June 28, Rhee ordered the massacre of suspected political opponents in his own country.
In five days, the South Korean forces, which had 95,000 men on June 25, were down to less than 22,000 men. In early July when U.S. forces arrived, what was left of the South Korean forces was placed under U.S. operational command of the United Nations Command.
U.S. and UN Interventions
The United States government under President Harry Truman was unprepared for this invasion. Korea was not included in the strategic Asian Defense Perimeter outlined by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Military strategists were more concerned with the security of Europe against the Soviet Union than East Asia. At the same time, the Truman Administration was worried that a war in Korea could quickly widen into another world war, should the Chinese or Soviets decide to get involved as well. America did not initially want to get involved.
One aspect of the changing attitude toward Korea and whether to get involved was Japan, especially after the fall of China to the Communists. U.S. East Asian experts saw Japan as the critical counterweight to the Soviet Union and China in the region. While there was no United States policy that dealt with South Korea as a national interest, its proximity to Japan increased the importance of South Korea. However, a major consideration was the possible Soviet reaction in the event that the U.S. intervened. The Truman administration was fretful that a war in Korea was a diversionary assault that would escalate to a general war in Europe once the United States committed in Korea. Truman believed if aggression went unchecked, a chain reaction would be initiated that would marginalize the United Nations and encourage Communist aggression elsewhere.
On June 25, 1950, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea with UN Security Council Resolution 82. The Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power, had boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950, protesting that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People’s Republic of China, held a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. After debating the matter, the Security Council on June 27, 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On the same day, President Truman ordered U.S. air and sea forces to help the South Korean regime. On July 4, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the United States of starting armed intervention on behalf of South Korea.
As the conflict between South Korea and North Korea reflected the international tensions of the Cold War, the U.S. military forces supported South Korea under the auspices of the UN, while Chinese forces backed North Korea with the Soviet Union providing materiel and strategic help.
U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and President Truman agreed that the United States was obligated to act, comparing the North Korean invasion with Adolf Hitler’s aggression in the 1930s; they came to the conclusion that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated. However, Truman later acknowledged that he believed fighting the invasion was essential to the American goal of the global containment of communism. In August 1950, the President and the Secretary of State obtained the consent of Congress to appropriate $12 billion for military action in Korea. Several U.S. industries were mobilized to supply materials, labor, capital, production facilities, and other services necessary to support the military objectives of the Korean War.
General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was faced with re-organizing and deploying an American military force that was a shadow of its World War II counterpart. Acting on Acheson’s recommendation, President Truman ordered General MacArthur to transfer material to the Army of the Republic of Korea, while giving air cover to the evacuation of U.S. nationals. The President disagreed with advisers who recommended unilateral U.S. bombing of the North Korean forces and ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to protect the Republic of China (Taiwan), whose government asked to fight in Korea. The United States denied ROC’s request for combat lest it provoke a communist Chinese retaliation. Because the United States sent the Seventh Fleet to “neutralize” the Taiwan Strait, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai criticized both the UN and U.S. initiatives as “armed aggression on Chinese territory.”
In September 1950, MacArthur received the top-secret National Security Council Memorandum from Truman reminding him that operations north of the 38th parallel were authorized only if “at the time of such operation there was no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily.” Just three days later, Zhou Enlai warned the United States that China was prepared to intervene in Korea if the United States crossed the 38th parallel. By October 1950, the UN Command repelled the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) northwards past the 38th parallel and the South Korean ROK Army crossed after them into North Korea. MacArthur subsequently made a statement demanding the KPA’s unconditional surrender. On October 7, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards. The US army’s X Corps landed at Wonsan (in southeastern North Korea) and Riwon (in northeastern North Korea), already captured by ROK forces. The Eighth U.S. Army and the ROK Army advanced up western Korea and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on October 19, 1950. At month’s end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war.
Taking advantage of the UN Command’s strategic momentum against the communists, General MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into China to destroy depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed and ordered caution at the Sino-Korean border.
Chinese Intervention with Soviet Support
China justified its entry into the war as a response to “American aggression in the guise of the UN.” In August 1950, Zhou Enlai informed the UN that “Korea is China’s neighbor” and “the Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the Korean question.” Thus, through neutral-country diplomats, China warned that in safeguarding Chinese national security, they would intervene against the UN Command in Korea. President Truman interpreted the communication as an “attempt to blackmail the UN” and dismissed it.
October 1, 1950, the day that UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, was also the first anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. On that day, the Soviet ambassador forwarded a telegram from Stalin to Mao and Zhou requesting that China send five to six divisions into Korea, and Kim Il-sung sent frantic appeals to Mao for Chinese military intervention. At the same time, Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces themselves would not directly intervene.
There was considerable resistance among many Chinese leaders, including senior military leaders, to confronting the U.S. in Korea. Mao strongly supported intervention and Zhou was one of the few Chinese leaders who firmly supported him. In order to enlist Stalin’s support, Zhou and a Chinese delegation arrived in Moscow on October 10. Stalin did not agree to send either military equipment or air support until March 1951. Soviet shipments of material, when they did arrive, were limited to small quantities of trucks, grenades, and machine guns. Immediately upon his return to Beijing on October 18, Zhou met with Mao and military leaders Peng Dehuai and Gao Gang. The group ordered 200,000 Chinese troops to enter North Korea.
After secretly crossing the Yalu River on October 19, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) 13th Army Group launched the First Phase Offensive on October 25, attacking the advancing UN forces near the Sino-Korean border. This military decision made solely by China changed the attitude of the Soviet Union. Twelve days after Chinese troops entered the war, Stalin allowed the Soviet Air Force to provide air cover and supported more aid to China. After decimating the ROK II Corps at the Battle of Onjong, the first confrontation between Chinese and U.S. military occurred on November 1, 1950. Deep in North Korea, thousands of soldiers from the PVA 39th Army encircled and attacked the U.S. 8th Cavalry Regiment with three-prong assaults—from the north, northwest, and west—and overran the defensive position flanks in the Battle of Unsan.
On December 16, 1950, President Truman declared a national emergency, which remained in force until September 1978. The next day, Kim Il-sung was deprived of the right of command of KPA by China. After that, the leading force of the war on the North Korean side became the Chinese army.
Stalemate and Armistice
From July 1951 to the end of the war, the UN Command and the Chinese PVA fought but exchanged little territory. The stalemate held although large-scale bombing of North Korea continued. Protracted armistice negotiations began in July 1951, but combat continued while the belligerents negotiated. The UN Command forces’ goal was to recapture all of South Korea and avoid losing territory. The PVA and the KPA attempted similar operations and later effected military and psychological operations to test the UN Command’s resolve to continue the war.
The on-again, off-again armistice negotiations continued for two years, first at Kaesong, on the border between North and South Korea, and then at the neighboring village of Panmunjom. A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation. The PVA, KPA, and UN Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused to be repatriated back to North Korea, which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans. In the final armistice agreement signed in July 1953, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission was set up to handle the matter.
In 1952, the United States elected a new president, and in November, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War. With the United Nations’ acceptance of India’s proposed Korean War armistice, the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire with the battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, United States, and Joint UN Commands.
