Spatial Inertia of a Divided Nation: Korea, the Last Remnant of the Cold War

• Autores: Woo-Ik Yu
• Localización: Petermanns geographische Mitteilungen, ISSN 0031-6229, Vol. 148, Nº. 5, 2004 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Ostasien), págs. 6-15
• Idioma: alemán
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• Resumen

  • Korea, the last remaining divided nation on earth, is where the threat of war coexists with the hope for reunification. In contrast to South Korea, which achieved the ¿economic miracle¿ and the political democratization that propelled it to become a member country of OECD, North Korea¿s economic devastation is deadly. Every year several hundred thousand people are dying of starvation and tens of thousands are fleeing their country in search of food. Neglecting its starving people, the communist regime indulges in exporting missiles and developing nuclear weapons to challenge the world¿s strongest country, the USA. For this reason, the Korean Peninsula remains the unstable region in the world. In 1945, Korea was liberated from 35 years of Japanese colonization. The Korean War that lasted three years and left the country in ruins followed this. Since a truce agreement was signed in 1953, the history of Korea has revealed repeated hostile confrontations and conflicts between the South and the North. But to some extent, both Seoul and Pyongyang had to accept the division as reality. Thus a dual spatial structure, one centering on Seoul, the other on Pyongyang emerged to become solid geographical reality. Recently, however, some meaningful changes have been taking place in this last remaining region of the Cold War. The changes may suggest a process of cumulative build-up in preparation for a decisive change that may take place sometime in the future. We believe these changes point toward eventual unity of Korea.