In the middle of the Korean War, a young girl carrying her little brother on her back flees on a road where an American tank is driving. Photograph taken June 9, 1951 by Major R.V. Spencer • WIKIMEDIA COMONS According to a Korean proverb, “when the whales snort, the shrimp have their backs broken”. In other words, the fate of the "Korean shrimp" depends on the "whales" around it, China and Japan, the United States and Russia. In fact, the Korean peninsula is a particularly busy crossroads. After serving as a ford between China and Japan for two millennia, it has served for two centuries as a lock between the Eurasian continent and the Pacific Ocean. The Koreans have therefore never ceased to fight to preserve their independence. But, paradoxically, this situation of weakness is also their strength. Because Korea was not only built against its powerful neighbors, it was also shaped by their contact and influenced them in return. Time of the Great Kingdoms This is primarily the case with China and Japan. Those nations that claim their identity today ignore the role that the Korean peninsula played at the beginning of their history. It was, however, decisive. Populated by warrior tribes who migrated from Siberia and who also occupy Manchuria as far as the Beijing region, this peninsula represents a growing threat that is forcing China to leave its cradle of the Yellow River to push to the ocean, impose its political suzerainty, then its cultural domination. Step by step, from the mainland to the Japanese archipelago, the whole region was sinicized:it converted to ideogrammatic writing, to Confucian morality and then, at the beginning of our era, to the Buddhist religion. In short, there is no China or Japan without this linking role played by Korea. But neither Korea without China nor Japan. It is on the Chinese state model that at the beginning of the I st millennium of our era the first Korean kingdoms were formed:Koguryo, in the north, mountain dweller and warrior; Silla in the southeast and Baekje in the southwest, farmers, goldsmiths and traders. And it is thanks to Japan that the peninsula has become one of the main relays of regional trade. Baekje founded counters there which, in connection with China and Southeast Asia, stimulated regional trade. It is these Korean establishments which, having taken their autonomy in the VI th century, gave birth to the first Japanese state of Yamato. Korea owes its name to the kingdom of Goryeo, one of the great periods of peace and prosperity of the country, from the XI e century. Like an Asian Lotharingia, Korea derives disadvantages and advantages from its median position within the Chinese world. When war prevails, it is she who suffers the consequences. This is the case when, at the end of the XIII th century, the Mongols, who had taken over China, tried to invade Japan via Korea. Saved by contrary winds, the famous suicide bombers, the archipelago takes revenge by regularly plundering the coasts of the peninsula. Three centuries later, in 1592 then in 1597, the scenario is reversed:it is Japan which seeks to invade China via Korea. When he fails, he cuts the latter off, notably deporting his best craftsmen to the archipelago. In contrast, when peace prevails, Korea regains the initiative. Two periods illustrate this. In the XI th century, the kingdom of Goryeo, which unified the south and the center of the peninsula, became the main craft center of the region, specializing in "céladon" pottery of a delicate green-blue. Their quality, superior to Chinese pottery, is such that they are snapped up as far away as Europe. We have kept the name Korea (derived from Goryeo) from this period, which we still use, even if Koreans no longer call their country that. In the 15th th century, the kingdom of Joseon, which now brings together the entire peninsula, is transformed into an agricultural and Confucian oligarchy, following the example of the Ming dynasty which drove the Mongols from China. To encourage cultivation and increase collective wealth, King Sejong promulgates the hangul , a 24-letter alphabet that allows people to read and access agronomy textbooks. Vis-à-vis the Chinese world, which sticks to ideograms, reserved for the elite, it is a cultural revolution that confirms Korean particularism and its ability to innovate. Industrialization and modernization The commercial and then industrial globalization that Europe imposed on the world from the 19 th century complicates the Korean situation. Cut off from Japan, which it has not forgiven for its raids, at odds with China where the isolationist Manchu dynasty of the Qing supplanted the Ming, it does not have the means to resist the imperialist appetites which are sharpening:the United, who seek to control the North Pacific; Russia which, by founding in 1860 the port of Vladisvostok, “the master of the East”, reveals its intentions; and soon Japan which, resorting to Western methods, also wants to carve out an empire. As always, the peninsula serves as a closed field for rival powers. After defeating China, called to the rescue, in 1895, crushing the Russian fleet in 1905 and disinterested the United States which fell back on the Philippines in 1906, Japan seized Korea in 1910, which it transformed in rice granaries, in factories and, soon, in soldiers' barracks. Throughout the first half of the 20 th century, Korea suffered the Japanese occupation, which only ended with the liberation of 1945. However, during this dark period, the Koreans did not lose all their means. Their curiosity, always on the alert, prepared them for new ideas before the arrival of Westerners. The success of Christianity, introduced clandestinely by Catholic missionaries, then spread by Protestant missionaries dispatched by the United States, reflects an aspiration for