South Korea's Origins and Early Relations with the United States

The Lynchpin of Hegemonic Power

Hyeonji Cha, Hyun Jin Kim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000578867
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Korean History
• Index: History

Bringing a fresh perspective to an understudied area, this book offers a critical, source-based examination and assessment of the roles of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (KPG) and the US during World War II in the rebirth of Korea as a nation state.

Presenting original research from contemporary Korean and American sources, the first half of this book explores how the US policy regarding the independence of the Korean peninsula was articulated by the US, and how it aimed to prevent the domination of Korea by either China or the Soviets. Chapters 4 and 5 introduce the US's policy of utilizing Korean soldiers on the battlefield against Japan, and examines whether the KPG's strategies of military diplomacy were effective or otherwise. Finally, Chapter 6 assesses the impact of the joint military training for the "Eagle Project" involving the Korean independence Army and the US Office of Strategic Services, and its impact on the development of the US-South Korea alliance. Throughout the book, parallels can be drawn from this geopolitical struggle with a more contemporary one – that between China and the US, which shows how the lessons learned in the 1940s are just as relevant to researchers and policy-makers today.

This is an illuminating read for students and scholars of Korean modern history, political science and geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region more generally. The book will also appeal to public servants in the area of foreign affairs and military strategy.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003268765-1

Korea is well known as one of the few officially divided countries in the world. This anomalous state of affairs was largely the result, or rather the consequence, of the geopolitical struggle between the great powers of the middle of the 20th century (the US, the Soviet Union and China) and the situation persists to this day because of yet another more contemporary geopolitical struggle, this time between China and the US (with Japan and Russia actively engaged, but playing less significant roles when compared to the US and China). Thus, the international situation of today bears many resemblances to the original international situation in the 1940s that led to the creation of two separate Korean states and the lessons that were learned in the 1940s are just as relevant to policy-makers today in Seoul, Washington, Beijing and other capitals as they were back in the days the Republic of Korea was first founded.

The Korean peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945 and during this time the two devastating world wars and related disturbances brought about rapid changes in the trajectory of international relations as they related to the Asia-Pacific. After the end of World War Ⅱ two separate political regimes were gradually established in the north and south of Korea under the influence of Soviet and American military forces stationed on the peninsula. The northern regime was established by the Soviet Union as a satellite state under a leader handpicked by Joseph Stalin, Kim Il-Sung. This process, contrary to popular belief, was largely completed by 1946, well before the establishment of the American-backed Republic of Korea (South Korea) in 1948, which partially explains the initial disparity in military strength and internal stability between the two Koreas (in favour of the North) at the time of the Korean War (1950–1953).

The North indeed had an easier head start, while the Republic of Korea (South Korea) was in contrast painstakingly founded due to much internal and external opposition. Resistance to the establishment of a separate government in the south was offered, somewhat predictably, by communist forces in the south allied to the North. More unexpected was opposition from former conservatives such as Kim Gu and his allies, who aligned themselves with northern sympathizers due to political differences with the eventual South Korean founding establishment. Of course, North Korea did everything possible to sabotage the founding of South Korea and the new republic at times even faced opposition from its strongest ally, the US. The founding President of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, therefore, had a herculean task on his hands and with utmost difficulty established the new state with mixed and at times only begrudging American support.¹

As fascinating as this later phase of the founding of the Republic of Korea is, this is not the central focus of this volume. We hope to revisit this later phase in a future publication. The role of the great powers and the geopolitical relations and causes of division and the subsequent Korean War within the greater context of the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union have been amply researched and analysed by scholars. Compared to the above, the diplomatic efforts and manoeuvring of Korean nationalists (not to be confused or conflated with recent far right or far left nationalist movements),² who would form the core of the forces that would eventually found the Republic of Korea, their actions both during World War II and the years leading up to the establishment of the new state in 1948, remain to this day seriously understudied.

The initially united but later diverging political and international relations orientation of the leadership of this group, centred around the two key figures Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu, and the ties of both men to the US, China and other Korean political leaders and factions would define the contours of how the South Korean state came into being. These complex processes continue to define political fault-lines in contemporary Korean politics (especially when it comes to attitudes towards allies and neighbours of the Republic of Korea and the all-important question of legitimacy of the various political factions in the country), which in turn impact heavily on Korea’s policy directions vis-à-vis Washington and Beijing in particular. This is therefore a very important topic of study and should concern not only interested academics and policy-makers in South Korea, but any group, governments and agencies that have vested interests in the stability of the Korean peninsula and by extension, in the context of the current US-China rivalry, the wider Asia-Pacific region.

