Korean Reunification: China's Requirement

What South Korea doesn't understand about Korean reunification

The only prescription and hope of change in 80 year stand-off between the two Koreas is a completely independent peninsula free from occupation by foreign powers.

In Korea’s 5000 year old history, the Korean war was one of the most brutal. Over 20% of all Koreans were killed, with extensive bombings, biological/chemical weapons and some of the first instances of truly ‘modern’ warfare given the world's industrialization. The legacy of that war and its lack of resolution still lives on with us today in the existence of North and South Korea.

The Korean people have poetically described the state of affairs with the neologism ‘Han’. Historian Kim Yol-kyu describes the concept as, “the collective trauma and the memories of sufferings imposed upon [the Korean people] in the name of oppression over the course of the nation's five thousand-odd years of history.”

Above: Famous images from the Korean War. Middle right is the evacuation from ulsan base and middle left is an American N-85 USAF bomber outfitted with chemical/biological weapons. Use of biological weapons is considered a crime against humanity under the Geneva convention.

Whenever a geopolitical event about North Korea occurs, such as former U.S. president Donald Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore or the participation of a Unified Korean team in the Winter Olympic, public opinion supporting reunification increases tremendously.

Despite some claims that most Koreans do not want reunification, the recent polls suggest the opposite is true where 58% from a high of almost 80% in 2018 supported the cause. In polling those who were more ambivalent about reunification, it was found that their disinterest was due to news fatigue. After hearing report after report of possible changes in the status quo the general public was tired of a renewed cycle of hope and disappointment.

Despite some claims that most Koreans do not want reunification, the recent polls suggest the opposite is true where 58% from a high of almost 80% in 2018 supported the cause.

Despite the will for reunification, South Koreans are forgetting the most important lesson from the Korean War: China’s requirement.

In the 1950s, China was just coming out of a state of turmoil brought on by foreign powers and the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. The new regime under communist leader Mao Zedong was consolidating its power with some monumental mistakes (i.e. the Great Leap Forward) in the wake of the Chinese Civil War with the Kuomintang. Chiang-Kai Shek fled to Taiwan when it was clear the communists had won. Mao assembled the people’s volunteer liberation army in order to reunify the country and bring an end to the civil war.

But when the Korean War began with Kim il Sung’s soon to be ill fated invasion of the South, the American intervention changed the geopolitical calculus especially in the eyes of Mao.

In a famous speech when addressing the precursors of what would become the politburo, he said, “the American intervention is attacking in three places, the head (Korea), the torso (Taiwan) and the foot (Vietnam) were all under siege, yet one must protect the head.” 1950s America was consolidating its power in a weakened east Asia with the first island chain and China found the threat to be existential.

“the American intervention is attacking in three places, the head (Korea), the torso (Taiwan) and the foot (Vietnam) were all under siege, yet one must protect the head."

Indeed the American challenge did prove to the be life and death as General McArthur opined the white house to use 50-80 atomic bombs on Beijing. While Eisenhower was somewhat receptive to the idea of genocide, he ultimately backed away from the horrendous plan when on October of 1950, a 180,000 force from the People’s Liberation Army crossed the Yalu in aid of North Korea.

Above: How China views the Korean war. To this day China officially refers to the war as the 'war to stop imperialist aggression and aid North Korea'.

China found the threat posed by America to its national security in the challenge of Korea to be paramount to any region, even when compared to the prospect of more land, territory and reunification with Vietnam and Taiwan. Mao's dream of reunification and an end to the legacy of the brutal Chinese civil war was brushed aside for the Korean question. This is the lesson from the Korean war that South Koreans have somehow forgotten. That there will never be a Korean peninsula where American military bases will be set up in Pyongyang. North Korea is only 600 miles away from Beijing; to have China's greatest geopolitical enemy threatening war on its doorstep is unacceptable.

The United States, as demonstrated by the actions of its crazy war mongering generals who want to start WW3, is an existential threat to China and by extension the stability of the world. China’s requirement is that it will never allow American troops to set up in North Korea and it will constantly be in a state of tension with the United States as long as there are military bases in South Korea.

The United States...is an existential threat to China

This is a positive. There is no reason why the U.S. should have unilateral power to engage in a conventional military strike with the peoples of the world when there is no check on its power to do so. The Korean peninsula will never be reunited so long as American military bases stay in either of the Korea’s and that is a guarantee of China. And given America's war mongering past and its tendency to use weapons of mass destruction on non-white people particularly Asians, it is a reasonable demand for China to have.

The only prescription and hope of change in 80 year stand-off between the two Koreas is a completely independent peninsula free from occupation by foreign powers. At virtually no point in Korean history has military occupation by a foreign power been supported (except during the Han commanderies). Why should the current status quo be any different?

Above: This poster depicts a North Korean man with a personal explosive going off into battle to fight against Americans as bombs explode overhead.