North Korea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

North Korea - Essay Example After the collapse of the Goryeo rule in Korea, this led to the rise of the Josen kingdom in honour of the Gojosen one. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Japanese pirates attempted to attack Korea, however the invasions were repulsed between 1592 and 1598, in the early seventeenth century, Korea became involved in wars with the Manchus kingdom. The rule by Josen closed Korea to trade in the 17th to 19th century with it only being open to China, however at one time an American merchant ship, which was armed, tried to open Korea to external trade in the 19th century was stranded in a river near Pyongyang (Miller, 2004 p102). After the crewmembers were ordered to leave, they killed several Korean nationals that led to the ship being torched by fire ships from Korea but by mid 19th century, Pyongyang had a cautious and a slow approach towards opening its boarders towards the west. Due to the Sino japans war that happened from 1894 to 1895, the treaty of Shimonoseki was signed whi ch led to the end of Josean Empire relying on China. The name Josean Empire was changed to Korean empire, which was highly influenced by Russia, this however ended after the Russo Japan war between 1904 and 1905 when the Korean empire became a protectorate of Japan. When Japan annexed Korea, they imposed a military rule and attempted to stem Korean way of life and traditions, the wealth of the Korean empire was used to profit the people of Japan. This led to formation of pro- rebellion movements from Koreans towards the Japanese rule, in 1919 pro liberations, rallies took place countrywide and about 7000 people were killed. This fuelled more protests against the Japanese that led to the Japanese strengthening their military rule and banning anything related to Korea including forcing the Koreans to change their names to Japanese names, changing the curriculum in schools to reflect that of Japan and the Japanese culture, the Korean language was also banned. With the surrender of the Japanese after the world war ii, the Korean empire was divided into two along the 38th parallel where the soviet union occupied the north and America the south in an agreement that had been signed before, Russia chose Kim II Yung to lead the provisional peoples’ committee for North Korea in 1946. Kim II Yung introduced radical reforms in North Korea that ranged from land reforms to nationalising all key industries in the country. Talks on unifying north and South Korea were held in Moscow and Seoul; however, they did not bear any fruits due to the politics of the cold war that was happening at the same time. Soviet Union military withdrew from North Korea, the American counterparts withdrew from South Korea a year later, this made South Korea weaker and the government of Kim II Yung began exploring the possibilities of invading South Korea. Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin rejected the war proposals that North Korea presented to him, however, with the win of Mao Zedong in China and the indication that he was willing to support the invasion, the Soviet Union approved the invasion in 1950. With Joseph Stalin having approved the war, the north that had a stronger army than the south decide to invade the south, there were battles at the 38th parallel that turned bloody in the Ongjin region, however none of the armies closed the line to the rival’