I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to potentially launch further attacks.
Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".
North Korea Invades South Korea on June 25th 1950. The UN, for probably the first,last, and only time, takes military action (at American behest and because the Russian's were boycotting the UN) led by a US General and primarily American troops. This force and the South Korean Army repel the North Koreans and drive into North Korea (which was suppose to hold open elections but didn't as part of unification), the Chinese enter the way as the UN forces approached (but did not cross) the Chinese boarder.
EDIT: This is not to say that the UN forces crossing the 38th Parallel was the best idea or that they were not happy to occupy North Korea or that they didn't have ambitions to do so from the outset , but aggressor is really a misleading term when they did not fire the first shot.
Nobody has explained to me why Korea was even divided up into the North and South in the first place. It should have been left to its own devices after the Japanese empire collapsed at the end of WW2. That is, the US/UN shouldn't have been occupying the South and the USSR/China shouldn't have been occupying the North. Seems to me that the fault should be assigned to all of those countries/organizations.
There's no such thing as "its own devices" for a country with no surviving government. All the various countries conquered by the Axis during World War II were occupied by various Allied powers with the intention of reestablishing them as independent countries. Poland and Czechoslovakia, to name two, were occupied solely by the Soviets and was set up as Soviet-controlled puppet states. Japan. to name another, was occupied solely by the United States and was reformed into a fairly pro-Western democratic country, complete with baseball.
Some countries were split into occupation zones between the Western allies and the Soviets. Germany was one. There were four occupation zones: British, American, French, and Soviet. The intention was for a new German government to be formed that would govern all four zones, but negotiations broke down and the Soviet occupied zone formed one government (German Democratic Republic, known as East Germany) and the Western occupied zones formed another (Federal Republic of Germany). This state of affairs continued until the fall of communism, when the East Germans more or less decided to join the Federal Republic giving us today's Germany.
Korea was a similar case. There was no Korean government--it was a Japanese possession since 1910--so, with the intent of punishing Japan and giving the Korean people self-determination, it was temporarily occupied by the Allies until they could set up a democratic government. It was partitioned between the Soviets and the Americans, who, as in Germany, formed opposing governments. And then the North invaded the South--and that's where the war began.
> was reformed into a fairly pro-Western democratic country, complete with baseball
Actually, baseball has existed in Japan since the 1870s. It was in no way a post-WW2 phenomenon.
> Korea was a similar case...
I don't see how dividing up a country among the victors makes any sense, either in the case of Germany or that of Korea. What exactly did they expect to occur after a couple decades had passed?
The expectation was that dividing Germany or Korea would be a temporary measure until a democratic government was formed. It was never intended to last even one decade. In Germany, three out of four occupied zones signed up for the democratic government which was formed in 1949, only 4 years after the end of the war. The agreed-upon plan was for Germany and Korea to form single, democratic governments, rendering the occupation zones a temporary measure. The fact on the ground was that the Soviets had millions of troops on the ground and surrendering all of Korea, or all of Germany to Stalin would have had grave consequences. No one likes being a divided country, but presumably the South Koreans prefer not being part of North Korea and the West Germans preferred not being part of the DDR.
In Germany's particular case, many of the allies were comfortable with the notion of dividing Germany anyway, since at least that way the Germans wouldn't start trying to conquer the rest of Europe again. But it wasn't the agreed plan, nor was it feasible to salvage the whole country as a democracy, either, nor did it seem wise to let Stalin have the whole country.
The problem at the time was the Allied Powers (the Western non-Axis powers and the Soviet Union) were not united about how to resolve the issue of the sovereignty of Korea after the end of World War II. Germany was divided, over in Europe, for much the same reason, but there wasn't an invasion across the line of control between the Soviet occupied zone and the Western occupied zone in Germany, as there was an invasion from North Korea to South Korea in 1950. Perhaps if Stalin's plan had succeeded in Korea, an invasion of western Europe would have followed.
North korea didn't believe the UN/US (i.e. Non-koreans) should be deciding the fate of their country. (I am in no way defending the current North Korean regime).
I completely understand a sovereign nation attacking a 'puppet state' in order to unify it.
(to respond to the grand parent as well)
If the Russians were 'boycotting' the UN, then it wasn't the UN, it was just "The Allies".
North Korea's fate was decided by the Soviets just as much as South Korea's was by the US. There were even Soviet pilots flying in the North Korean air force in the Korean War. The Soviets didn't have the ironclad control over North Korea that they had over Eastern Europe, but they certainly weren't any less involved than the US was in the South.
Say what you will about the US, but I think the results of a Stalinist / Maoist mashup speaks for itself. It is and was pretty obvious who the agressor was in Korea -- the Soviet tanks rolled into North Korea weeks before the Japanese surrender specifically to grab Korean territory. The Northern attack on the south was very clearly a land grab.
To me, this sounds like "The neighbors were not united about which parent should get custody of the children when they divorced." I cannot fathom why we all would be involved in an internal dispute. And the USSRussia would have invaded western Europe...where the US & allies had set up many military bases?
