STANDARDS

Common Core: RH.6-8.1, RH.6-8.2, RH.6-8.4, RH.6-8.7, RI.6-8.1, RI.6-8.2, SL.6-8.2, W.6-8.1

C3 (D2/6-8): Civ.3, Eco.1, Eco.14, Geo.4, His.1, His.5

NCSS: Global connections; Power, authority, and governance

Can North Korea Be Trusted?

A historic summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un is bringing hope for peace. But it remains to be seen whether North Korea’s brutal young dictator will make good on his promise to give up his nuclear weapons

KCNA/AFP/Getty Images

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (seated) during the test of a long-range missile. Experts believe North Korea’s weapons can reach the United States.

Just a year ago, the world was bracing for a possible nuclear war between the United States and North Korea. That summer, the isolated Communist nation successfully tested long-range missiles. Experts say these weapons are capable of reaching cities in the U.S. At the same time, North Korea’s young dictator, Kim Jong Un, threatened to reduce America toashes and darkness.” In response, President Donald Trump vowed to unleashfire and fury like the world has never seenon North Korea. A nuclear conflict seemed more likely than at any time since the end of the Cold War (1947-1991).

Then, on the morning of June 12, 2018, the seemingly unthinkable happened. The two countries put aside their decades-long hostility and vowed to work together for peaceat least for the moment. Trump and Kim shook hands at a hotel in Singapore, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president has met with a leader of North Korea.

Why Nuclear Deals With North Korea Don’t Stick
A video about past U.S. efforts to reach a nuclear deal with North Korea that failed

At the conclusion of their historic summit, they signed a joint statement in which Kim committed towork towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” In return, Trump agreed to suspend military exercises with South Korea, which the U.S. has been conducting for decades.

The joint statement also said that Trump and Kim would seekto build a lasting and stable peace regimeon the divided Korean Peninsula. If further talks are successful, say experts, they could even lead to a treaty that would finally end the conflict that made the U.S. and North Korea bitter enemies: the Korean War (1950-1953).

We’re ready to write a new chapter between our nations,” Trump told reporters. “Yesterday’s conflict does not have to be tomorrow’s war.”

Experts say North Korea has built nuclear weapons capable of reaching U.S. cities.

But critics warn that North Korea has failed to live up to its agreements many times beforeand that the U.S. gained nothing more than vague promises from the summit. By meeting with Kim, “President Trump has granted a brutal and repressive dictatorship the international legitimacy it has long craved,” says Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

North Korea is an authoritarian nation where leaders have spent billions of dollars developing nuclear weapons while millions of its people live in poverty. Anyone who challenges its leaders can be arrested and forced to work in a labor campor simply be killed. For decades, U.S. officials have considered North Korea to be one of America’s greatest threats. North Korea has also long threatened its neighbor, South Korea, a key U.S. ally.

While the summit between Trump and Kim might suggest that a new chapter is unfolding, it remains to be seen whether anything has really changed between the nations.

The Korean War
A video about the Korean War and why it has never ended

A Divided Country

North Korea’s troubled history with the U.S.—and its neighbors in Asiagoes back to the end of World War II (1939-1945). When the war began, Japan had been occupying the Korean Peninsula for decades, brutally repressing its people.

During the war, the U.S. and the Soviet Union came together to defeat Japan. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the Americans and Soviets agreed to temporarily divide the Korean Peninsula between them at the 38th parallel, the line of latitude at 38 degrees North (see map, below). Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin controlled the northern half. He and U.S. President Harry S. Truman agreed that a united Korea’s future would be decided by elections

But the Cold Wara long contest for global influence that pitted the U.S. and its democratic allies against Communist nations led by the Soviet Unionwas deepening. Stalin soon refused to participate in the elections

In 1948, the U.S.-backed half of the peninsula became the Republic of Koreaor South Korea. The Soviet-backed North then declared itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It was headed by a Communist, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Un’s grandfather. He quickly assumed dictatorial power

Slideshow

The Korean War

Korea was now permanently two separate nations. Meanwhile, in 1949, Communists won a civil war in China and seized control of the country’s government. President Truman and his advisers feared that Communism was spreading

So when North Korea attacked South Korea and occupied its capital, Seoul, in 1950, Truman believed he had to take a stand. He turned to the United Nations (U.N.), which authorized its members to fight back the invaders. (Although 16 U.N. countries sent troops, most were from the U.S.) 

Early on, the U.N. forces seemed poised for victory. After retaking Seoul in September 1950, they began making their way across the 38th parallel, toward North Korea’s border with China.

But in late November of that year, some 300,000 Chinese troops swept south to aid North Korea. Outnumbered, the U.N. forces were soon in full retreat.

