Chapter XII: Closing off a decade. (Part III)
“We will build a powerful military force to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our nation.” – Yoon Suk-yeol.
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Mokpo City, Republic of Korea. ~ July 9th, 1959.
“Dae-Jung-ssi, would I be wrong to assume this meeting has some purpose related to your local newspaper?”, that was Kim Young-sam, the member of the National Assembly from the Geoje constituency and one of the few independent ones remaining.
“Young-sam-ssi, you know the real reason for this meeting as much as I do,” Kim Dae-jung had lost an election at Mokpo City over a year ago, having faced one of the members of the Supreme Council for National Reconciliation; he wasn’t surprised at all due to numerous voter fraud allegations. “Democracy is now a rubber-stamping process directed by the army, practically most of the Northern population has been disenfranchised due to their association to Communist movements and let’s not talk about the dangerous belligerence directed against China…”
The Supreme Council for National Reconciliation had easily managed to absorb some of the most prominent politicians in the country, however, several numbers of junior politicians felt disillusioned once realizing the amount of fraud, manipulation, and outright censorship in some constituencies after the events of the Korean Summer and Park Chung-hee’s ascension to the presidency. Kim Dae-Jung and Kim Young-sam were an example of those younger politicians unwilling to simply accept democracy’s silent death at the hands of a military strongman, at the beginning these independent politicians viewed the Progressive Party (previously led by former president Cho Bong-am) as a viable choice to resist the consolidation of Park’s government: though following Kim Tu-bong’s nomination as party leader they lost any hope placed on the once strong progressives.
“I do recognize we need to fight for freedom and democracy, but we must also open our eyes, Park Chung-hee is currently seen as a hero,” and that statement was more than accurate so far, following the stabilization of the country after the assassination of President Cho along the surprising victory against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army practically everyone in Korea recognized Park’s remarkable achievements. “His popularity is currently sky-high, even support for our ideals has been waning among the youth, the economy keeps growing, I understand we need to act but what I fail to grasp is the way we can possibly do it; how can we sway the people towards us?”
An outsider visiting Korea would get the image of a country tightly governed both by Generalissimo Park on one side and the Supreme Council for National Reconciliation on the other, a certainly unique blend of authoritarianism provided with some degree of democratic approval given by those politicians willing to accept Park’s olive branch after 1957. Despite the nationalistic programs enacted by the president the influence of the Progressive Party and his former leader was still felt among the youth, mainly within the students’ organizations, added to this was a vast number of North Koreans dissatisfied with the high degree of government surveillance and the effective disenfranchisement they experienced regarding local and national politics; unrest was slowly simmering in the Korean Peninsula. Kim Dae-Jung recognized that outright ending Park’s tenure as president would be a challenge of colossal proportions, but he figured out a possible way to gradually weaken his hold, it was a bold plan but if it succeeded Korea would be able to have a way out of the military dictatorship with democratic dressing that had been established in 1957.
“Young-sam-ssi, I will be honest to you, there’s plenty of work to do and details to be hammered,” Dae-Jung’s voice reflected confidence and determination. “I don’t know how we’ll achieve this, but 1960 will mark the end of Park’s dominance over our country, democracy will be back.”
The small meeting that took place at Mokpo would go down in history as one of the most important events in modern Korean history, both Kim Dae-Jung and Kim Young-sam agreed that Park’s presidency was unconstitutional due to him having taken power through a military coup and recognizing that the only viable way to remove him would be causing enough political pressure to force him into calling elections for 1960. Protests, riots, strikes, whatever it would take; both independent politicians were determined to restore real democratic governance to Korea.
“What could they be planning?” that man was Cha Ji-cheol, a lieutenant with membership to the Hanahoe. “Tae-woo, I don’t trust these men, they will try to flip towards the Soviet Union and China whenever they get a chance to do so.” He told his surveillance partner, a young man going by the name of Roh Tae-woo; he also had military background and had joined the Hanahoe even before the Korean Summer took place. Both had been screened by the director of the KCIA and transferred to surveillance duties of the main figures of the opposition, Dae-Jung and Young-sam were not considered important enough to be directly watched by Kim Jong-pil, but they proved to be worrying nonetheless; ironically enough, it was an accurate observation.
On the international stage, everyone had been shook when the Korean Armed Forces took power after the Korean Summer, though the situation normalized over the time for the rest of the countries, internally the situation had not yet fully stabillized.