"Communism" was the "terrorism" of my parents' generation...
What would you have proposed? Leaving Korea in a state of complete anarchy until they somehow sorted things out?
The Allies destroyed whatever government Korea had. Without someone to step in to keep the roads maintained, the local cops on their beat, and the courts running, the country would have otherwise collapsed. So of course you step in and try to set up elections so the people in the country can vote in a new constitution and a new government, and then you leave. Unless you're Stalin, in which case you pick some crazy guy, install him as a dictator, and call the country a "Democratic People's Republic" to make it look legitimate. You'd think no one would fall for that, but you did.
All the countries that occupied Iraq agreed on how to rebuild the country. That wasn't the case in Korea. No one in South Korea wants to reunite Korea badly enough to live under a hereditary Stalinist dictatorship, nor does said dictatorship want to give up power, so the situation is at a stalemate.
umm.. a few of Americas lackeys came along for the ride as it was politically expedient. Despite this governments fell. Iraq was America's mess and a few unfortunates followed them on down. I'm not sure there was any agreement on rebuilding, it was, and still is a catastrophic mess. Nothing other than embarrassment should be felt over the humanitarian disaster this adventure was.
I agree with all of that. The fact that the invasion was mostly unilateral is exactly why Iraq wasn't divided after the war, which was my entire point.
It's like this. You control half of a country. Your Rival controls the other half. Now you both announce to release your half to form a single country but who should rule? If you let your Rival decide, you can bet it's gonna be "his man" and thus in all future dealings, the country would be his ally. Your rival thinks the same way. Hence the dispute. So even if you WANT to be nice and leave it, how can you be sure that the guy who ends up ruling the place isn't your rival's man? So you have a huge reason in staying around and make sure nothing of the sort happens.
Nobody's explained it to you? OMG! How you can you have been tortured so?
Did you consider spending 10 seconds on wikipedia? No. But you still felt it necessary, even after recognising your ignorance, to vomit forth your opinion.
Let me give you a tl;dr: the North Koreans started it by rolling over into South Korea, McAuthur went too close to the Yalu in the counter attack, Chinese entered the war, Truman fires McAuthur. Stalement ensues, borders preserved, Kim Jong Un has ex-girlfriend executed.
The communists of the 50s were busy starving their own people in great leaps forwards, in the 60s they innovated on that with a cultural revolution; Mao finally dies; China didn't start to stabalize until Deng brought back capitalism.
I love the rationalization people have to use to explain China's economic success. If what Deng brought was capitalism, then Obama is an anarcho-libertarian.
What was behind China's economic success then? (not snark, genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts)
As far as I know Deng did advocate a more open and free policy when it came to the markets, not in very concrete terms but certainly in veiled terms like "pragmatism" and "we must do whatever works" [1]. I'm not saying Deng made China a Randian libertarian's wet-dream but it seems he did push for free markets a little bit.
What was behind China's economic success then? (not snark, genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts)
Imitating the free-enterprise model of Hong Kong and Taiwan, decades after those territories had far outpaced China in prosperity. And one of the great advantages China has enjoyed in economic development, as compared to several other territories, is the large number of people who can communicate in local languages (various forms of Chinese) but who grew up without communist influences on their primary and secondary education. "Compatriots" from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and also "overseas Chinese" from many places in southeast Asia played a crucial role in boosting China's economic growth through direct investment after the beginnings of system reform in 1978. (Basis of knowledge: I began studying Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, and have met quite a few people from outside China who have invested over there, after investment began to be permitted.)
"Capitalism" means private ownership of capital. 30% of industrial and service sector assets in China are stated-owned: http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/state-owned-enter.... About 45% of the industrial sector is state-owned, down from 70% in 1999 (still more than two decades after Deng left office, and more than a decade after China's economic boom began). The profit share of the state owned enterprises is even higher: 43% of industrial and business profits in China yield from state owned enterprises: http://thediplomat.com/2013/06/19/reforming-chinas-state-own....
In a purely definitional sense, China is at best a hybrid economy now, and was a primarily communist economy long after its economy started booming.
Even to the extent that China's economy is ostensibly privately owned, the government still exercises tremendous control. For example while the banks are joint stock companies, and thus reflect substantial private ownership of equity, the Chinese government still owns the majority of the shares in many of them giving them tremendous power over those banks.
I don't think China can be fairly called a "capitalist" economy. It's a managed economy where the managers have allowed the free market to allocate resources at the lower levels, while the central government directs broader, longer-term economic objectives.
Time frame is an essential factor for assessing if it's a success. In 5 years? 10 year? 20 years? 50 years? What if the previous level was actually very high, say 50%, and the job was to increase from the low level 10% to 15%? With different time frames for evaluation, even someone do not have in-depth knowledge of a topic, she/he could still have some facts to raise valuable questions which can lead to an answer closer to the truth, if there is any we can find eventually. Sorry to not answer your question directly, but I think a different angle might be a better start point.
Capitalism is part of the progression to communism. You have to have generated capital in order to distribute it. Marx saw communism as a progression from capitalism, not a genesis form of government in and of itself.
