Australian documentary “Ship Ahoy” stated economical development of South Korea over a half-century as “one of the biggest mysteries of the modern world.” (4). Only 60 years have passed since the Korean War, occurred in 25 June 1950 and continued until the armistice in 27 July 1953. The Cold War (1945 – 1991) between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S contributed in triggering the Korean War. At that time, the U.S.S.R. wished Korea to become a communist country while the U.S. opposed against the possibility. Along with the Cold War, the Korean population faced political idealistic conflicts. After five years of internal conflict, the Korean War broke out in 25 June 1950, with North supporting communism invading over the South supporting democracy (3). This civil war continued until it paralyzed and divided in 1953, and the war remnants left challenging to recover. However, although South Korea experienced the aftermath of the Korean War, the nation achieved a great increase in GDP and living standard, by using tactics the former president Park ChungHee organized and opening to the foreign market.
Aftermath of the war that South Korea experienced was disastrous. After the war, it remained as one of the poorest nations in the world after until it started to recover in 1960s. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country was only $79 before 1960s, which was significantly lower than that of other developing countries such as Philippines with $170 and Thailand with $260 (4). The former Japanese colonial rule favoring the North and the poor policy the government advocated worsened the economical challenges. The northern half of the peninsula was more developed than the south by the end of the colonial rule because the Japanese mainly colonized ove...
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... facing poverty” Guardian Weekly. Guardian News and Media, 24 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. .
2. Korea, South. Web. 23 January 2014. .
3. Lee, WonBok Korean History Seoul: GyeMong Press, 2007. Print.
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4. South Korea’s miraculous economic development YouTube. YouTube, 9 June 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rra4_Glgw10>.
5. The Economic History of Korea. Web. 23 January 2014. .
6. The Library of Congress. A Country Study: South Korea. Country Studies. Web. 23 January 2014. .
"The Working Poor Families Project." The Working Poor Families Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2014. .
Most people know that the Korean War was started when, in 1950, the North Koreans (N.K) crossed over the 38th parallel and opened fire on the South Koreans (S.K). North Koreans wanted the land,,because of the resources on the land. What most people don't understand are the other hidden conflicts that contributed to the tension.The Cold War was going strong between the Soviet Union /China and the United States.
June 25, 1950 marked the day in which fighting between the North Koreans and South Koreans started. 135,000 North Korean troops crossed the border into South Korea while others attacked by sea. In several hours North Korea had successfully detained the South Korean city of Kaesong and in the next couple hours South Korea’s capital, Seoul, was under attack. Things were not looking good for Korea.
Soh, C. S. (2001). South Korea. In C. R. Ember & M. Ember (Eds.), Countries and Their Cultures (
South Korea has a strong $1-trillion economy; it is the third largest market in Asia, behind Japan and China. It also has the 13th largest economy in the world. It is expected that the economy’s current upward trajectory will continue for some time to come. This makes South Korea an attractive market for foreign investment, especially as the world economy, as a whole, continues to improve.
Despite there may be some commonalities between Korean Law and American Law in perspective of protecting individual’s rights, there still exist lots of differences, and one of the main cause for the disparity is based on their fundamental gaps in history. Looking into America’s history, freedom was not free. Obviously, the United States was built in objection of the Great Britain’s despotic monarchy, holding freedom, equality, and pursuit of happiness, which became the cornerstone of civil rights. As time passed by, America also went through the Civil War, and all those Civil Rights Movements by African Americans, paving the way for cultural and legal changes toward protecting more individual rights. On the other hand, Korea had a comparatively
The book I chose for this book review assignment is titled Korea Old and New: A History by author Carter J. Eckert along with other contributing authors Ki-baik Lee, Young Ick Lew, Michael Robinson and Edward W. Wagner. The book is published at Korea Institute, Harvard University in 1990. The book consists of 418 pages and it is more of a survey of Korean history and reference type of book, rather than selected readings on modern Korean politics. I chose this book because it is a complete survey of Korean history from the ancient Choson period up to the economic boom of the 1990's, a span of over 2000 years. Each chapter covers a different period, but they all share the same organization of describing the social, cultural, political, philosophical and scholarly aspects of the period in respective subsections. This made it easier to later refer to previous chapters and compare different periods in order to learn the comprehensive history of Korea.
