ABSTRACT
Japan's successful portrayal of Korea as a country unable to govern itself and the nature of its colonial administration led to equivocation in Allied planning for the post-war status of Korea. This chapter traces the initial frustration of Korean efforts to achieve immediate independence and compares and contrasts the subsequent efforts of the Soviet Union and the US in their respective zones of occupation to promote Korean client regimes responsive to their broader strategic aims. It concludes with the emergence of two separate, antagonist Korean states, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), established north of the 38th parallel under Soviet auspices, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south, which took shape under US and United Nations auspices. While all Koreans agreed on the goal of the reunification of Korea, by 1948, it was clear that this was unlikely to be achieved by peaceful means.
