Note: This article is a compilation of Professor Li Bo's program speeches
A netizen asked, how did the three-eighth line come about? I think this topic is a long one, but to make this issue clear, I think that as long as you first understand the entire historical origin of the 38th Line, and understand the causes and consequences, I believe that everyone will have a deeper understanding of the situation in North Korea a few decades ago.
After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Naval War in 1895, Japan gradually took control of all of Korea;
In 1904, Japan and Russia fought another battle in the Sea of Japan, the Russian Pacific Fleet was completely destroyed, and Japan achieved hegemony over Northeast Asia and occupied the entire Korean Peninsula;
On November 17, 1905, Japan coerced Korea into signing a "Otomi Protection Treaty", which brought all the politics, economy, and culture of Korea into the Japanese orbit;
In 1907, he forced the Joseon Emperor to abdicate, disbanded the Korean army, and turned Korea into a vassal state of Japan;
On August 22, 1910, Japan forcibly incorporated Korea into its own territory;
On December 1, 1943, China, the United States, and Great Britain issued the Cairo Declaration, which expressed their attitude toward the Korean question, saying: "Our three allies, bearing in mind the enslaved treatment of the Korean people, have decided to make Korea free and independent for a considerable period of time;
In February 1945, the heads of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill, met at Yalta on the southern shore of the Crimean Peninsula in the Soviet Union and signed the Yalta Agreement. It was a dirty post-war agreement to divide the world's sphere of influence between the three countries, stipulating that the conditions for the Soviet Union's war against Japan were the independence of Outer Mongolia, the Soviet Union could use the port of Dalian, the Soviet Union had priority over the railway to Dalian, and rented and opened Lushun as a Soviet naval base. Not only that, during the meeting, the Soviet and US leaders also privately discussed the Korean issue, which was the first secret talk on how to arrange the DPRK after Japan's surrender.
At that time, the United States believed that North Korea did not have the ability to govern itself, and needed the Soviet Union, China, and the United States to jointly entrust it for twenty to thirty years, and the Soviet Union proposed that the trusteeship be as short as possible, and that Britain should come together, and the two privately reached an understanding.
In mid-April, Roosevelt died of a sudden illness, and in late May, the new president, Harry Truman, sent his envoy to Moscow to discuss the issue, and when it came to the Korean issue, Stalin said, "The Soviet Union promised to carry out the policy of four-country trusteeship of Korea." ”
From July 17 to August 2, 1945, the heads of state and foreign ministers of the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom met in Potsdam, southwest of Berlin, the last meeting of the Allies in World War II, and issued the Potsdam Agreement and the Potsdam Proclamation urging Japan's surrender, which reaffirmed the cairo declaration on the Korean question. During the meeting, the Soviet Union informed the preparations for declaring war on Japan on August 8, and asked whether the United States had any intention of landing jointly with the Soviet Union in Korea, the purpose of the United States at that time was to occupy Korea, but to transport troops to the north of Korea, it would not be able to guarantee the first landing in Japan, and it was estimated that the U.S. military would pay a heavy price for capturing Korea.
The United States wanted to leave this loss to the Soviet Union to bear and reap the benefits of the fishermen itself, so the United States was not prepared to carry out a landing operation against North Korea. The meeting only drew the demarcation line between the two countries in the air and at sea against Japan, but this place did not demarcate the land demarcation line.
On August 6 to 9, 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs, and on August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan;
The United States never expected that the Soviet army was very rapid, and when the United States learned that Japan had decided to surrender on August 10, the decision-makers panicked at this time, because the nearest U.S. military to North Korea was still hundreds of kilometers away, and as long as the Soviet army went all out, the U.S. military could not gain any foothold in Korea.
The only way was to limit the Soviet offensive, win the United States and the Soviet Union to occupy Korea, and draw a dividing line that was pro-Japanese surrender, and the 38th parallel north entered the field of vision of the Americans. It happened that this line was located in the middle of the north and south of the Korean Peninsula, so the US War Department proposed to be bounded by the 38th Line, which was the surrender area of the Soviet Army to accept the surrender of Japan to the north and the us army to Japan to the south.
On 16 August Stalin replied that there was no disagreement with the 38th Line, which was thus demarcated. It is now clear to all of us that the initial demarcation of the 38th Parallel was not a divided line on the Korean Peninsula, but only a dividing line for the Soviet and American forces to accept Japan's surrender on the Korean Peninsula.