From Korean Pop stars to dramas, South Korea has it going on. It seems that there is not one Asian country that has not had the Korean Wave, a Chinese term given to South Korea referring to the exportation of their culture, completely wash over it. What started as an Asian sensation, the Korean Wave is now beginning to spread globally, ranking South Korea as one of the top countries known for its exportation of culture. Between music, television, and video games, South Korea’s economy is rapidly increasing as the world continues to fall in love with its entertainment industry.
North and South Korea were not very different politically or culturally from one another before mid 1940’s (White, Bradshaw, Dymond, Chacko, Scheidt, 2014, p. 125). However, North Korea started the Korean War when they invaded South Korea in 1950. These two countries, which were once the same, are vastly different in the areas of politics and culture The Koreas’ continue to disagree and not be at peace with each other since the Korean War despite small steps toward progress over the
In North Korea: A Country Study, the economy of North Korea is, “Traditionally socialized, centrally planned, and primarily industrialized command economy isolated from rest of world.” The World Factbook says that the economy is 47% industry, 31%services, and 22%
Korea gained independence from Japanese colonial rule in August of 1945 and also the division of Korea into the republic south and communist north in the 38th parallel. South Korea then was under the United States occupation from l945-48. Before the United States occupation South Korea had already organized a central People’s committees and established the Korean People of Republic (Memorial Foundation). Nevertheless, United States did not recognize any of the provisional or republic government. The United States refused to do so until there had been an agreement among the western allies. In 1954, there was a Mutual Security Agreement signed between the United States and South Korea, which states that they agreed to defend each other in the event of outside aggression (Memorial Foundation). South Korea has been under military authoritarian regime from 1961-1979 under President Park Chung Hee and from 1980-1992 under President Chun Doo Hwan. The Kwangju uprising occurred in May of 1980 after the collapse of the first milit...
The Korean War explicitly portrayed the atrocious battle between both the North and South side which gave the United Nations its military role for the first time, thus expanding the war from a domestic to an international scale. Sometimes called “The Forgotten War”, the Korean War was mainly overshadowed in historical terms by the conflicts that occurred before and after it, World War II and the Vietnam War. The Korean War had raged for years without a true resolution and after years of battles, even the compromise that was made was not a complete one. The current situation in North and South Korea is quite volatile. In order to apprehend the Korean War, one has to look at events that took place before the war, how the war was conducted and the aftermath of the War.
South Korea, once a broken country filled with broken families, has transformed itself into a fine example of perseverance in a tough situation. South Korea and its neighbor to the north have developed past where they were before the Korean War, but in different ways. The two countries, while certainly dependent on each other, are vastly different. Their conflicting styles of government and their differing cultures speak for themselves in this case. South Korea has, over the years, changed dramatically from the crippled country of the Korean War into a blossoming beacon of Asian cultural and economic changes. The combination of its recent economic importance, its heavy cultural influence, and its constant danger of participating in a war makes South Korea one of the most influential countries in the world.
South Korea is officially called the republic of Korea. It accompanies the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its location is between the Yellow Sea and the East Sea. An artificial boundary called the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separates South Korea from its neighboring country, North Korea. South Korea has a total area of 38,502 square miles. A little known fact is that South Korea is slightly larger than the state of Indiana.
This country is of particular interest as it is one of the four Asian Tiger economies, whose rapid industrialisation and growth between the early 1960’s and 1990’s caused it to emerge as one of the most dynamic and fast-changing countries in Asia and the world. Much like Japan, its economic development was marked by heavy investments in foreign technology and imitation through reverse-engineering. By limiting FDI, South Korea maintained control over its industrial base and encouraged investments in R&D.