As a first step in illuminating these processes, the book will present an in-depth investigation of the initial rapport between the US government and the Korean nationalists of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (hereafter referred to as the KPG (Korean Provisional Government)) which is regarded by a broad section of the South Korean elite and also the general public, of both sides of the political divide (conservatives who trace their political lineage back to Syngman Rhee on the one hand and most progressives who trace theirs from Kim Gu on the other, both of whom were once leaders of the same provisional government), as the forerunner of the current government of the Republic of Korea during the Pacific War (1941–1945).³ The aim of focusing on these early diplomatic relations between the US government and the KPG before the establishment of the official South Korean government in 1948 is to identify what influence these Korean nationalists had on the formation of US East Asian policy during the Pacific War period and perhaps more importantly how these interactions shaped the contours of the US government’s actions in later forging the US’ bilateral alliances in the Pacific region. These developments would also have critical implications in determining which groups among the nationalists who participated in the KPG would come to dominate US-South Korean relations in the aftermath of the war against Japan.

Another important dimension which will be explored is the attitudes towards and actual relations between these nationalists and the Chinese government. By and large most members of the KPG had favourable perceptions of the US. As the book will demonstrate, this was to a large extent due to the anxiety felt by the KPG towards increasing Chinese influence. The leadership of the KPG was anxious to avert the Kuomintang government of China’s interference in the policy directions and actions of the KPG. In this situation, they felt a need to lean on US power in order to balance Chinese dominance. It will be argued that the core underlying rationale of the later US-Korea alliance was in fact realized by both parties in these early diplomatic exchanges during the Pacific War, when the US officials who were involved in the negotiations and their Korean counterparts agreed upon the need for the mutual, long-term interests of both nations, to cooperate in order to prevent the domination of Korea by either China or the Soviet Union.

Modern research on early US-South Korea bilateral relations has tended to place much emphasis on frictions between the US and South Koreans after the liberation of the Korean peninsula. For instance, Bruce Cumings famously argued that the American zone, the southern part of Korea, was treated by the US government more like an occupied hostile country.⁴ Charles K. Armstrong similarly argued that South Korea under US military rule after liberation was overall neglected by the US.⁵ Many South Korean scholars have likewise viewed the situation in postwar South Korea in a similar light. It is claimed that the KPG’s diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis the US during the Pacific War was either relatively insignificant or a failure because of the apathetic responses from the US government, which supposedly had a rigid and inflexible policy vis-à-vis Korea.⁶ Such claims are also often linked to the view that Korea, as a nation state, suffered severe losses due to the US government’s “arbitrary” decisions on trusteeship and policy decision to divide up the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel.

This book will present a view that differs from the above rather simplistic range of perspectives and simple narratives of conflict. These earlier views were formed largely via the consultation of narratives/sources emanating from the political far left during the late 1940s and some have even based their core assumptions on the political rhetoric of forces in South Korea who wished to either further North Korean interests or pursue unification with the north on terms favourable to the communist bloc. Therein lies the major flaw in these arguments, in that they fail categorically to accurately represent the broad spectrum of views among South Koreans at the time. As mentioned above, most members of the KPG during the early 1940s, regardless of political views, already favoured an alliance with the US for reasons that predate and are unconnected with the ideological struggles of the late 1940s. The rationale for this pro-Americanism did not change suddenly with liberation for many of them and continued to encapsulate the views of a large segment of South Koreans affiliated with various KPG leaders that were opposed to communism and Soviet domination of Korea.

The results of the systematic analysis of the Korean nationalists’ general responses to US East Asian policies and US attitudes towards those Korean responses presented in this book will show that the Korean attitudes and experience of interactions with the US were anything but simplistic. It will also demonstrate how these mutual negotiations between the US and Korean nationalists of the KPG partially influenced the practice of US East Asian policy and the formation of the US-South Korea alliance. The first half of this book, Chapters 2 and 3, will discuss how US policy regarding the independence of the Korean peninsula was articulated. As mentioned above, the KPG’s discontent with the Kuomintang’s interference and their fears of possible Soviet control of the Korean peninsula in the event of Japan’s exit from Korea led them to concentrate their efforts, before even the last shots were fired in World War II, on consciously strengthening ties with the US. This situation was a reflection of the hegemonic rivalry which was already brewing among the three Allied powers – the US, Kuomintang China and Soviet Russia – during the Pacific War. Thus, an alliance between the US and the KPG representatives, who were for different reasons sceptical of Chinese and Russian motives, became conceivable and was presented to the Koreans as an opportunity to safeguard national independence and to the US as one of the means of safeguarding US dominance in the Asia-Pacific vis-à-vis China and the Soviet Union.

After these discussions Chapters 4 and 5 will introduce the US policy of utilizing Korean soldiers in the battlefield against Japan. Both US military officials and representatives of the KPG promoted this policy and thus negotiations for this military cooperation were facilitated. The chapters will examine whether the KPG strategies of military diplomacy were convincing or otherwise. Finally, Chapter 6 will assess the impact of the joint military training for the “Eagle Project” between the KPG’s army, the Korean Independence Army (KIA) and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The Eagle Project was never put into operation, as Japan surrendered earlier than expected. However, the Eagle Project still had an impact on the development of the US-South Korea alliance. The chapter will further trace the processes involved in the gradual establishment of the South Korean state, evaluating the significance of military cooperation between the OSS and the KPG.