China had the unfortunate luck of being left in ruins when it becoming "Communist". Deng rebooted the whole thing, it remains to be seen whether they will continue communism into the future. To call it "capitalism" is a bit rich (no pun), given all major industries are owned by the government (the people).
The 50s they also brought health care to vast majority of the population. The 60s they increased literacy across the country by simplifying the language, and standardising education.
Should we both just keep cherry picking information to paint our own narrative, or admit this isn't a black and white subject?
It's a bit of a false dichotomy (as I tried to explain earliar).
It isn't capitalism vs communism. Capitalism is a form of economy, communism is form of government. The mix of those, I believe china call it: "Socialism with chinese characteristics".
The fact primary industry and exports are state owned is a big tick for: Communism. That's true, regardless what you see living there.
(People making money and doing business is not anti-communism, it is where the money goes that makes it "communist").
Isn't the famous Deng quote: It doesn't matter what color the cat is, as long as it catches the mouse.
Primary exports are not owned by the government, that is mostly private. Primary imports in natural resources domestic oriented businesses might be state owned, as are companies that produce primarily for the domestic market (like SOE JV car manufacturers). All those little factories that produce for export are very private.
The communist party doesn't really follow any tenants of Marxism at all. Most are only concerned with propping up their families and embezzling enough money to send their kids to a nice school abroad that doesn't suck.
> Most are only concerned with propping up their families and embezzling enough money to send their kids to a nice school abroad that doesn't suck.
You've just described "people in power" world wide. It isn't unique to communism, or china.
A huge amount of their economy is state owned[0]
That alone is a tenant of marxism. I'm not particularly interested in "true scotsman" style argument regarding is China 'really communist', as you can easily make the case that the U.S isn't technically a democracy, but it doesn't get us anywhere. It's just an argument of semantics.
None of those SOEs export. China's economic success is inspite of the SOEs, not because of them. Private companies subsidize SOE success through higher prices paid to them (with no other option given their monopoly statuses).
China is basically an aristocracy at this point, more so than other countries with corruption. Communist ideology plays little role in politics beyond little red book pissing contests that the left and moderates occasionally get into.
Only by a very loose definition of "kill" - that is, by looking at total population numbers. And overall, the communist regime saved many more people from starvation (you can also see this in the total population numbers).
Starvation was common before communism (this is second hand "communist propaganda" from my father, probably originally from a similar source to the information the Korean POW's were given), but it wasn't concentrated into a few years like in the great leap forward.
Until the Great Leap, Mao had done a fantastic job. Life expectancies shot up by about 15 years, as he dismantled feudalism, and established a relatively functional and stable state. Then he undid all the good he'd done, in the 1958, sending life expectancies back to ~35. Then things improved again, when Deng and co managed to contain Mao a little better (though they sometimes had ... issues).
tl;dr - Mao had done a fantastic job, up to 1958, which was well after the Korean War ended.
At the time of the Korean war, China was still in the Mao period. From any sane point of view at that time, communism was horrible for China.
Post-Mao, well... Hua was a disaster and Deng was never a good communist. Mao himself accused Deng of being a capitalist and banished him to the countryside in the 60s. Once he finally gained power and brought back mild capitalism (really, market socialism), it still took 20 years for China to really get going.
This is over simplistic and wrong. Mao used purging to get rid of others building power within the party. It had nothing to do with whether they were Communist (many good communists were purged).
Sane points: Education, Health, both improved under communist rule.
If you define "the communists" as "the Chinese communist party", then judging from China's development they've done a fine job. This was not quite true during the 1950's, when the head of the communists was Mao.
It's also questionable to define the economic system of Deng's China as "communist" in the same way as Soviet Russia and, say, Cuba.
Compare West and East Germany. Compare North and South Korea. Compare Mainland China and Taiwan. And once you've done those comparisons ask yourself about what kind of job the communists have done. Many millions dead. Many more millions in poverty. That's the job they've done.
If you want understand what communists did in China it's better look on other numbers. For example, rise of life expectancy was incredible (especially if you look at comparable country like India) http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&c...
What about comparing mainland and Taiwan? I don't think there exists an obvious conclusion from this comparison if you look at status quo. If you are judging based on the situation before 2000s, I agree with you that there is an obvious conclusion.
Of course they are, Taiwan is a small country that is supported by the only superpower left. (another example of such a country: Israel)
Where do you think that the economic development of Taiwan would be if it wasn't backed by the US? And where do you think they will be in 20 years, with China constantly rising in power and influence.
I don't think it's controversial to say that they'll probably be part of China, considering that there is even political support for that in Taiwan.
"Brainwashing" isn't a precisely defined word. I believe the word is often used to describe persuasion via psychological vulnerabilities. In this sense, the article is correct in calling the technique a form of brainwashing.
Interestingly enough, it comes from the Chinese word 洗脑 (xǐnǎo), literally meaning to "wash brains", which was used to describe the 1984-like attempts Mao used to re-educate dissident intellectuals.
Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".