greater social justice, as well as the desire to appropriate technical, political and cultural innovations. Also, as soon as the country was opened to foreigners in 1876, Koreans embarked on railway construction, mining and electricity concessions, import-export and agri-food. At the end of 1895, a reformist coup attempted to establish a modern state, equipped with a Western-style army, education system and health network, which would prevent Korea from any foreign ownership. Japan is ruining these attempts to impose its hegemony. But it may be said, Korea began to modernize before the colonial takeover. Expected with immense hope, the liberation of 1945 ended in immense disappointment. The Koreans are quick to understand that the two new world powers, the United States and the USSR, allies in victory, exert a pressure far greater than that of Japan, now defeated, and China, prey to the civil war. In fact, despite their promises, the victors respect neither the independence nor the unity of the peninsula. Conditioned by Japanese propaganda which convinced them that Korea was underdeveloped, they carved out two temporary protectorates there, separated by the 38 th north parallel. Three years later, no longer able to agree, they transformed these protectorates into satellite states, subject to the tight control of the troops they had deployed there. For Korea, this is a disaster. Its networks are dismantled, its populations displaced, its potential muzzled. Artificially separated, North and South are barely viable and survive only with the help of their respective mentors. The noose of ideological competition With the Korean War, which began in June 1950, disaster turned into disaster. Not daring to confront each other directly, the two blocs fought through Korean intermediaries. With rare violence, the conflict ravaged the country, its cities and its means of communication, its fields and its factories. It decimates the population, victim of fighting, disease and civil war to which ideological hysteria pushes it. In July 1953, when, weary of the war, the United States and Russia, joined by China which Mao had converted to communism, resigned themselves to the status quo of partition, Korea was nothing more than a field of ruins. . If the North can count on its mines and hydropower, the South only has overpopulated rice fields. It is said to be "poorer than Ghana", condemned to underdevelopment. However, defying the forecasts, the peninsula quickly manages to recover. The two blocs, which make the two Koreas the showcases of their ideology, contribute to it by multiplying productive investments and military expenditure. But the Koreans are mobilizing massively by taking advantage of their patriotic energy, their level of training, that of young women in particular, and their entrepreneurial spirit. Despite the growing rift that isolates the North from the South, the two Koreas resort to a similar strategy:an omnipresent state, controlled by a dictatorship as brutal in Seoul as in Pyongyang and served by Stakhanovist propaganda, betting everything on the revival by industrial investment. The hope of Liberation did not last long:the Korean War opened up, from 1950, competition between two countries with radically opposed ideologies. For a generation, it was the North that took the lead. Its leader, Kim Il-sung, who has purged pro-Japanese collaborators and built a social state to anchor his power, is achieving staggering growth rates, committed to heavy industry and reconstruction. The regime concretes Pyongyang to transform it into a modern capital and brings into play competition between Beijing and Moscow to attract investment and sell its coal and machine tools throughout the communist bloc. While the North is considered the second economic pole in Asia after Japan – we are already talking about the “dragon” – the South, deprived for its part of its own resources, plagued by corruption, social injustice and instability political, must be content with American aid and social dumping to survive. If it manages to export low-quality agri-food and textile products, it is by exploiting an underpaid workforce locked in by the military dictatorship. Its only asset is the appearance of conglomerates (the chaebols ) like Hyundai, Samsung, LG or Daewoo which, on the American and Japanese model, drain capital in favor of investment. The reign of large groups It is the systematic collusion between the state and the chaebols , which was established during the dictatorship of General Park Chung-hee (1961-1979), which enabled the South to take the advantage in its turn from the 1970s. necessary to support the regime, the army and propaganda, the North Korean economy loses all capacity for innovation. It is exactly the opposite in the South, which constantly invests to move upmarket, conquer market share and, gradually, stimulate domestic consumption. To reinforce this dynamic, the state and the chaebol invest massively in human capital to train the scientists and technicians needed for growth. Using the hangul alphabet which makes it possible to put an end to illiteracy, the South is multiplying engineering schools and universities which make the country one of the best educated in Asia. From the 1980s, the economic engine of the peninsula moved definitively to the South, which joined alongside Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore the club of the "four dragons", spearheading the new Asian growth. Since then, this contrary dynamic has continued to deepen. In a logic of virtuous circle, the South continues to develop. Driven by student protest following the rise in the level of studies, he put an end to the dictatorship. Approved by the Seoul Olympics in September 1988, this democratization reinforces the attractiveness of the country and