Ibañez - A World of Region Learning Activity - From Kingdoms to Empires, to Colonies, and to Republics PDF

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IBAÑEZ, BEN ALDRIAN T. SOCIO 101BSMARE-THIRD YEAR 62224A World of Region: Learning Activity - From Kingdoms to Empires, to Colonies, and to Republics  Choose a regional division and trace how it was changed from the time before European powers like Britain and Spain ruled the world, when during the...

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IBAÑEZ, BEN ALDRIAN T T..

SOCIO 101

BSMAREBSMARE-THIRD THIRD YEAR

62224

AW World orld of Region: Learning Activity - From Kingdoms to Empires, to Colon Colonies, ies, and to Republics



Choose a regional division and trace how it was changed from the time before European powers like Britain and Spain ruled the world, when during the era of colonialism, until its independence.

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List what kinds of changes happened to these areas (once principals, then provinces, then republics) and the people who inhabit there.

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See how the nations and republics that were born from the ashes of colonialism after World War II looked back on the past era to explain their own histories. KOREA

Korea before the Twentieth Century On the Korean peninsula, settled, literate societies emerge in Chinese records as early as the fourth century BCE. On the peninsula, rival clans and kingdoms gradually melded into a one national identity. After a period of conflict between the "Three Kingdoms"—Koguryo in the north, Paekche in the southwest, and Silla in the southeast—in 668 CE, Silla conquered its opponents and unified the majority of the Korean peninsula. Korea came dangerously near to its present-day borders during the Koryo Dynasty (918-1392), from which the Western term "Korea" originates. The subsequent Choson Dynasty (1392- 1910) solidified Korea's national boundaries and distinct cultural customs even more. Within Korea, regional variances in speech and customs exist, but they are vastly surpassed by an overall cultural uniformity. In contrast to China, regional dialects in Korea, for example, are mutually comprehensible to all Korean speakers. Although linguists continue to discuss how the Korean and Japanese languages are linked, the Korean language is relatively unique from Chinese and structurally similar to Japanese. Numerous rituals, popular art forms, and religious practices in traditional Korea are also highly distinct from those in China or Japan, even when Korean forms occasionally resemble those of Korea's East Asian neighbors and share common ancestors. Traditional Korea inherited a large portion of its high culture from China, including the use of Chinese characters in writing and the acceptance of Neo-Confucianism as the ruling elite's philosophy. Buddhism, which originated in India, also made its way to Korea via China, and from there to Japan. Korea was a long-standing member of the Chinese "tribute system," providing regular presents to the Chinese court and recognising the Chinese emperor's nominal primacy over the Korean monarch. While Korea was symbolically dependent on China for military protection and political legitimacy, it acted rather independently in practice.

Korea implemented a policy of severely limited communication with all other countries following devastating invasions by the Japanese at the end of the sixteenth century and the Manchus of Northeast Asia in the early seventeenth. The Choson Dynasty's primary overseas contacts were three or four diplomatic missions to China every year and a small outpost of Japanese merchants in southeastern Korea near the modern city of Pusan. During the late Choson Dynasty, few Koreans left the peninsula, and even fewer foreigners arrived. Korea was peaceful and internally stable for approximately 250 years (despite growing peasant unrest beginning around 1800), but from the perspective of Europeans and Americans who encountered Korea in the nineteenth century, Korea was an abnormally isolated country, dubbed a "hermit kingdom" by Westerners at the time. Period of Japanese Colonialism Korea became the focus of rival imperial interests in the later part of the nineteenth century, as the Chinese empire crumbled and Western countries vied for dominance in East Asia. In the 1860s, Britain, France, and the United States all attempted to "open up" Korea to commerce and diplomatic connections, but the Korean kingdom fought adamantly. It required Japan, which had only lately been exposed to Westernstyle international relations by the US, to impose the first diplomatic treaty on Korea in 1876. Japan, China, and Russia were the principal challengers for influence in Korea in the last part of the nineteenth century, and after defeating China and Russia in wars between 1895 and 1905, Japan consolidated its hold on the Korean peninsula. Japan seized Korea completely as a colony in 1910, and for the next 35 years, Japan controlled Korea in a rigorous and frequently brutal manner. Toward the end of the colonial period, the Japanese authorities attempted to eradicate Korea's linguistic and cultural identity, forcing Koreans to adopt Japanese names in 1939. Japan, on the other hand, brought the seeds of industrial development to Korea. In the 1920s and 1930s, modern industries such as steel, cement, and chemical facilities were established in Korea, particularly in the northern half of the peninsula, where coal and hydroelectric power resources were abundant. Korea was the second most industrialized country in Asia after Japan by the time Japanese colonial authority ended in August 1945. Divided Korea and the Korean War At the conclusion of World War II, Japan surrendered to the Allies, resulting in a new and unexpected development on the Korean peninsula: the division of Korea into two separate states, one in the north (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, D.P.R.K.) and one in the south (the Republic of Korea, R.K.) (the Republic of Korea, R.O.K.). The United States and the Soviet Union decided in the final days of the war to accept the Japanese surrender in Korea jointly, with the USSR occupying Korea north of the 38th parallel and the US occupying Korea south, until an independent and unified Korean government could be established. By 1947, however, the emergence of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, combined with political divisions amongst Koreans living in the two occupation zones and the occupation forces' policies on the ground, resulted in the breakdown of negotiations over a united government of Korea.