A Divided Korea
After the Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953, the Korean War ended but the conflict between the two Korean states continues, still shaping their economic, political, diplomatic, and social relations. The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean People’s Army, and the Chinese People’s Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953 to end the Korean War fighting. The Armistice also called upon the governments of South Korea, North Korea, China, and the United States to participate in continued peace talks. The war is considered to have ended at this point, although there was no peace treaty. North Korea nevertheless still claims that it won the Korean War.
Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, United States, and Joint UN Commands. The Demilitarized Zone runs northeast of the 38th parallel and to the south, it travels west. It is a de facto border barrier that divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, running 160 miles long and about 2.5 miles wide. Within the Zone, there is a meeting-point between the two nations in the small Joint Security Area near the western end of the zone, where negotiations take place. There have been various incidents in and around the Zone, with military and civilian casualties on both sides.
Owing to the theoretical stalemate (no peace treaty has been signed) and genuine hostility between the North and the South, large numbers of troops are still stationed along both sides of the line, each side guarding against potential aggression from the other side. The armistice agreement explains exactly how many military personnel and what kind of weapons are allowed in the DMZ.
Social Landscape after the War
There were numerous atrocities and massacres of civilians throughout the Korean War, committed by both the North and South Koreans, that impacted the social landscape after the war. Many of them started on the first days of the war. South Korean President Syngman Rhee ordered what would be known as the Bodo League massacre in June 1950, initiating the killing of more than 100,000 suspected leftist sympathizers and their families by South Korean officials and right-wing groups. In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia by executing academics, government officials, and religious leaders who might lead resistance against the North. When the North Koreans retreated back home in September 1950, they forced tens of thousands of South Korean men to move to North Korea. The reasons are not clear, but the intention might have been to acquire skilled professionals.
Large numbers of people were displaced because of the war and many families were divided by the reconstituted border. In 2007, it was estimated that around 750,000 people remained separated from immediate family members, and family reunions have long been a diplomatic priority. The exact number of South Korean POWs who were detained in North Korea after the war is unknown, as is the number who still survive in North Korea. In its report to the legislature in October 2007, the South Korean Ministry of Defense reported that “a total of 41,971 South Korean soldiers were missing during the Korean War. 8,726 were repatriated through POW exchanges after the Armistice of 1953. Some 13,836 have been determined to have been killed based on other information. To date, the status of 19,409 soldiers has not been confirmed. Most of these unconfirmed were believed to have been unrepatriated POWs. Other estimates of South Korean POWs held by the North Koreans at the Armistice have been higher. Yi Hang-gu, a writer and North Korea expert currently in South Korea who served in the Korean People’s Army, has testified that he commanded former South Korean POWs who had been enlisted into the Korean People’s Army during the Korean War. He has estimated the number of South Korean POWs who survived in North Korea at the end of the fighting at about 50,000 – 60,000. The South Korean government estimates that 560 South Korean POWs still survive in North Korea.
After the war, the Chinese forces left, but U.S. forces remained in the South. Sporadic conflict continued between North and South Korea. The opposing regimes aligned themselves with opposing sides in the Cold War. Both sides received recognition as the legitimate government of Korea from the opposing blocs. In 1953, the United States and South Korea signed a defense treaty and in 1958, the United States stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea. In 1961, North Korea signed mutual defense treaties with the USSR and China.
North Korea presented itself as a champion of orthodox Communism, distinct from the Soviet Union and China. The regime developed the doctrine of Juche or self-reliance, which included extreme military mobilization. In response to the threat of nuclear war, it constructed extensive facilities underground and in the mountains. The Pyongyang Metro opened in the 1970s with capacity to double as bomb shelter.
Tensions between North and South escalated in the late 1960s with a series of low-level armed clashes known as the Korean DMZ Conflict. In 1968, North Korean commandos launched the Blue House Raid—an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. spy ship Pueblo was captured by the North Korean navy. In 1969, North Korea shot down a US EC-121 spy plane over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew on board, which constitutes the largest single loss of U.S. aircrew during the Cold War. In 1969, Korean Air Lines YS-11 was hijacked and flown to North Korea. Similarly, in 1970, the hijackers of Japan Airlines Flight 351 were given asylum in North Korea. In response to the Blue House Raid, the South Korean government set up a special unit to assassinate Kim Il-sung, but the mission was aborted in 1972. In 1974, a North Korean sympathizer attempted to assassinate President Park and killed his wife, Yuk Young-soo.
In the 1970s, both North and South began building up their military capacity. It was discovered that North Korea dug tunnels under the DMZ which could accommodate thousands of troops. Alarmed at the prospect of U.S. disengagement, South Korea began a secret nuclear weapons program which was strongly opposed by Washington. In 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter proposed the withdrawal of troops from South Korea. There was a widespread backlash in America and in South Korea, and critics argued that this would allow the North to capture Seoul. Carter postponed the move, and his successor Ronald Reagan reversed the policy, increasing troop numbers. After Reagan supplied the South with F-16 fighters and after Kim Il-sung visited Moscow in 1984, the USSR recommenced military aid and cooperation with the North.
North Korea after the Korean War
Following the 1956 August Faction Incident (an attempted removal of Kim Il-sung from power), Kim Il-sung successfully resisted efforts by the Soviet Union and China to depose him in favor of pro-Soviet Korean officials or the pro-Chinese Yan’an faction. The last Chinese troops withdrew from the country in 1958, but North Korea remained closely aligned with China and the Soviet Union, and the Sino-Soviet split allowed Kim to play the powers off each other. At the same time, North Korea emphasized the ideology of Juche (self-reliance) to distinguish itself from both the Soviet Union and China.
In North Korea, economic recovery from the Korean War was quick — by 1957 industrial production reached 1949 levels — but reconstruction of the country depended on extensive Chinese and Soviet assistance. Koreans with experience in Japanese industries also played a significant part in this industrial recovery. Following the example of the Soviet Union under Stalin, agricultural land was collectivized between 1953 and 1958. Resistance to this move appears to have been minimal as landlords were eliminated by earlier reforms or during the war. Collectivization of farms freed up peasants to work in state owned factories in the cities.
North Korea, like all the postwar communist states, undertook massive state investment in heavy industry, state infrastructure and military strength, neglecting the production of consumer goods. The country was placed on a semi-war footing, with equal emphasis being given to the civilian and military economies. At a special party conference in 1966, members of the leadership who opposed the military build-up were removed. Industry was fully nationalized by 1959. Taxation on agricultural income was abolished in 1966. As late as the 1970s, North Korea’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP ) per capita was estimated to be equivalent to South Korea’s. By 1972, all children from age 5 to 16 were enrolled in school and more than 200 universities and specialized colleges had been established. By the early 1980s, 60 – 70% of the population was urbanized.
Economic Decline
In the 1970s, expansion of North Korea’s economy, with the accompanying rise in living standards, came to an end. North Korea’s desire to lessen its dependence on aid from China and the Soviet Union prompted the expansion of its military power, and the government believed massive expenditures could be covered by foreign borrowing and increased sales of its mineral wealth on the international market. North Korea invested heavily in its mining industries and purchased a large quantity of mineral extraction infrastructure from abroad. However, following the world 1973 oil crisis, international prices of many of North Korea’s native minerals fell, leaving the country with large debts, inability to pay them off, and an extensive network of social welfare benefits. The state began to default in 1974 and halted almost all repayments in 1985. Consequently, it was also unable to invest further in Western technology.
