Korea

Korea 조선
Largest city	Seoul
Official languages	Korean
Area
• Total	223,155 km²
Population
• 2017 estimate	77,000,000

Korea is an area of East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula and nearby islands, including the island of Jeju. In the present day, Korea consists of two separate nations, one located in the north and the other in the south. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly called North Korea, is located in the northern portion of the peninsula. Meanwhile, the US-occupied Republic of Korea (ROK), commonly called South Korea, is located in the southern portion of the peninsula. The division of the peninsula in 1945 was originally meant only to be temporary, but has persisted to the present day due to the continued occupation of the South and uncompromising policy of aggression toward the DPRK by the United States.

The Korean Peninsula is bordered by China to the northwest and Russia to the northeast. It is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Korean is the official language of both North and South Korea, and (along with Mandarin) of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, China. Other large groups of Korean speakers through Korean diaspora are found in China, the United States, Japan, former Soviet Union and elsewhere.

In addition, the Jeju language, which is closely related to Korean, is an endangered language whose main community of speakers come from Jeju Island. While often classified as a divergent dialect of the Korean language, the variety is referred to as a language in local government and increasingly in both South Korean and foreign academia. Jeju language is not mutually intelligible with the mainland dialects of South Korea. Most people in Jeju Island now speak a variety of Korean with a Jeju substratum, and efforts to revitalize the endangered language are ongoing.

History

In the past, Korea was a single nation for at least 1,000 years with a continuous society, language and political system. Japan forced Korea to open its ports in 1876 and annexed it in 1905. From 1910 to 1945, Korea was a colony of the Empire of Japan. Under Japanese colonial rule, Korean language and culture were banned, and the Korean people faced conditions of forced labor and sexual slavery.

Author Ryo Sung Chol notes that the US was the first Western state which set up diplomatic relations with the feudal Korean kingdom, and that King Kojong, alarmed by the increasing threats of Japanese imperialism, had sent emissaries to Washington twice, in 1896 and 1905, requesting American assistance, in accordance with the duty the US had assumed under an 1882 Korea-US Treaty. According to Ryo, instead of following through in their duties in the Korea-US Treaty, "the Americans secretly agreed with Japan behind the screen of this treaty on the colonial seizure of Korea and the Philippines", referencing the Katsura-Taft Agreement. Ryo further states that the US, Britain and other Western powers at one time pursued the strategy of alliance with Japan, from the ulterior motive of backing, encouraging and using the bellicose Japanese militarist forces as a deterrent to the rapidly growing national liberation forces and the influence of communism in Asia, but that their alliance was fraught with contradictions due to their competing colonial interests. With the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1941, it became "pointless" for the Western empires to continue to regard Korea as a colony of Japan now that Japan, formerly their imperialist collaborator and ally, was at war against them, nullifying the treaties and agreements it had concluded with them, and therefore the US and British found themselves rehashing their policy on Korea to fit the new situation.

After the surrender of the Japanese empire at the end of the Second World War, Korea was divided as a temporary measure by the outside powers of the United States and Soviet Union to assist in the transition away from Japanese colonial rule and the re-establishment of Korea's independence.

However, the United States failed to withdraw its troops from the South and instead promoted the installation of a pro-US, right wing authoritarian regime rather than promoting the reunification of Korea. This resulted in opposition among the Southern masses, the outbreak of the Korean War, and the continued division of the Korean nation and continued occupation of the South by US forces which persists to the present day.

In the words of author Ryo Sung Chol, "The strife among the great powers for hegemony in the world in the complicated military and political situation towards the close of World War II forced the tragedy of national split upon the Korean people before their rejoicing over liberation subsided."

After the US-occupied Southern regime under extreme rightist Syngman Rhee was declared in August 1948, the socialist DPRK, led by Kim Il-sung, was declared in the North in September, 1948.