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Blood-stained Indochina. – Min Ji-hyo.
Over the years Ho Chi Minh’s health had steadily declined, there had been a short period of time in which the Indochinese leader even considered Chinese involvement behind his numerous ailments though no conclusive evidence was ever found. In this regard both him and his country shared something in common, they both were internally ill and weakening with each passing day. Ho Chi Minh was no fool however, recognizing his growing inability to govern the country he decided that a successor was needed to continue furthering the revolution and delivering prosperity to the numerous peoples under Indochina’s banner.
Within Hanoi there were two distinct factions, the pro-Soviet and the pro-China, each advocated for alignment with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China respectively. However, the weight of the pro-Chinese had considerably declined after the botched land reform approved by Truong Chinh which caused a wide array of issues at Vietnam, Laos, and Kampuchea; though their influence had partially recovered by 1959 they were still behind in terms of popularity and were seen negatively by most of the pro-Soviet faction members. Truong Chinh despite being the responsible for the issues that plagued the countryside kept his position as the leader of the pro-Chinese, something that only emboldened Vo Nguyen Giap’s opposition to him and his faction.
Numerous politicians from both factions tried their best to sway Ho Chi Minh’s opinion on them and their respective groupings, some were more successful than others as can be seen in Nguyen Chi Thanh’s appointment as Minister of Defence, spelling an end to Vo Nguyen Giap’s primacy over the ministry. But the most important consequence of Thanh’s promotion was providing some sort of legitimacy to the pro-China faction, being aligned to Truong Chinh this was seen as an endorsement by Ho Chi Minh to their ideals and goals: worrying Moscow, the pro-Soviet faction and even nationalists in the process.
The Indochinese leader had briefly considered promoting a minor government official known as Le Duan, though enough motives to justify this action were not found at all, despite being the mind behind the work called “The Road of Indochina” which basically detailed how Vietnam had the historical responsibility to lead and export the Socialist ideals to the rest of the Indochinese peninsula. Ho Chi Minh was wary about leaning too much towards Moscow or Beijing, the rhetoric coming out from Moscow was inflammatory to say the least, while at the same time the Chinese proved to be nothing more than a paper tiger: he was caught right in the middle of what could be considered extreme belligerence and humiliating passiveness.
In an attempt to tread through the middle, he chose to support Nguyen Chi Thanh, thus angering their foreign backers along one of the most prominent military figures within the high echelons of power. But this action was not only felt within the Vietnamese parts of Indochina, the apparent strengthening of the pro-China faction also served to enflame tensions at Kampuchea, the Cambodians were afraid of Vietnamese officials seizing their crops once more and soon resistance sparked through the whole region; minor armed clashes were reported within Kampuchea following Nguyen Chi Thanh’s promotion.
General Vo Nguyen Giap began to exert more and more influence over Indochina, Pham Van Dong's counterweight in the political stage would prove not to be enough to easen the rising tensions between the pro-Soviet and pro-China factions, allowing Nguyen Giap to exercise and strengthen his factions control over the country.
Vo Nguyen Giap recognized he lacked enough political influence and support to just launch a move of his own aimed against Thanh, thus he organized the second-best response he could’ve achieved during the height of this political crisis. He engaged in conversation with both Ho Chi Minh and Pham Van Dong, the latter was widely recognized as one of the first communists along being also quite moderate and close to Ho Chi Minh (he was also aligned with the pro-Soviet faction), these conversations proved fruitful during the Summer of 1959. Recognizing his mistake, Ho Chi Minh removed Thanh from the ministry (reinstating Giap in the process) and elevated Pham Van Dong to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Indochina: banishing the pro-Chinese once more from the public stage and strengthening the pro-Soviet group.
Pham Van Dong lacked connections and support both within the army and the party, thus he became reliant on Vo Nguyen Giap once he was reinstated as the Minister of Defence and this spelled the end to the ambitions of the pro-Chinese faction in an unofficial way. Even if some degree of stability had returned to Indochina, everyone had already noticed the shady actions taking place at Kampuchea along the lack of proper consequences being enacted by the central government. Vo Nguyen Giap became heavily invested on putting an end to the chaotic situation that was going on in Kampuchea, he also recognized the role the Americans and Thai had in the sudden unrest plaguing the Socialist Republic of Kampuchea and was determined to stop their involvement once and for all.