accelerates its integration into international trade. It quickly became one of the most creative poles by converting very early to the digital economy. In the North, it is the opposite. Isolated by the fall of the USSR, penalized by the obsolescence of its productive system and its regime which, on the death of Kim Il-sung in July 1994, was transformed into a monarchical autocracy, the country is in the grip of an unprecedented famine that claimed more than a million lives between 1995 and 1997. His industrial choices ruined agriculture and, by accelerating deforestation, led to drought and flooding. The country survives only with international food aid and by moving closer to the South and the “sunbeam” policy launched by President Kim Dae-jung in June 2000. An impossible reunification? Since then, North-South polarization has remained on the agenda, especially as it intersects with the new Cold War between the United States and China. In the South, two conservative presidencies (2008-2017) have strengthened the American alliance, while the North, faced with sanctions due to its nuclear obsession, is entirely dependent on its economic exchanges with China. However, the peninsula has not lost its creative drive. The economic recovery of the North, thanks to its openness to the market economy, as well as its performance in ballistic, nuclear and digital matters, testify to a real potential for growth, even if it is misguided by the adventurism of the regime. . The South, which confirmed its democratic roots by invalidating President Park Geun-hye in March 2017, compromised in a series of scandals, remains a melting pot of technical and cultural innovations that guarantee its growth and ensure its influence throughout the region, which vibrates to the rhythm of the "Korean wave". The fable of the whales is still relevant:subject to the convulsions of recent history, the Korean shrimp has lost its unity. But the dragon within her is just waiting to be awakened. We therefore understand the reservations of neighboring powers with regard to inter-Korean rapprochement. However, there is no question of reunification. Neither the North nor the South want it. Pyongyang wants to protect its dynasty, and Seoul has no intention of absorbing the North, whose GDP is 25 times lower than its own. On the other hand, the resumption of economic cooperation as desired by Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in during their summit meetings in 2018 would help ease tensions on the peninsula and prove beneficial to both economies. This is why the powers are wary of it, whether it is China, which insists on its economic protectorate over the North, the United States, which agitates the nuclear threat to maintain its military presence on the Asian continent, or Japan, which fears the rise of a dangerous rival. In short, the fable of the whales is still relevant today. Subjected to their convulsions, the Korean shrimp has lost its unity there. But it has not lost this originality which combines regional influences and local inventiveness, in the North as in the South. In other words, even torn apart, the Korean peninsula has the potential of a regional “dragon”. If we let her. Find out more History of Korea. From the origins to the present day, by Pascal Dayez-Burgeon, Tallandier (Text), 2019. Timeline 2333 BC. AD Legendary founding of Korea by Tangun, “grandson of Heaven”. Koreans celebrate this event every year on October 3.October 9, 1446 King Sejong promulgates hangul , an alphabet considered the expression of the national genius, to encourage the education of the people.August 22, 1910 Japan annexed Korea, which had been a protectorate since 1905. This disguised colonization led to many atrocities.August 15, 1945 Korea gained its independence, but it split into two republics in the summer of 1948, in the South (August 15) then in the North (September 9).June 1950 – July 1953 The Korean War, one of the most dramatic episodes of the Cold War between the United States and the USSR, ravaged the peninsula.September 17 – October 2, 1988 The success of the Seoul Olympics rooted democracy in South Korea, established in February of the same year.June 13 – 15, 2000 First inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang. President Kim Dae-jung launches "sunshine" policy with North Korea. Comfort women hell The sex slaves exploited during the Second World War by the Japanese Imperial Army are called “comfort women”. Recruited by force from underprivileged backgrounds, in Korea, China and throughout South-East Asia, they would have numbered at least 200,000. But this term is an understatement which attests to Japan's reluctance to recognize its responsibility, to following the reminder of this crime by the Korean Kim Hak-sun in August 1991. Since then, the question has poisoned Japanese-Korean relations. Finally, in December 2015, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered to pay a symbolic compensation of 7 million euros, angering Koreans. Upon his election, President Moon Jae-in opposed it. A country split in two When Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, the Koreans hoped to regain their independence. The allies pledged to do so at the Cairo (November 1943) and Potsdam (July 1945) conferences. But the competition that began to oppose the United States to the USSR got the better of these promises, especially since the two powers were wary of the Koreans, nearly 300,000 of whom were forced to fight on the Japanese side. Washington and Moscow therefore divide the peninsula into two zones of influence delimited by the 38 th parallel. The Cold War fossilized this provisional division. Despite the project of general elections in 1947, each imposed a satellite republic in its area in the summer of 1948. They still exist.