In 1984, Kim visited Moscow during a grand tour of the USSR where he met Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. Soviet involvement in the North Korean economy increased, with bilateral trade reaching its peak at $2.8 billion in 1988. In 1986, Kim met the incoming Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and received a pledge of support. However, Gorbachev’s reforms and diplomatic initiatives, the Chinese economic reforms starting in 1979, and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc from 1989 to 1991 increased North Korea’s isolation. The leadership in Pyongyang responded by proclaiming that the collapse of the Eastern Bloc demonstrated the correctness of the policy of Juche. Simultaneously, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 deprived North Korea of its main source of economic aid, leaving China as the isolated regime’s only major ally. Without the Soviet aid, North Korea’s economy went into a free-fall.
South Korea's Economic Growth
Although South Korea emerged from the Korean War as one of the poorest countries in the world and despite a series of authoritarian regimes lasting until the late 1980s, the South Korean economy has been one of the fastest growing and most stable in the world since the 1960s. Following the armistice that ended the Korean War fighting, South Korea experienced political turmoil under the autocratic leadership of Syngman Rhee. Throughout his rule, Rhee took additional steps to cement his control of government. In 1952 during the Korean War, he pushed through constitutional amendments, which made the presidency a directly elected position. To do this, he declared martial law, arresting opposing members of parliament, demonstrators, and anti-government groups. He was subsequently elected by a wide margin. In the 1954 elections, Rhee regained control of parliament and thereupon pushed through an amendment to exempt himself from the eight-year term limit. He was once again re-elected in 1956. Soon afterwards, his administration arrested members of the opposing party and executed its leader after accusing him of being a North Korean spy.
Rhee’s administration became increasingly repressive while dominating the political arena and in 1958, sought to amend the National Security Law to tighten government control over all levels of administration, including local government. These measures caused much outrage among the people. But despite public outcry Rhee’s administration rigged the 1960 presidential elections and won by a landslide. On the election day, however, protests by students and citizens against the irregularities of the election burst out in the city of Masan. Initially these protests were quelled with force by local police, but when the body of a student was found floating in the harbor of Masan, the whole country was enraged, and protests spread nationwide. On April 19, students from various universities and schools rallied and marched in protest in the Seoul streets in what would be called the April Revolution. The government declared martial law, called in the army, and suppressed the crowds with open fire. Subsequent protests throughout the country shook the government and after an escalated protest, Rhee submitted his official resignation and fled into exile.
A period of political instability followed, broken by General Park Chung-hee’s May 16 coup in 1961 against the weak and ineffectual government. Park took over as president, overseeing rapid export-led economic growth as well as implementing political repression. He was heavily criticized as a ruthless military dictator, who in 1972 extended his rule by creating a new constitution that gave the president sweeping (almost dictatorial) powers and permitted him to run for an unlimited number of six-year terms.
Park was assassinated in 1979, which sparked political turmoil as the previously suppressed opposition leaders all campaigned to run for president in the sudden political void. In 1979 came the Coup d'etat of December 12 led by General Chun Doo-hwan. Following the coup d’état, Chun Doo-hwan planned to rise to power through several measures. On May 17, he forced the Cabinet to expand martial law to the whole country (it had previously not applied to the island of Jejudo). The expanded martial law closed universities, banned political activities, and further curtailed the press. Chun’s assumption of the presidency triggered nationwide protests demanding democracy.
Chun and his government held South Korea under a despotic rule until 1987, when a Seoul National University student, Park Jong-chul, was tortured to death by the regime. On June 10, the Catholic Priests Association for Justice revealed the incident, igniting the June Democracy Movement around the country. Eventually, Chun’s party, the Democratic Justice Party, and its leader, Roh Tae-woo, announced the June 29 Declaration, which included the direct election of the president. Roh went on to win the election by a narrow margin. Since then, South Korea has engaged in consistent democratization efforts.
Following the Korean War, South Korea remained one of the poorest countries in the world for over a decade. In 1960, its gross domestic product per capita was $79, lower than that of some sub-Saharan countries. At the beginning of the 1960s, the government formulated a five-year economic development plan, although it was unable to act on it prior to the April Revolution. The hwan (South Korean currency) lost half of its value against the dollar between fall 1960 and spring 1961.
Park’s administration started by announcing its five-year economic development plan based on an export-oriented industrialization policy. Top priority was placed on the growth of a self-reliant economy and modernization. “Development First, Unification Later” became the slogan of the times and the economy grew rapidly with vast improvements in industrial structure, especially in the basic and heavy chemical industries. Capital was needed for such developments, so the Park regime used the influx of foreign aid from Japan and the United States to provide loans to export businesses, with preferential treatment in obtaining low-interest bank loans and tax benefits. Cooperating with the government, these businesses would later become chaebols—business conglomerates that are typically global multinationals and own numerous international enterprises controlled by a chairman with power over all the operations.
Relations with Japan were normalized by the Korea-Japan treaty ratified in 1965. The treaty brought Japanese funds in the form of loans and compensation for the damages suffered during the colonial era without an official apology from the Japanese government, sparking much protest across the nation. The government also kept close ties with the United States and continued to receive large amounts of economic and military aid. The US and South Korea agreed to mutual defense agreement in 1966. Soon thereafter, South Korea joined the Vietnam War. Economic and technological growth during this period improved the standard of living, which expanded opportunities for education. Workers with higher education were absorbed by the rapidly growing industrial and commercial sectors, and urban population surged. Construction of the Gyeongbu Expressway was completed and linked Seoul to the nation’s southeastern region and the port cities of Incheon and Busan.
Unlike in most other countries, the incredible economic growth in South Korean did not go hand in hand with democratization. Despite the authoritarian regime, South Korea’s tiger economy soared at an annual average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful.
Despite the immense economic growth, however, the standard of living for city laborers and farmers was still low. Laborers were working for low wages to increase the price competitiveness for the export-oriented economy plan, and farmers were in near poverty as the government controlled prices. As the rural economy steadily lost ground and caused dissent among the farmers, however, the government decided to implement measures to increase farm productivity and income by instituting the Saemauel Movement (“New Village Movement”) in 1971. The movement’s goal was to improve the quality of rural life, modernize both rural and urban societies, and narrow the income gap between them.
Despite social and political unrest, the economy continued to flourish under the authoritarian rule with the export-based industrialization policy. The first two five-year economic development plans were successful, and the 3rd and 4th five-year plans focused on expanding the heavy and chemical industries, raising the capability for steel production and oil refining. As most of the development had come from foreign capital, most of the profit went back to repaying the loans and interests. In the 1980s, tight monetary laws and low interest rates contributed to price stability and helped the economy boom with notable growth in the electronics, semi-conductor, and automobile industries. The country opened up to foreign investments and GDP rose as Korean exports increased. This rapid economic growth, however, widened the gap between the rich and the poor, the urban and rural regions, and also exacerbated inter-regional conflicts. These dissensions, added to the hardline measures taken against opposition to the government, fed intense rural and student movements, which had grown since the beginning of the republic.