On August 15, 1948, a pro-American government was founded in Seoul, followed by a pro-Soviet government in Pyongyang three weeks later. Both administrations asserted their legitimacy as genuine representatives of the entire Korean people, resulting in a very tense situation over the 38th parallel. On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded the South and attempted to unify the peninsula through force, backed by the USSR. Under the banner of the United Nations, a coalition of countries led by the United States came to South Korea's aid. The Soviet Union provided arms and air support to North Korea, while the People's Republic of China intervened on its behalf with hundreds of thousands of combat troops. In July 1953, the war ended roughly where it began, with North and South Korea separated into roughly equal territory by the cease-fire line, a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that still serves as the border between North and South Korea today.

The Two Koreas

Since 1953, North and South Korea have developed from a common cultural and historical foundation into two profoundly divergent societies with diametrically opposed political and economic systems. Today's divisions between North and South Korea bear little resemblance to the pre-1945 regional divisions between northern and southern Korea. North Korea's culture and politics have been greatly impacted by Soviet/Russian as well as Chinese culture and politics. It has established a self-styled juche ("self-reliance") politics focused on economic and political independence, with a highly centralized political system led by a "Great Leader" (Kim Il Sung until his death in 1994; since then, his son Kim Jong Il) and a command economy. North Korea emerged into possibly the most isolated and regulated of all communist nations, and despite great economic difficulties, showed little sign of political and economic liberalization even ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the other side, South Korea has been heavily impacted by the United States and, to a lesser extent, Japan. Since the Republic of Korea's establishment in 1948, the US has maintained close political, military, and economic connections with South Korea. While South Korea has frequently been less democratic than Americans or Korean officials stated, democracy appears to have gotten increasingly established in the R.O.K. after the overthrow of its military government in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, South Korea saw remarkable economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s and can today be termed a developed industrial country. South Korea recovered fast from the 1997 Asian financial crisis and is now Eastern Asia's third largest economy, behind Japan and China.

As is the case in many other nations, popular culture from the United States has a considerable presence in South Korea. Japanese popular culture is also influential, albeit to a lesser extent. South Korea, on the other hand, has established its own distinctively Korean

forms of popular culture, while traditional Korean culture has recently experienced a rebirth. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, South Korean pop music, film, and television dramas had gained significant popularity throughout Asia, particularly in China and Vietnam. Despite Korea's overall cultural homogeneity, regional sentiment has played a significant role in South Korean politics and other spheres of contemporary life. The primary regional division is between the southwest Cholla region and the southeast Kyongsang region. While some argue that these regional divisions date all the way back to the ancient Three Kingdoms period, present South Korean regionalism is largely a product of the 1960s fast industrialization. President Park Chung Hee prioritized economic development in his home province of Kyongsang at the time, and pulled a sizable portion of South Korea's leadership from there. This prejudice towards Kyongsang persisted under the subsequent presidency of Chun Doo Hwan, Roh Tae Woo, and Kim Young Sam, all of whom came from the province. Meanwhile, Cholla remained relatively primitive and was perceived as a haven for dissidents, including long-serving opposition leader Kim Dae Jung. As a result, voting trends in South Korea have demonstrated a pronounced preference for candidates from the voters' home region. After becoming president in 1998, Kim Dae Jung endeavored to restore regional balance to South Korea's economic and political progress, although regional affiliation and prejudice remain entrenched. Korea's partition into North and South was imposed on the Korean people by external forces, and many, if not the majority, Koreans think that the two Koreas must be reunited at some point. In the early 1970s, mid-1980s, and early 1990s, the two Koreas appeared to be making progress toward interKorean peace and reunification, but each effort ended in failure. Finally, in June 2000, North and South Korean leaders met in Pyongyang, North Korea, to discuss ways to improve North-South relations. This was the first time such a summit meeting had occurred, and the occasion reignited hopes for reconciliation and eventual reunion between the separated peninsula's two halves. However, there is still minimal interaction between the governments and peoples of North and South Korea, and barring a dramatic turn of events, the prospect of reunification looks remote. The Korean Diaspora Along with the 46 million people in South Korea and 23 million in North Korea, roughly 6 to 7 million people of Korean heritage live outside the Korean peninsula, accounting for approximately 10% of the combined population of the two Koreas. In terms of numbers, the Korean "diaspora" is one of the greatest groups of expatriates from any country in Asia. Overseas Koreans are concentrated in China (two million), the United States (nearly one million), Japan (700,000), and the former Soviet Union (450,000), primarily in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The Korean diaspora is notable for its scale and for being almost entirely a twentiethcentury phenomenon, with the exception of Koreans in China and Russia, who began mass

migration in the 1860s. Koreans did not settle in US territory until around 1900, and the majority of Koreans in Japan today are descendants of immigrants who arrived during the colonial occupation period of 1910-1945. Koreans were transported to Hawaii for the first time in 1903 as sugarcane field laborers. Later, Koreans began to settle in greater numbers on the continent of the United States, particularly in Southern California. Koreans numbered in the tens of thousands in the United States until 1965, when immigration restrictions from Asia were lifted. By the 1980s, Koreans were one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in the United States. After 1988, immigration from Korea remained stable and began to fall in the early 1990s, but increased marginally again after South Korea was struck by the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The Los Angeles area, New York City, and Chicago have the highest concentrations of Koreans in the United States. South Korea is one of the world's major industrialized nations at the turn of the twentyfirst century and is largely regarded as a model of economic prosperity and political liberalization. South Korea has made remarkable progress since it emerged from the shadows of Japanese colonial authority in 1945 as an impoverished, backward country. Additionally, it is a country with a strong sense of national identity and a strong sense of pride in its culture, traditions, and achievements. Simultaneously, Korea remains divided into North and South, with roughly two million men armed and a high level of military tension on the peninsula. Korea, as it has done for more than a century, occupies a crucial position on the world map, and any battle on the peninsula will likely involve neighboring countries, if not further. While Korea is no longer a "shrimp," the waters in which it swims are not fully safe....