An Incomplete Peace

By April 1951, the war had become a stalemate. In July, the warring parties were ready to talk peace. It took two years of negotiations before the U.S., North Korea, and China signed an armistice

The war had lasted nearly three years and resulted in about 5 million deathsincluding 37,000 Americans. After all that, the armistice left the border between North and South Korea close to where it had been before the war. It also created a 2.5-mile-wide buffer between the two countries, called the demilitarized zone (DMZ). 

North Korea has failed to live up to its agreements with the U.S. in the past.

Still, the peace was incomplete. South Korea’s president was unwilling to accept anything less than victory and refused to agree to the cease-fire. Over the following years, no formal peace treaty was ever signed. Technically, the Korean War has never ended.

Today, the Korean Peninsula’s DMZ remains one of the most heavily secured borders in the world. Hundreds of thousands of North and South Korean troops stand guard against attack by the other country. The U.S. also keeps about 23,000 troops in South Koreajust in case.

The Two Koreas: Freedom Versus Fear
A video about the differences between North Korea and South Korea, past and present

Life in North Korea

Since the war, South Korea has risen from being one of the world’s poorest countries to having the 11th-largest economy in the world.

North Korea has remained stuck in time. Most North Koreans lack cell phones and internet access, and the government controls all of the media outlets. Children are taught to worship the Kims like gods. A 2014 U.N. report estimated that as many as 120,000 political prisoners are held in prison camps in North Korea. In 2013, Kim even ordered the execution of his unclehis second-in-command and mentorfor allegedly plotting to overthrow him.

Kim Jong Un is now the third member of a dynasty of dictators to rule North Korea, after his father and grandfather. All three have stoked a fear of America to keep their people loyal, says Kathryn Weathersby, a historian at Korea University in Seoul: “It’s very useful for an authoritarian government to have an outside enemy they can point to.” 

Chappate/The New York Times

The joint statement signed by President Trump and Kim Jong Un after the summit in Singapore was very brief, leaving most details to be filled in later.

A New Beginning?

In the past two decades, the U.S. has tried negotiating with North Koreaas well as punishing it with economic sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. Neither approach has worked. When President Trump took office in 2017, he criticized his predecessors for failing to contain North Korea

But the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, this past February brought hope for peace. In an effort to reduce tensions in the region, South Korean President Moon Jae-in invited North Korean athletes and a group of North Korean officials to the Games. That led to a meeting between Moon and Kim in April. There, the North Korean leader expressed an interest in meeting with Trump.

Ending an Old War

The world watched the summit between North Korea and the U.S. with great expectation. Yet it’s unclear if real progress will come from it. The joint agreement signed by Trump and Kim leaves almost all of its details blankto be filled in during later negotiations.

Some experts believe that, unlike his father and grandfather, Kim Jong Un sincerely wants to make peace with the U.S., build North Korea’s economy, and usher his country into a new age of openness with other nations

Formally ending the war may be key to stopping North Korea’s nuclear threat.

But whether Kim will agree to give up his country’s nuclear weapons remains to be seen. North Korea has made agreements to abandon its nuclear weapons program with each of the three previous U.S. presidents but has never followed through on them

I’m not sure this [short] meeting . . . would suggest that there’s nothing to be concerned about,” says Christopher Hill, a diplomat who has negotiated with North Korea in the past.

Meanwhile, although Trump said he would end joint military exercises with South Koreawhich North Koreans have long seen as a rehearsal for a U.S. invasionhe is leaving U.S. troops in place in South Korea for now.

In the long run, finally negotiating an end to the Korean War will likely be necessary to stop North Korea’s nuclear challenge, experts James Dobbins and Jeffrey Hornung wrote recently in The New York Times. “Standing ready to formally end the old war may be the key to getting there without starting a new one.” 

CORE QUESTION: Why do North Korea and the U.S. each see the other country as a threat?

Two Koreas

Seventy-three years ago, the Korean Peninsula was divided in two along a line of latitude. Today, the border of North Korea and South Korea remains near that line. Together with longitude, lines of latitude form an imaginary grid that can be used to assign a precise location to any place on Earth.

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

Latitude is measured in degrees (°) north (N) and south (S) of the equator, an imaginary line that circles the middle of the globe at . Lines of latitude increase up to 90°N (at the North Pole) or 90°S (at the South Pole).

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

Longitude measures distance in degrees east (E) and west (W) of the prime meridian, an imaginary line at that passes through London, England. Longitude increases up to 180° as you move east or west.

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

MAP SKILLS

1. Latitude measures distance north and south of what imaginary line?

2. What lines on a map are used to measure distance east and west of the prime meridian

3. What zone separates North and South Korea?

4. Which line of latitude intersects that border?

5. Which city on the map is that latitude line closest to?

6. Which city on the map is closest to the 126°E line of longitude?

7. Which city is located at about 42°N, 129°E?

8. What is the approximate latitude and longitude of Vladivostok, Russia?

9. Which river flows into the Korea Bay at 40°N latitude?

10. What is the latitude and longitude of Busan?

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