Vietnam
Following the end of World War II, French Indochina collapsed, and three independent states emerged by 1954: Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Vietnam was divided into Capitalist, pro-Western South Vietnam, and Communist, pro-Soviet North Vietnam. In 1965 the United States sent troops to defend South Vietnam from North Vietnamese attacks and “contain” Communist expansion, thus initiating the Vietnam War.
Learning Objectives
- Examine Communist expansion in French Indochina.
- Analyze the factors in the victory of North Vietnam in the Vietnam War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
August Revolution: a revolution launched by the Viet Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam) against French colonial rule in Vietnam, on August 14, 1945
Cambodian Genocide: mass atrocities carried out by the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979, in which an estimated 1.5 to 3 million people died
Democratic Kampuchea: the name of the Khmer Rouge-controlled state that between 1975 and 1979 existed in present-day Cambodia; founded when the Khmer Rouge forces defeated the Khmer Republic of Lon Nol in 1975
First Indochina War: the military conflict that began in French Indochina in December 1946 and lasted until August 1954, after fighting between French forces and their Viet Minh opponents in the South began in September 1945
Geneva Accords: the 1954 settlement that ended the First Indochina War, reached at the end of the Geneva Conference; a ceasefire that resulted in France withdrawing its troops from the region; resulted in French Indochina being split into three countries: Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam
Geneva Conference: a 1954 conference among several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina
Khmer Issarak: a loosely structured anti-French and anti-colonial independence movement in Cambodia, formed around 1945 and composed of several factions, each with its own leader
Khmer Rouge: the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in Cambodia
Operation Passage to Freedom: a term used by the United States Navy to describe its assistance in transporting 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers, and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam in 1954–55
Paris Peace Accords: a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War It ended direct U.S. military combat and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam.)
Pathet Lao: a communist political movement and organization in Laos formed in the mid-20th century, ultimately successful in assuming political power in 1975 after the Laotian Civil War
Second Indochina War: a military conflict known commonly in the United States as the Vietnam War and in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America or the American War, that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1955 (with some sources citing 1956 or 1959 as the starting date) to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975
Vichy France: the common name of the French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, which was the southern, unoccupied “Free Zone” of France and was a client and puppet of Nazi Germany
Viet Cong: a political organization and army, known also as the National Liberation Front, that operated in South Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War
Viet Minh: a national independence coalition formed in 1941 with the initial goal to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire
Vietnamization: a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to “expand, equip, and train South Vietnam’s forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops”
The End of French Indochina
In 1940, France was swiftly defeated by Nazi Germany and colonial administration of French Indochina passed to the Vichy French government, a puppet state of Nazi Germany. In September 1940, Japan launched its invasion of French Indochina, mirroring its ally Germany’s conquest of France. Keeping the French colonial administration, the Japanese ruled from behind the scenes in a parallel of Vichy France.
Indochinese communists had set up hidden headquarters in 1941, but most of the Vietnamese resistance to Japan, France, or both, including communist and non-communist groups, was based over the border in China. In 1941, Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese communist leader, returned to Vietnam from China to lead the Viet Minh independence movement. The “men in black” was a 10,000-member guerrilla force that operated with the Viet Minh, but Ho was soon jailed in China by Chiang Kai-shek’s local authorities. As part of the Allied fighting against the Japanese, the Chinese Nationalists formed a resistance movement— the Dong Minh Hoi—which included communists but was not controlled by them. When the movement did not provide the desired intelligence data, Ho Chi Minh was released from jail and returned to lead an underground centered on the communist Viet Minh. This mission was assisted by Western intelligence agencies, including the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Free French intelligence also tried to affect developments in the Vichy-Japanese collaboration.
Vichy signed the Protocol Concerning Joint Defense and Joint Military Cooperation in 1941. This agreement defined the Franco-Japanese relationship for Indochina until the Japanese abrogated it in March 1945. It gave the Japanese a total of eight airfields and allowed them to have more troops present and use the Indochinese financial system, in return for a fragile French autonomy.
In March 1945 with the collapse of Nazi Germany, the Japanese imprisoned the Vichy French and took direct control of Vietnam. After the Japanese removed the French from administrative control in Indochina, they made no attempt to impose their own direct control of the civilian administration. Primarily concerned with the defense of Vietnam against an Allied invasion, the Japanese were not interested in Vietnamese politics. However, they also understood the desirability of a certain degree of administrative continuity. It was to their advantage to install a Vietnamese government that would acquiesce in the Japanese military presence. With this in mind, the Japanese persuaded the Vietnamese emperor Bảo Đại to cooperate with Japan and declare Vietnam independent of France. In March 1945, Bảo Đại did just that. Vietnam’s new “independence,” however, rested on the government’s willingness to cooperate with Japan and accept the Japanese military presence. From March until August 1945, Vietnam enjoyed what was called “fake independence,” when all the affairs of Indochinese were still in the hands of the Japanese.
After World War II
Three conflicting visions of post-war French Indochina emerged: Western anticommunists saw the French as protectors of the area from communist expansion; nationalists and anti-colonialists wanted independence from the French; and communists focused on the expansion of communism. Lines between the movements that promoted these three visions were not always clear, and their co-existence shaped the post-war fate of French Indochina.
When the Japanese surrendered, the Viet Minh immediately launched the insurrection, which would be known as the August Revolution. People’s revolutionary committees across the countryside took over administrative positions, often acting on their own initiative, while in the cities the Japanese stood by as the Vietnamese took control. On August 19, the Viet Minh took control of Hanoi, seizing northern Vietnam in the next few days. Ho Chi Minh declared independence for the newly established Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), headquartered in Hanoi, on September 2, 1945. However, the Viet Minh faced various problems in the southern part of the country. The south was politically more diverse than the north, and the Viet Minh had been unable to establish the same degree of control there that they had achieved in the north.
There were serious divisions in the independence movement in the south, where different nationalist groups competed for control. On August 25, the communists established a Provisional Executive Committee with Tran Van Giau at its head. The committee took over public administration in Saigon but followed Allied orders that the Japanese maintain law and order until Allied troops arrived.
At the Potsdam conference in July 1945, the Allies divided Indochina into two zones at the sixteenth parallel, effectively assigning the southern zone to French control and leaving the northern part to Chiang Kai-shek’s China, to accept the surrender of the Japanese. However, in the north, this occupation period became a critical opportunity for the Viet Minh to consolidate and triumph over domestic rivals.
As southern Vietnam’s disunited resistance forces struggled to push back French advances, Ho Chi Minh and the DRV started to negotiate with France in hopes of preserving national independence while avoiding war. In March 1946, the two sides reached an accord. Instead of obtaining French recognition of Vietnamese “independence,” Ho Chi Minh agreed to his government being weakly identified as a “free state” within the Indochinese Federation under the French Union. For their part, the French agreed that referendum was to be held on the issue of unifying the Vietnamese regions. This agreement entangled the French and Vietnamese in joint military operations and fruitless negotiations for several months. However, the status of southern Vietnam remained the sticking point. The March accord had left the fate of southern Vietnam (also known as Cochinchina) in flux. From June to September 1946, Ho Chi Minh met with French representatives in Vietnam and France to discuss this and other issues. However, almost immediately after the signing of the March accord, relations began to deteriorate. Negotiations broke down over the issue of the fate of southern Vietnam. As talking failed to bring results, both sides prepared for a military solution. Provocations by both French and Vietnamese troops led to the outbreak of full-scale guerrilla war on December 19, 1946. Nearly one year after the August Revolution, Vietnam and France were at war.
