Division of Korea
The division of Korea de facto began on 2 September 1945, when Japan signed the surrender document, thus ending the Pacific Theater of World War II.
The leaders reached an understanding that Korea would be liberated from Japan but would be placed under an international trusteeship until the Koreans would be deemed ready for self-rule.
During the September 2018 inter-Korean summit, several actions were taken toward reunification along the border, such as the dismantling of guard posts and the creation of buffer zones to prevent clashes.
[9]: 159–160 At the Cairo Conference in November 1943, in the middle of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek agreed that Japan should lose all the territories it had conquered by force.
[17] Rusk observed, "even though it was further north than could be realistically reached by US forces, in the event of Soviet disagreement ... we felt it important to include the capital of Korea in the area of responsibility of American troops".
He noted that he was "faced with the scarcity of US forces immediately available, and time and space factors, which would make it difficult to reach very far north, before Soviet troops could enter the area".
[22] Meanwhile in Seoul, beginning in early to mid August, General Nobuyuki Abe, the last Japanese Governor-General of Korea, began contacting Koreans to offer them a leading role in the hand-over of power.
That day, Lyuh announced to the public that Japan had accepted the terms of surrender laid out in the Potsdam Declaration, to the jubilation of the Koreans and the horror of the around 777,000 Japanese residents of the peninsula.
Lyuh attempted on multiple occasions to convince Song to join or support the CPKI, but their meetings reportedly ended in angry arguments each time.
[22] For the weeks before the American arrival in Seoul, the capital was awash with waves of rumors, some of which may have been spread by Japanese soldiers to distract the public while they prepared to leave the peninsula.
On multiple occasions, rumors that Soviet soldiers were about to arrive via rail to Seoul caused either mass panic or, for some left-leaning Koreans, celebration.
[27] When Soviet troops entered Pyongyang on August 24, they found a local branch of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence operating under the leadership of veteran nationalist Cho Man-sik.
[27] Unlike in the south, the former Japanese occupying authorities offered virtually no assistance to the Soviets, and even destroyed factories, mines and official records.
[27] After the massive loss of troops in Europe, the Soviet army recruited new soldiers, who were badly equipped when they landed in Korea, some even lacking shoes and uniforms.
[14] Shtykov's strong support of Kim Il Sung, who had spent the last years of the war training with Soviet troops in Manchuria, was decisive in his rise to power.
The generals decided "exact distribution of seats among the parties, the number of women members, and, more broadly, the precise social composition of the legislature.
[30] In March 1946 the provisional government instituted a sweeping land-reform program: land belonging to Japanese and collaborator landowners was divided and redistributed to poor farmers.
[31] Organizing the many poor civilians and agricultural labourers under the people's committees, a nationwide mass campaign broke the control of the old landed classes.
Official American sources stated: "From all accounts, the former village leaders were eliminated as a political force without resort to bloodshed, but extreme care was taken to preclude their return to power.
[33] With the American government fearing Soviet expansion, and the Japanese authorities in Korea warning of a power vacuum, the embarkation date of the US occupation force was brought forward three times.
Hodge landed in Incheon with his troops on 8 September 1945, marking the beginning of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK).
MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers ended up being in charge of southern Korea from 1945 to 1948 due to the lack of clear orders or initiative from Washington, D.C.
[39] On 19 July 1947, Lyuh Woon-hyung, the last senior politician committed to left-right dialogue, was assassinated by a 19-year-old man named Han Chigeun, a recent refugee from North Korea and an active member of the nationalist right-wing group, the White Shirts Society.
[40] USAMGIK and later the newly formed South Korean government faced a number of left-wing insurgencies, some supported by North Korea, that were eventually suppressed.
[42] In December 1945, at the Moscow Conference, the Allies agreed that the Soviet Union, the US, 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.
[25] A Soviet-US Joint Commission [ko] met in 1946 and 1947 to work towards a unified administration, but failed to make progress due to increasing Cold War antagonism and to Korean opposition to the trusteeship.
In the North, the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk) was declared on 9 September, with Kim Il Sung as prime minister.
Similarly UN Commander in Chief, General Douglas MacArthur stated that he intended to unify Korea, not just drive the North Korean forces back behind the border.
[66] As it occupied the north, the Republic of Korea, in turn, attempted to unify the country under its regime, with the Korean National Police enforcing political indoctrination.
[70] The Chinese and North Koreans eventually agreed to a border on the military line of contact rather than the 38th parallel, but this disagreement led to a tortuous and drawn-out negotiating process.