Ammunition, artillery shells, and other kinds of military supplies were rushed towards the border with Thailand and to the internal borders with Kampuchea, during this military buildup Pham Van Dong engaged in diplomatic talks with Phibunsongkhram, Thailand’s PM, to peacefully defuse the tensions that had been growing ever since Vietnam’s swift victories over Laos and Cambodia. The Indochinese thought they were having success by distracting their to-be enemies through diplomacy, but in reality this stalling technique was also being used by Phibun, building more supply depots along the border while at the same time enlarging the amount of support provided to the GRUNK and their ally within it: general Lon Nol. But Lon Nol and the Cambodian forces supported by Thailand weren´t the only ones taking advantage of the situation and slowly strengthening themselves, the Khmer Rouge had been gradually stealing equipment left by their Vietnamese peers to prepare as well for the upcoming war they would have to wage.
While Thailand and Indochina focused on getting prepared and acquiring the upper hand in the seemingly unavoidable conflict that would take place, the United States of America tried to keep their involvement as low as possible, not desiring to be fully involved in Southeast Asia while the situation in the Middle East continued evolving and not in their favor. President Eisenhower allowed the supplies to keep flowing towards Bangkok, according to the information from the CIA Phibun’s regime was solid enough to withstand a blow from the Indochinese; especially after the political infighting that took place in Hanoi. US intelligence indicated that the most likely outcome of war breaking out between both countries would be a swift defeat for Indochina owing to the vast number of resources spent on strengthening the GRUNK and Thailand’s military over the years.
At this point it was known yet by the fully fledged actors that we have already discussed, but there was another party interested in the possibility of hostilities breaking out in Southeast Asia. The Republic of Korea had kept as a closely guarded secret the information about Sihanouk’s relations with the PRC as well as the existence and real strength of the Khmer Rouge, the Supreme Council for National Reconciliation had deemed necessary to keep the information they had acquired during the border war with China as secret as possible to not disrupt the flow of ongoing events at the Indochinese Peninsula. The Koreans were certainly not friends of the Khmer Rouge nor of Pham Van Dong’s Indochina, but they had vested interests in the outcome of any possible conflict that could take place: Generalissimo Park considered that a full-blown war could be beneficial for Korea, but there was also a chance of it backfiring on the regime.
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Modern History: Korea. – Wade Barnett.
To the uneducated observer, Korea had suddenly thrown away the advancement of democracy as an attempt to further the goals of a military strongman whose only interest was strengthening the country and allowing the military to have political pre-eminence over all the decision-making processes of the country. Though viewing the years of the informal Second Republic as the peak of Korean democracy would also be considered as a mistake by experts on this subject, despite democracy and liberal values strengthening over those years and the situation of the peninsula stabilizing after the chaotic aftermath of Syngman Rhee’s assassination: the reality is that democratic foundations were not properly placed yet. While it is impossible to ascertain that an event as complex as the Korean Summer was inevitable, in hindsight it is almost guaranteed that it would happen in one way or another; tensions after Rhee’s death were not entirely solved if this happened in the first place, they were just postponed.
Though at the same time, we can’t state that Park Chung-hee’s ascent to power was predetermined in the history of the Korean Peninsula, especially the quite specific circumstances which led to him gaining the support of the Hanahoe and being able to prevail both over the other claimants of late president Cho’s legacy as well as over the People’s Liberation Army. There were numerous military officers with far much better reputation or even more experience than what Park Chung-hee could prove by his own, though all those candidates lacked the political maneuvering instinct Park had to even the field: and that’s without considering his reputation as a hero of war for staying at Seoul during the toughest of the war against the DPRK. Despite the Hanahoe having a strong degree of importance in Park’s seizure of power, he was also quite involved throughout the process, the Hanahoe as an entity had its own interests and methods while Park as an independent actor was also engaging on his own with lieutenants and junior colonels within the army, spreading his influence at the lower levels before pushing upwards.
Another key development that contributed to Park Chung-hee’s legitimation of the coup that finalized the informal Second Republic was the astounding victory against the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese attempted incursion not just ended in absolute failure, it also ended up with Korean boots on Beijing and caused numerous internal issues for the Chinese Communist Party due to Mao’s reaction to the defeat suffered by the Koreans. The Korean counteroffensive was planned impressively since it not just allowed them to fight the entirety of the war in Chinese soil, it also allowed them to render inoperative the Chinese air force thus guaranteeing their cities’ safety. In the end, with most of the country just desiring a return to stability and some semblance of normalcy back in their lives, while also feeling proud of their nation for defeating such an apparently stronger foe Park Chung-hee got more than enough public support to present his military coup as a fait accompli, without having to face consequences of any kind with his American backers or the rest of the population: for he had averted a worse fate.