After World War II, the French also reestablished their control in Laos and Cambodia. In October 1945, supporters of Laotian independence announced the dismissal of the king and formed the new government of Laos: the Lao Issara. However, the Lao Issara was ill-equipped and could only await the inevitable French return. In 1946, the French forced the Lao Issara leadership to flee into exile in Thailand and formally endorsed the unity of Laos as a constitutional monarchy within the French Union
The Japanese occupation of Cambodia ended with the official surrender of Japan in August 1945 and the Cambodian puppet state lasted until October 1945. Some supporters of the kingdom’s prime minister Son Ngoc Thanh escaped to north-western Cambodia, then still under Thai control, where they banded together as one faction in the Khmer Issarak movement. Although their fortunes rose and fell during the immediate postwar period, by 1954 the Khmer Issarak operating with the Viet Minh by some estimates controlled as much as 50 percent of Cambodia’s territory. King Sihanouk reluctantly proclaimed a new constitution in May 1947. And while it recognized him as the “spiritual head of the state,” it reduced him to the status of a constitutional monarch of a Cambodia within the French Union.
Independence in Indochina
The division of Vietnam into the communist North and pro-Western South led to the First Indochina War. Viet Minh forces fought against the French Union from 1946 until the Geneva Conference of 1954 that forced France to abandon all claims to the colonies of Indochina, including Laos and Cambodia.
The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the northern border of Vietnam in 1949, the conflict turned into a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons supplied by the United States and the Soviet Union. French Union forces included colonial troops from the whole former empire (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese ethnic minorities), French professional troops, and units of the French Foreign Legion. The use of French recruits was forbidden by the government to prevent the war from becoming even more unpopular at home. It was called the “dirty war” by the Leftist intellectuals in France. The French military efforts were made more difficult due to the limited usefulness of armored tanks in a jungle environment, lack of strong air forces for air cover and carpet bombing, and use of unreliable foreign recruits from other French colonies.
On the other hand, General Vo Nguyen Giap—the military leader of the Viet Minh—is considered by historians to be one of the greatest strategists of the 20th century. He used efficient and novel tactics: direct fire artillery, convoy ambushes, and amassed anti-aircraft guns to impede land or air supply deliveries. He also recruited a sizable regular army facilitated by wide popular support and employed a guerrilla warfare doctrine, which Chinese Communists had developed. General Vo Nguyen Giap also had access to simple and reliable war materials provided by the Soviet Union. This combination proved fatal for the Viet Minh’s opponents, culminating in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and independence for the peoples of French Indo-China
Laos and Cambodian Independence
After the French reasserted conrol over Laos after World War II, the Lao Issara government fled to Thailand, where they maintained opposition to the French until 1949, when the group split over questions regarding relations with the Viet Minh and the communist Pathet Lao was formed. The Franco-Lao General Convention of 1949 provided most members of the Lao Issara with a negotiated amnesty and sought appeasement by establishing the Kingdom of Laos as a quasi-independent constitutional monarchy within the French Union. In 1950 additional powers were granted to the Royal Lao Government, including training and assistance for a national army. In 1953, the Franco–Lao Treaty of Amity and Association transferred remaining French powers to the independent Royal Lao Government. By 1954, the defeat at Dien Bien Phu brought eight years of fighting with the Viet Minh during the First Indochinese War to an end, and France abandoned all claims to the colonies of Indochina, including Laos.
In Cambodia, the French had also been able to reimpose the colonial administration in Phnom Penh with the withdrawal of japanese forces. The Cambodian prince, Sihanouk’s “royal crusade for independence” resulted in grudging French acquiescence to his demands for a transfer of sovereignty. A partial agreement was struck in October 1953. Sihanouk then declared that independence had been achieved and returned in triumph to Phnom Penh. As a result of the Geneva Conference, Cambodia gained full independence from France and was able to bring about the withdrawal of the Viet Minh troops from its territory.
The Geneva Agreements
The 1954 Geneva Conference produced an agreement between the French and Viet Minh military commands (but not the pro-Western State of Vietnam) that divided Vietnam along the 17th Parallel, escalating tensions between the North and the South and leading to the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War). The Geneva Conference took place between April 26 and July 20, 1954 in Geneva, Switzerland. The Soviet Union, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and the People’s Republic of China were present throughout the conference. The conference produced a set of documents known as the Geneva Accords or Geneva Agreements.
The Question of Indochina
While the delegates began to assemble in Geneva in late April, the discussions on Indochina did not begin until May 8. The Viet Minh had achieved their decisive victory over the French Union forces at Dien Bien Phu the previous day. The Western allies did not have a unified position on what the Conference should achieve in relation to Indochina. The French delegation was keen to preserve something of France’s position in the region. The Unites States had been supporting the French in Indochina for many years, and the Republican Eisenhower administration wanted to ensure that it could not be accused of having lost Indochina to the communists, mainly because its leaders had previously accused the previous Truman administration of having lost China when the communists successfully dominated that country.
On May 10, Pham Van Dong, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; North) delegation set out their position, proposing a ceasefire, separation of the opposing forces, a ban on the introduction of new forces into Indochina, exchange of prisoners, independence and sovereignty for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, elections for unified governments in each country, withdrawal of all foreign forces, and the inclusion of representatives of the independence movements from Laos and Cambodia, Pathet Lao, and Khmer Issarak in the Conference. On May 12, the State of Vietnam (South) rejected any partition of the country, and the United States expressed a similar position the next day. The United States countered with what became known as the “American Plan,” with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom. It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but this proposal was rejected by the Soviet delegation.
Although behind the scenes the U.S. and French governments continued to discuss the terms for possible U.S. military intervention in Indochina, by mid-June it was clear such intervention would not receive much support among allies. The United States began to consider the possibility that, rather than supporting the French in Indochina, it might be preferable for the French to leave and for the United States to support the new Indochinese states. Unwilling to support the proposed partition or intervention, by mid-June the United States decided to withdraw from major participation in the Conference.
The Soviet and Chinese representatives also argued that the situations in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were not the same and should be treated separately. Consequently, Pham Van Dong agreed the Viet Minh would be prepared to withdraw their forces from Laos and Cambodia provided no foreign bases were established in Indochina. This represented a major blow to the DRV, as they had tried to ensure that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak would join the governments in Laos and Cambodia, respectively, under the leadership of the DRV. The Chinese likely sought to ensure that Laos and Cambodia were not under Vietnam’s influence in the future, but under China’s.
Geneva Accords
After lengthy negotiations, on July 20 the remaining issues were resolved as the parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and that the elections for reunification should be in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire. The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was signed only by French and Viet Minh military commands, completely bypassing the State of South Vietnam.
