Korea: The First Year of Liberation

Abstract

THE PROBLEM OF KOREA is principally one of power politics because of the country's strategic position on the map of northeast Asia. Fifty years ago the country lost its independence as a result of international conflict. Today, though liberated, the country is again the victim of outside interference.' But the problem today is complicated far beyond the strategic aspects of the situation. For, even had Korea not been a strategic area subject to the pressures of power politics, its problems at the end of the war would have been imposing. Under the Japanese, for 35 years, economic and political repression had prevailed. The Japanese administration had systematically exploited the Korean people: it had deprived them of political experience and had twisted the Korean economy into a form suitable to the larger economy of the Japanese Empire. Thus, following the war, they would in any case have been obliged to assume the duties of self-government almost from a standing start, and the Korean economy would have had to be completely overhauled to serve the needs of a free nation; while Korean leadership, so desperately needed, could not be depended upon to materialize rapidly.2 It seemed clear that Korea would be in for a