Overall, the book will refute the arguments that US attitudes towards Korea and the KPG were one of either neglect or apathy and that South Koreans viewed American influence as negative and intrusive during the years leading up to the establishment of the South Korean government. Unlike the straightforward imposition of communist rule in North Korea, a process in which the Koreans had virtually no say whatsoever and dissenting political groups were either massacred or sent to gulags, the complex processes that led to the formation of South Korea were in contrast arguably the result of mutual self-interest (of the various Korean anti-communist, nationalist movements that traced their origins to the KPG and of their US partners) rather than the simple imposition of the will of a superpower. This was made possible by the mutual trust that had developed between forces that later became the South Korean political establishment and the US, a development which began via these early diplomatic relations between the US government and the KPG during the Pacific War. The contents of this book might surprise some readers who have other views on the origins and nature of the US-South Korea alliance. However, it is hoped that this book will contribute to evoking more interest in discussing the subject of the origins of the Republic of Korea and its relationship with the US and other neighbouring states.

Notes

1. Lorl Watt, “Embracing Defeat in Seoul: Rethinking Decolonization in Korea,” The Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 1 (2015): p.153.
2. “Nationalists” or “right wing” in the Korean context in the 1940s refers to any Korean independence organization/group that was not affiliated with radical far left revolutionaries (communists and anarchists). Nationalists were those who favoured liberal democracy while the left wing by this period were those who, by and large, favoured Soviet style communism. The various moderate socialists had either been absorbed by these two groups or were eliminated/ sidelined by the communists. The political far right was represented by Korean collaborationists who sided with Imperial Japan. More on this last group later in subsequent chapters.
3. Kim Hee-Gon, “Legitimacy of Korea Provisional Government and Republic of Korea,” 韓國史學史學報, no. 13 (2006): p. 163–164.
4. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981) as quoted in Charles K. Armstrong, “The Cultural Cold War in Korea, 1945–1950,” The Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (2003): p.73.
5. Charles K. Armstrong, ibid., p.73.
6. For example, 고정휴, 이승만과한국독립운동 (서울: 연세대학교 출판부, 2004); 김광재, 한국광복군(천안: 독립기념관 한국독립운동사연구소, 2007); 한시준, 대한민국임시정부Ⅲ-중경시기 (천안: 독립기념관 한국독립운동사연구소, 2009); Kim Hee-Gon, “Legitimacy of Korea Provisional Government and Republic of Korea,” 韓國史學史學報, no. 13 (2006): p.153–173; Jung Byung-Joon, “Rhee, Syngman's independence lines and government-establishing movement,” PhD diss., University of Seoul, 2001; Lee Jae-ho, “The Opposition Movement about International Co-Management Proposal of Korean Provisional Government(1942~1943),” Journal of Korean Independence Movement Studies, no. 48 (2014): p.71–100.

2 World War II and US Policy in East Asia

DOI: 10.4324/9781003268765-2

2.1 Fragile Alliances During the Pacific War

International relations in all periods of human history have been affected in one way or another by the formation of alliances. This chapter will discuss how the transformation of the international order during World War II exerted far-reaching influences on the direction of US East Asian policy. During the war, Allied nations, including the US, the UK, the Soviet Union and Kuomintang (KMT) China worked together to defeat the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). The then president of the US, F.D. Roosevelt, decided to break the shackles of American isolationism and as the leading Allied Power declared war against the growing Axis threat. F.D. Roosevelt took upon himself the cause of saving Europe, especially Great Britain, the preservation of which he deemed crucial to US national security.

However, despite Roosevelt’s personal efforts and inclinations to end America’s isolationism prior to December 1941,¹ in the end it took a shocking casus belli in the form of the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor to finally nudge the US public into supporting the war against the Axis powers. Once fully engaged in the global conflict it quickly became apparent to US policy-makers that the security of the wider Asia-Pacific region depended on whether the rapid advance of Japanese forces could be contained.² Yet, throughout the duration of the war the Roosevelt administration placed more emphasis on winning the war in Europe over containing the expansion of Japanese hegemony in Asia.³ It is therefore imperative to note that any assessment of US East Asian policy must include the understanding that initiatives taken in East Asia and the Pacific during the conflict were frequently affected by developments in Europe or were only made possible by Allied successes in Europe, which then freed the US to redirect its attention to the Pacific and Asian theatre of the war...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 World War II and US Policy in East Asia
• 3 Korean Nationalists Between the US and China
• 4 The US Policy of Utilizing Korean Soldiers
• 5 Negotiations Between the US and the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
• 6 The Beginnings of the US-South Korea Alliance – From Military Cooperation to Bilateral Alliance
• 7 Conclusion
• Select Bibliography
• Index