The Geneva Accords, issued on July 21, 1954, set out a “provisional military demarcation line” running approximately along the 17th Parallel “on either side of which the forces of the two parties shall be regrouped after their withdrawal.” A 3-mile (4.8 km) wide demilitarized zone was expected on each side of the demarcation line and French Union forces were to regroup to the south of the line while Viet Minh to the north. Free movement of the population between the zone would be open for 300 days and neither zone was to join any military alliance or seek military reinforcement. The International Control Commission (ICC), comprising Canada, Poland (at the time under the Soviet control), and India as chair, was established to monitor the ceasefire. Because the Commission was to decide on issues unanimously, Poland’s presence in the ICC provided the Soviet Union and the communists with effective veto power over supervision of the treaty.
The unsigned Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference called for reunification elections, which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC. The Viet Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections. The agreement was signed by the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. The State of South Vietnam under emperor Bao Dai rejected the agreement, while the United States stated that it “took note” of the ceasefire agreements and declared that it would “refrain from the threat or use of force to disturb them.” Separate accords were signed by the signatories with the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos in relation to Cambodia and Laos respectively.
Outcomes
In October 1954, the last French Union forces left Hanoi. In May 1955, French Union forces withdrew from Saigon to a coastal bases and in April 1956, the last French forces left Vietnam.
Many communist sympathizers viewed South Vietnam as a French colonial and later American puppet regime. Simultaneously, many viewed North Vietnam as a communist puppet state. After the cessation of hostilities, a large migration took place. North Vietnamese, especially Catholics, intellectuals, business people, land owners, anti-communist democrats, and members of the middle-class, moved south of the Accords-mandated ceasefire line during Operation Passage to Freedom. The ICC reported that at least 892,876 North Vietnamese were processed through official refugee stations, while journalists estimated that as many as 2 million more might have fled. Around 52,000 people from the South went North, mostly Viet Minh members and their families.
The mass emigration of northerners was facilitated primarily by the French Air Force and Navy. American naval vessels supplemented the French in evacuating northerners to Saigon, the southern capital. The operation was accompanied by a large humanitarian relief effort, bankrolled in the main by the United States government in an attempt to absorb a large tent city of refugees that had sprung up outside Saigon.
With the withdrawal of the French, the United States replaced the French as a political backup for Ngo Dinh Diem, then Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam (South Vietnam). In 1954, the Vietnamese emperor, Bai Dai had appointed him to be Prime Minister, but with American support, Diem ousted this emperor in 1955. In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam in 1955, Diem rigged the poll supervised by his brother and was credited with 98.2% of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. Three days later, he declared South Vietnam to be an independent state under the name Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with himself as president. Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese “elections.”
Diem asserted his power in South Vietnam as a military dictator, and refused to hold national elections in 1956, citing that the South did not sign and thus was not bound to the Geneva Accords. Diem maintained that it was impossible to hold free elections in the communist North. He went on to attempt to crush communist opposition in South Vietnam. Diem also launched the “Denounce the Communists” campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in 1956. Between 1954 and 1957 there was large-scale but disorganized opposition to his government in the South Vietnamese countryside, which the Diem government succeeded in quelling.
North Vietnam violated the Geneva Accords as well by failing to fully withdraw Viet Minh troops from South Vietnam, stifling the movement of North Vietnamese refugees and conducting a massive military build-up with assistance from the Soviet Union that more than doubled the number of armed divisions in the North Vietnamese army. In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission (ICC) under the terms of the Geneva Accords, stated that fair, unbiased elections to unite Vietnam under the terms of the Geneva Accords were not possible, with the ICC reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement. By mid-1957 through 1959, incidents of violence increased across South Vietnam directed against Diem's regime. There had been some division among former Viet Minh groups in South Vietnam, whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to “wildcat” activities separate from the other communists and anti-government activists. In 1960, North Vietnam ordered the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam, known more commonly as the Viet Cong, to unite all these activists, including non-communists to oppose the government of South Vietnam. Earlier in 1959, North Vietnam had invaded Laos and used 30,000 men to build invasion routes to South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia by 1961. About 40,000 communists soldiers infiltrated into South Vietnam from 1961 to 1963. North Vietnam sent 10,000 troops of the North Vietnamese Army to attack the south in 1964, and this figure increased to 100,000 in 1965.
The Vietnam War
The 20-year-long Vietnam War between the communist North and pro-Western South backed by the United States has had tragic consequences for the entire region, including the victory of communists in Vietnam, the rise of the Khmer Rouge to power in Cambodia, a massive refugee crisis, and the lasting impact that the use of chemicals by the U.S. military had on the region’s population..
Because of the ongoing conflict and constant tensions, the beginning date of the Second Indochina War, known in the US as the Vietnam War and in Vietnam as the American War, is a matter of debate. U.S. government reports currently cite November 1, 1955, as the commencement date of the “Vietnam Conflict” because that was when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina (deployed to Southeast Asia under President Truman) was reorganized into country-specific units and MAAG Vietnam was established. Other start dates include when Hanoi authorized Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam to begin a low-level insurgency in December 1956, or September 26, 1959, when the first battle occurred between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese army. Eventually, by 1965, the war pitted the Communist Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) and the Viet Cong against United States troops and the United States-backed ARVN (Republic of Vietnam soldiers). The war would last until 1975.
Vietnamization
After US Marines came under attack from the Viet Cong at the Pleiku airbase in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson ordered additional troops to the region. The number of US troops in Vietnam quickly escalated to nearly 200,000 by the end of 1965 and peaked at over 500,000 in 1968. The US strategy involved a massive aerial bombing operation against North Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder) to cut off the Viet Cong (VC) in South Vietnam from their supplies. The US military also conducted "search and destroy" missions in which helicopter gunships landed US ground troops to find and fight VC guerillas, while US warplanes overhead sprayed the thick jungle with napalm and Agent Orange (a defoliant) to flush them out. In 1967 the US military initiated the New Relocation Program in which US troops forced Vietnamese farmers and their families from villages, which were suspected of harboring VC guerillas, to move to special restricted areas so that they could not aid the VC.
Contrary to popular myths perpetuated by Hollywood movies, US servicemen were quite effective in combating VC troops. Moreover, the US strategy was quite sound in theory. The underlying principle of this strategy was the assumption that the US could wear down the VC and win a long drawn-out war of attrition. The VC, the US military theorized, would soon become tired of war and have to tolerate the anti-Communist South Vietnamese government. Through this strategy, the US would not need to mount an invasion of North Vietnam, which could lead to an expanded war against China and the Soviet Union. This strategy, however, did not take into consideration either the dogged determination of the VC or the impatience of American voters, whose support was vital to the war effort.
The VC guerillas considered themselves patriots defending their beloved country from foreign invaders, just as they had fought invading Mongols in the 13th century or the Japanese in World War II. Despite heavy US bombardment, the flow of supplies and new troops from North Vietnam to the VC along the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail increased between 1965 and 1968. The US public grew tired and impatient concerning the war's progress well before the VC.