Since the Americans had already been involved in plotting a regime change in Korea to a government with a more acceptable foreign policy, they quickly granted their recognition to the new regime in power at Seoul. They felt that it was a matter of time for Korea to slip into the Soviet Bloc, so they were eager to recognize Park as the new leader of the country and after he extended amnesty throughout the political stage to organize and legitimize his Supreme Council for National Reconciliation the Americans were more than happy since it gave the military coup some degree of popular support and legitimacy in the eyes of the so called free world. Park Chung-hee immediately started to follow the main “slogan” of his political vision, puguk kangbyong which basically meant “Rich nation, strong army”, something inspired by Meiji Japan’s fukoku kyohei. Park also tried to assure the Americans of his anti-communism and the anti-communist nature of his regime, once seizing power he publicly declared that anticommunism was Korea’s kuksi (national essence) thus assuaging American’s fears. These carefully calculated steps allowed Park Chung-hee to bring some degree of stability and acceptance of his regime both in a domestic and international manner, though it would be an overstatement to say that it had universal recognition within the populace or the international community.
Even within the country there were politicians that refused Park’s amnesty and thus were shoved away from the main political stages of the country, their campaigns suddenly receiving legal sanctions or politicians starting to feel being always watched. One of the most vocal groups of people organized against the new state of the country were the students, plenty of students had been satisfied with the way president Cho Bong-am had administered the country through the last years and seeing the military remove the legal, yet despised, president set a bitter precedent over Korean politics. Going even further than that, another considerable and wide sector of opposition against Park Chung-hee and his Supreme Council was the population within northern Korea, effectively disenfranchised and politically ignored: the population previously living under the DPRK were still viewed with suspicion and the Hanahoe reinforced that feeling on the southern parts of the country, attempting to make it the bulwark against opposition.
Disregarding what is usually said, even if Park Chung-hee held the status of war hero and was also appraised for being the one responsible for defeating the Chinese, the Korean society of the late fifties was even more complex and heterogenous than its usually told. And not just the Korean society, each actor involved in Park’s seizure of power had a wide array of motivations and interests which in fact point us towards the conclusion of this event not being inevitable or predetermined by the historical conditions of the country: they facilitate certain developments, but they didn’t guarantee them. So, the position of Park Chung-hee after his takeover of the Korean State is much more complex than just picturing a strongman annihilating democracy in mere days, in a parallel fashion his strength kept growing throughout the time just as his rivals and allies’.
One of the main characteristics of the new regime in Korea was the spike in militarization, president Cho Bong-am had been aware of thei mportance of keeping a strong military, though it is evident in hindsight how the Korean military was never entirely loyal to him or the democratic principles of the country to begin with. Park's era started with an increased militarization both of the country and the society as a whole. Though his efforts were also rivaled gradually by the other social movements directly opposed to the establishment of the Third Republic.
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Okay, first of all, hiii! And sorry for the huge uber-mega-colossal delay on updating the AAR, got some writer’s block, then started working and then life massively punched me throughout March without a break. But I am finally in much better conditions, I didn’t forget at all this wonderful AAR that has had me investigating and researching plenty of topics! I recently bought and downloaded a pair of books in order to enrich the narrations of this AAR as well as possibly it’s gameplay. I had planned a Cuban (in 1959) and Soviet (in 2018) update, though will all that happened recently in my life I was fully motivated to do so and to re-read all of the sources I had gotten once again. So instead of doing that I took back an update I never published regarding the situation of Indochina, and I also elaborated a bit further on how Korea is actually faring in regards of Park’s military regime. As you will be able to see, it isn’t yet full dictatorship, which is something that historically happened in Korea, Park’s regime kinda tilted to one side and then the other (in way numerous matters).
So, I hope you enjoy this update and I hope it isn’t too late and y’all think this AAR is dead. It will only be dead or on hiatus whenever I announce it, but it isn’t and most certainly won’t be. I hope to have a new update soon enough, actually there will be a vote relatively soon to check up some aspects of this AAR and timeline. I hope you all are doing excellent!