THE KOREAN WAR AND ITS ALTERNATIVE VISION
The Korean War (1950-1953) began when Korean North forces invaded South Korea. While the United States stepped in to help South Koreans, China, and the Soviet Union came to help the North Korea. The war was as a result of the division of the Korea peninsula after World War II and the worldwide tensions that arose from cold war in the aftermath. The Soviet Union occupied North Korea at the 38th parallel and the United States in agreement with the former occupied the south taking over Korea from the rule of Japan which began in 1910 to 1945. By 1948, two different governments had been formed as the governments of Korea and neither of them accepted the borders between then as permanent. The breakout of this war was just an escalation of the conflict that had already existed between the two separate governments that each claimed to be the legitimate government of Korea. This essay discusses the Korean War and its Tuidang movement-its alternative vision.
On that day, the UN Security Council termed the North Korean action of invasion as being uncalled for and recommended immediate ceasefire. The complaints of aggression upon the Republic of South Korea called for the formation and dispatch of the United Nations forces with the US government providing almost 88 percent of the United Nations troops. Two months later, the South Koreans were seemingly being defeated, and they were pushed to the Pusan Perimeter when the United Nations amphibious counter-offensive was launched at Inchon to successfully cut off the majority of the North Korean attackers . The Chinese forces then joined to give a hand to the northern causing the retreat of the UN forces past the Yalu River until mid-1951. Later on, the war of attrition took the stage with the front head near the 38th parallel. The war in the air became massive as North Korea became subject to huge bombing. Jet fighters, for the first time in the history of the world, confronted each other in air-to-air combat. The Soviet pilots flew in defense of their communist’s friends. The ended when the armistice was signed. The agreement so the creation of military free border separating the North and South Korea and allowed for the return of detainees. Nonetheless, no peace treaty was signed, and the Koreans have periodically experienced conflicts even presently.
The Korean War was placed between the World War II and the Vietnam War and had its scale smaller compared to the two wars. The war received petite public attention in American during the time of its occurrence and after that. The war was also not declared as a military action hence President Harry Truman referred to it as a police action while elsewhere it is known as “The Unknown War.” The South Koreans, however, refer to the war by the date of its commencement as “625”. The war was termed as the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea alluding the significance it had on the Chinese end .
Just like any other war in the history of the world, the Korean War offered a significant number of alternative visions. Many movements that have passed or currently going on seem to bear similarities with the intent for which this war was fought by the Americans: Fighting communists’ agenda. The most befitting example is the Tuidang movement. The Tuidang movement is a Chinese nonconformist marvel that started in late 2004. The development, whose name is interpreted as “pull back from the Communist Party,” was catalyzed by the distribution of the article in the editorial series “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party”. The series scrutinized Communist Party canon in China, with an emphasis on the party’s history of political constraint, its purposeful publicity contraption, and its attacks on traditional culture and system values. Not long after the publication the Nine Commentaries, The Epoch Times started publishing letters from per users wishing to repudiate their affiliations typically to Communist Party associations, including the Communist Youth League and Young Pioneers. Among the development’s members are political dissenters, legal counselors, researchers, negotiators, and previous police or military personnel .
The major powers being challenged by this movement is the Chinese Communist Party Rule. The movements seem to indirectly support the American capitalism view of governance by condemning the Communist movements just like in the Korean War the Americans sought to foster capitalism and shattered any efforts giving rise to communism. The areas in which the communists’ movement in China is challenged include tits degradation of cultural values through unprecedented assaults, propaganda apparatus, and political repression . The way challenge to communist is coming is not through the use of wars like in the past, however. The civilized society is using the publications and the media to condemn communism.
Referring the Tuidang movement, the editorial series “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” brings to light and the attention of the public the dark sides of the Chinese Communist Party so as to elicit disdain for the communist agenda. After such information is from the public, then movements like the Communist Youth League and Young Pioneers can arise to smother Communist. In the background is a team of elites including political dissidents, scholars, diplomats, lawyers, and retired police or military personnel who set out to support capitalism. What these movements tell the pro-Communists is that the maintenance of the status quo is something the world is not ready for whatsoever and with the enlightenment through the efforts of education in the present world, people have the guts to tell their leaders what they want to them.
One element of the 21st century is the existence of Notable participant dissidents. These would not have existed in the previous centuries as many dictatorial regimes would have them murdered before they could do anything meaningful in the public. However, there exist high-profile Chinese dissidents who are behind the Tuidang movements . They include the leaders of Beijing Spring democracy movement (1978), Wei Jingsheng, Gao Zhisheng, Zheng Enchong and Guo Guoting (human rights lawyers) and defectors Hao Fengjun, Chen Yonglin and Li Fengzhi. Masha Ma, a graduate student at the University of Toronto who resigned from the Communist party after watching a program on Tiananmen Square Massacre that had various teachings against communism. There some unnamed members of the communist party that have withdrawn from it after reading and watching commentaries like the Nine Commentaries.
One of the elements Tuidang movement seems to borrow from the past alternative movements is the reaction of the Communist party Authorities to Tuidang movement. The Communist Party Authority and security offices have reacted to the Tuidang movement through censorship and coercive measures, including the capture of many participants. A recent report directed mutually by scientists from Harvard University, Cambridge University and the University of Toronto observed that words identified with the Tuidang movements were the most seriously controlled terms on the Chinese internet . A progression of articles distributed in the diary of the People’s Liberation Army in March 2011 planned to discredit the requests of reformers contained an unintentional affirmation that the Tuidang movement was having an impact of undermining assurance inside the military’s rank and file.
These movements are important in that they provide ways in which people of a particular nation to voice their grievances publicly and as such the political leaders can always adjust their leadership approaches to fit what the people need. The subjects of a certain authority may also use the movements to influence resource mobilization and distribution by their leaders. It is also through the activist movements that human rights have been fought for, and people have been granted their call.
In conclusion, the Korean War was fought between the South and the North Koreans and it began when the North Koreans invaded the borders to attack South Koreans. United Nations and the US joined the war to help the South Koreans foster their capitalism agenda while the North Korean Troops were reinforced by the Soviet Union and the Chinese forces. In 1953, the war ended with the armistice was signed. The agreement saw the creation of military free border separating the North and South Korea and allowed for the return of detainees. Tuidang movement is an alternative vision from the Korean War and bears a lot of similarities with the Korean War in that its main basis is the disdain for Chinese Communist Party just like in the former.
Bibliography
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Ford, Caylan. “Tradition and Dissent in China.” PhD diss., The George Washington University, 2011.
Ford, Caylan. “Tradition and Dissent in China: The Tuidang Movement and its Challenge to the Communist Party.” PhD diss., THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 2011.
Lee, Steven Hugh. The Korean War. Routledge, 2013.
Lowe, Peter. The Korean War. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000.
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