In January 1968 the VC launched a surprise offensive against US and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnamese New Year celebration (Tet). This Tet Offensive from a military standpoint was a total failure for the VC, whose forces were defeated and sustained heavy casualties. The American people however were shocked that the VC were even able to mount such an attack since the Johnson administration had told them repeatedly that war was being waged successfully and the VC were on the run. Soon after the Tet Offensive, Johnson's approval rating in public opinion polls plummeted to 35% and he consequently announced his intention not to seek the Democratic nomination for president in the upcoming1968 election.
Following the escalation of the war under US presidents Kennedy and Johnson, President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969, but not before escalating matters himself. Nixon promised in his successful 1968 presidential campaign to end the Vietnam War with “honor.” His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the ARVN so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam. The policy became known as Vietnamization.
On October 10, 1969, Nixon ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the war.
Nixon also pursued negotiations and began to pursue détente (relaxation policy) with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China. This policy helped to decrease global tensions. Détente led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers, but Nixon was disappointed that China and the Soviet Union continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. Beginning in 1970, American troops were withdrawn from border areas where most of the fighting took place and instead redeployed along the coast and interior.
Cambodia
President Nixon, as part of his strategy to end the Vietnam war, sought to end North Vietnam’s use of Cambodian territory to funnel supplies to VC forces along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia had proclaimed his country neutral since 1955, but the communists had used Cambodian soil as a base. Sihanouk tolerated their presence because he wished to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol. North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1970 at the request of Khmer Rouge deputy leader Nuon Chea. In that same year, U.S. and ARVN forces launched an invasion into Cambodia to attack NVA and Viet Cong bases. After meeting resistance, ARVN forces retreated and fled along roads littered with their own dead. The operation was a fiasco and represented a clear failure of Vietnamization.
Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional NVA invasion of South Vietnam. The NVA and Viet Cong quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. This invasion occurred as U.S. troop withdrawals continued as planned, leaving South Vietnamese ground troops to stop the North Vietnamese forces largely by themselves. American air power, however, responded, beginning Operation Linebacker. US air force assaults and South Vietnamese forces together halted the North Vietnamese offensive. It became clear that without American air power South Vietnam could not survive.
No Peace after Paris Peace Accords
Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, was meanwhile continuing secret negotiations with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho in Paris, France. On January 15, 1973, Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords on “Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” were signed on January 27, 1973, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A cease-fire was declared across North and South Vietnam. U.S. prisoners of war were released. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The last remaining American ground troops were withdrawn by the end of March 1973. U.S. naval and air forces remained in the Gulf of Tonkin, as well as Thailand and Guam.
Despite the accords, military conflict between the South and the North continued. The final series of increasingly large-scale and ambitious offensive operations by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong began in December 1974. The eventual goal of these operations was to defeat the armed forces and force the surrender of the government of South Vietnam. The operational plan for what would be known as the Ho Chi Minh Campaign called for the capture of Saigon before May 1. By the end of April, the ARVN had collapsed on all fronts except in the Mekong Delta. Thousands of refugees streamed southward ahead of the main communist onslaught. Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared. On April 30, 1975, NVA troops entered the city of Saigon and quickly overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations.
Aftermath in Southeast Asia
On July 2, 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would massacre South Vietnamese, there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions took place. However, in the years following the end of the war, up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labor. In addition, 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to the communist Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 1 – 3 million Cambodians out of a population of around 8 million in one of the bloodiest genocides in history. After repeated border clashes in 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and ousted the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by China, in the Cambodian-Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Sino-Vietnamese War.
The Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in December 1975, establishing the Lao People’s Democratic Republic under the leadership of a member of the royal family: Souphanouvong. The change in regime was relatively peaceful, although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducation camps, often enduring harsh conditions for several years.
Over 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina refugee crisis. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept the refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people. Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries resettled in the United States, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000. China accepted 250,000 people. Of all the countries of Indochina, Laos experienced the largest refugee flight in proportional terms, as 300,000 people out of a total population of 3 million crossed the border into Thailand. Included among their ranks were about 90% of the educated and professional elites. Vietnam retained its pro-Soviet orientation after the war and remained an important ally of the USSR in the region.
Estimates of casualties in the Vietnam War vary widely. They include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Civilian deaths caused by both sides amounted to a significant percentage of total deaths, perhaps from 30% to nearly 50%. Civilian deaths caused by communist forces, which included the Viet Cong, North Vietnamese Army, Pathet Lao, and Khmer Rouge, mostly resulted from assassinations and terror tactics. Civilian deaths caused by the armed forces of the governments of South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the United States, South Korea, and other allies were primarily the consequence of extensive aerial bombing and the use of massive firepower in military operations conducted in heavily populated areas.
One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. They were used to defoliate large parts of the countryside to prevent the Viet Cong from being able to hide their weapons and encampments under the foliage. These chemicals continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain today. Vietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other U.S. chemical manufacturers, but District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein dismissed their case. They appealed, but the dismissal was cemented in 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard. The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple melanoma, diabetes type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge
The history of the Khmer Rouge is tied to the history of the communist movement in Indochina. In 1951, the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) was reorganized into three national units: the Vietnam Workers’ Party, the Lao Issara (in Laos), and the Kampuchean (or Khmer) People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP). According to a document issued after the reorganization, the Vietnam Workers’ Party would continue to “supervise” the smaller Laotian and Cambodian movements. Most KPRP leaders and rank-and-file seem to have been either Khmer Krom, or ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia. The party’s appeal to indigenous Khmers appears to have been minimal.
During the 1950s, Khmer students in Paris organized their own communist movement, which had little if any connection to the hard-pressed party in their homeland. From their ranks came the men and women who returned home and took command of the party apparatus during the 1960s, led an effective insurgency against Lon Nol from 1968 until 1975, and established the regime of Democratic Kampuchea. Some members of the Paris group, most notably Pol Pot and Leng Sary, turned to Marxism-Leninism and joined the French Communist Party. In 1951, the two men went to East Berlin to participate in a youth festival. This experience is considered a turning point in their ideological development. Meeting with Khmers who were fighting alongside the Viet Minh, they became convinced that only a tightly disciplined party organization and a readiness for armed struggle could achieve revolution. They transformed the Khmer Students Association (KSA), to which most of the 200 or so Khmer students in Paris belonged, into an organization for nationalist and leftist ideas. After returning to Cambodia in 1953, Pol Pot threw himself into party work.
In the 1960s, Pol Pot emerged as the leading communist in Cambodia. In 1960, 21 leaders of the KPRP held a secret congress in a vacant room of the Phnom Penh railroad station and addressed the question of cooperation with or resistance to Prince Sihanouk (head of the Cambodian state). As a result of this meeting, the KPRP was renamed the Workers’ Party of Kampuchea (WPK). In 1962, Tou Samouth, the WPK secretary, was murdered by the Cambodian government. A year later, Pol Pot was chosen to succeed Tou Samouth as the party’s general secretary. Pol Pot was also put on a list of 34 leftists who were summoned by Sihanouk to join the government and sign statements saying Sihanouk was the only possible leader for the country. Pol Pot and one more leader, Chou Chet, however, were the only people on the list who escaped. The region where Pol Pot moved to was inhabited by tribal minorities, the Khmer Loeu, whose rough treatment (including resettlement and forced assimilation) at the hands of the central government made them willing recruits for a guerrilla struggle. In 1965, Pol Pot made a visit of several months to North Vietnam and China.
In 1968, the Khmer Rouge was officially formed, and its forces launched a national insurgency across Cambodia. Although North Vietnam had not been informed of the decision, its forces provided shelter and weapons to the Khmer Rouge after the insurgency started. Vietnamese support for the insurgency made it impossible for the Cambodian military to effectively counter it. For the next two years the insurgency grew as Sihanouk did very little to stop it. As the insurgency grew stronger, the party finally openly declared itself to be the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK).
The political appeal of the Khmer Rouge increased as a result of the situation created by the removal of Sihanouk as head of state in 1970. Premier Lon Nol, with the support of the National Assembly, deposed Sihanouk. Sihanouk, in exile in Beijing, made an alliance with the Khmer Rouge and became the nominal head of a Khmer Rouge-dominated government-in-exile (known by its French acronym, GRUNK) backed by China. After Sihanouk showed his support for the Khmer Rouge by visiting them in the field, their ranks swelled from 6,000 to 50,000 fighters. Many of the new recruits for the Khmer Rouge were apolitical peasants who fought in support of the Prince, not for communism. Sihanouk’s popular support in rural Cambodia allowed the Khmer Rouge to extend its power and influence to the point that by 1973 it exercised de facto control over the majority of Cambodian territory, although only a minority of its population. Many people in Cambodia who helped the Khmer Rouge against the Lon Nol government thought they were fighting for the restoration of Sihanouk. By 1975, with the Lon Nol government running out of ammunition, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the government would collapse. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh.
Khmer Rouge Regime
The Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from all foreign influences; closing schools, hospitals, and factories, abolishing banking, finance, and currency; outlawing all religions; confiscating all private property; and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into “Old People” (as opposed the urban populations known as “New People”) through agricultural labor.
The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities. The entire population was forced to become farmers in labor camps. The total lack of agricultural knowledge by the former city dwellers made famine inevitable. Rural dwellers were often unsympathetic or too frightened to assist them. Such acts as picking wild fruit or berries were seen as “private enterprise” and punished by death. The Khmer Rouge forced people to work for 12 hours, without adequate rest or food. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation. Commercial fishing was banned in 1976, resulting in a loss of primary food sources for millions of Cambodians, 80% of whom rely on fish as their only source of animal protein.
Money was abolished, and books were burned. Teachers, merchants, and almost the entire intellectual elite of the country were murdered to make agricultural communism a reality, as Pol Pot envisioned it. The planned relocation to the countryside resulted in the complete halting of almost all economic activity.
All religion was banned. Any people seen taking part in religious rituals or services were executed. Thousands of Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians were killed for exercising their beliefs. Family relationships not sanctioned by the state were also banned and family members could be put to death for communicating with each other. Married couples were only allowed to visit each other on a limited basis. If people were seen engaged in sexual activity, they would be killed immediately. In many cases, family members were relocated to different parts of the country with all postal and telephone services abolished. Almost all freedom to travel was abolished. Almost all privacy was eliminated. People were not even allowed to eat in privacy. Instead, they were required to eat with everyone in the commune.
Fall of Khmer Rouge Regime
In 1978, Pol Pot, fearing a Vietnamese attack, ordered a pre-emptive invasion of Vietnam. At the end of the same year, the Vietnamese armed forces, along with the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, an organization that included many dissatisfied former Khmer Rouge members, invaded Cambodia and captured Phnom Penh in January 1979. Despite a traditional Cambodian fear of Vietnamese domination, defecting Khmer Rouge activists assisted the Vietnamese and with Vietnam’s approval became the core of the new People’s Republic of Kampuchea. At the same time, the Khmer Rouge retreated west and continued to control certain areas near the Thai border for the next decade.
The Khmer Rouge survived into the 1990s as a resistance movement operating in western Cambodia from bases in Thailand. In 1996, following a peace agreement, Pol Pot formally dissolved the organization, and died shortly thereafter in 1998. Currently, Cambodia is officially a multiparty democracy but in reality, it is a communist-party state dominated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, a recast Khmer Rouge official in power since 1985.
Cambodian Genocide
The Khmer Rouge government arrested, tortured, and eventually executed anyone suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed “enemies.” These “enemies” including anyone with connections to the former Cambodian government or with foreign governments along with professionals and intellectuals. Among these categories were also ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, and other minorities in the Eastern Highlands, Cambodian Christians, Muslims, and Buddhist monks, and “economic saboteurs”—a category that included many former urban dwellers deemed guilty of sabotage due to their lack of agricultural ability. Those who were convicted of treason were taken to a top-secret prison called S-21. The prisoners were rarely given food and, as a result, many people died of starvation. Others died from the severe physical mutilation caused by torture.
Modern research has located 20,000 mass graves from the Khmer Rouge era all over Cambodia. Various studies have estimated the death toll at between 740,000 and 3 million, most commonly between 1.4 million and 2.2 million, with perhaps half of those deaths due to executions and the rest from starvation and disease. The Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University estimates the number of deaths at approximately 1.7 million (21% of the population of the country). A UN investigation reported 2 – 3 million dead, while UNICEF estimates that 3 million had been killed. An additional 300,000 Cambodians starved to death between 1979 and 1980, largely as a result of the after-effects of Khmer Rouge policy.
The Khmer Rouge regime targeted various ethnic groups during the genocide, forcibly relocated minority groups, and banned the use of minority languages. The Khmer Rouge banned by decree the existence of ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, Muslim Cham, and 20 other minorities, which altogether constituted 15% of the population at the beginning of the Khmer Rouge’s rule.
Because of the intense opposition to the Vietnam War, particularly among Western intellectuals, many Western scholars denied the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime. Despite the eye-witness accounts by journalists prior to their expulsion during the first few days of Khmer Rouge rule and the later testimony of refugees, many academics in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, and other countries portrayed the Khmer Rouge favorably or at least were skeptical about the stories of Khmer Rouge atrocities. None of them, however, were allowed to visit Cambodia under Khmer Rouge rule and few actually talked to the refugees whose stories they believed to be exaggerated or false. Some Western scholars believed that the Khmer Rouge would free Cambodia from colonialism, capitalism, and the ravages of American bombing and invasion during the Vietnam War. Cambodian scholar Sophal Ear has titled the pro-Khmer Rouge academics as the “Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia” (STAV).
With the takeover of Cambodia by Vietnam in 1979 and the discovery of incontestable evidence, the Khmer Rouge atrocities proved to be entirely accurate. Some former enthusiasts for the Khmer Rouge recanted their previous views, others diverted their interest to other issues, and a few continued to defend the Khmer Rouge. A few months before his death in 1998, Nate Thayer interviewed Pol Pot. During the interview, Pol Pot stated that he had a clear conscience and denied responsibility for the genocide. In 2013, the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen passed legislation that makes the denial of the Cambodian genocide and other war crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge illegal.
Attributions
Title Image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:80-G-420027_Inchon_Invasion,_September_1950.jpg
Unites States forces landing at Inchon, Korea in September 1950 - Unknown Marine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Adapted from:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-koreas/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/indochina/