I have always wondered about the Ceasefire that de facto ended the Korean war, while on paper the war never ended or had a peace treaty.
How was the Ceasefire negotiated? Did the North, South, allies and China all have diplomatic relations to agree on a ceasefire?
Did they intend this ceasefire to be the end of the war or was it only meant to be temporary with the war continuing on at some point? (I know that in other wars sometimes a ceasefire is negotiated just for a specific holiday with war resuming afterwards)
Was there ever an attempt by either side to get an official peace treaty signed? If so, when did relations break down to the point that none was ever signed?
When did the Chinese withdraw their troops from North Korea? I know that the US never really removed it's military presence but Chinese troops are no longer at the border in North Korea as far as I know.
When did it become obvious that there was not going to be a shooting war anymore?
If anyone has any information please let me know, thanks. I don't know how much information is available from the North's point of view due to secrecy.
Negotiations began in early 1951 and they dragged on for more than two years with the main sticking point being the Communist's demand that all POW's be repatriated. There were four sides to the negotiations: the UN forces, represented by the US, China, North Korea, and South Korea. South Korea ended up dropping out of the negotiations because Syngman Rhee didn't want to leave the country divided. In the end, the UN, China, and North Korea signed the armistice - South Korea is not a party to it.
A peace treaty was not and is not possible for a variety of reasons. First, South Korea was not a party to the treaty and Syngman Rhee continued to rule the South for another 7 years beyond the end of the war. Second, both Korea's claim the whole peninsula as their territory and they don't recognize the other one, at least officially. North Korea claims that they are interested in a peace treaty, but only with the United States. The US refuses to negotiate without South Korea and that's where we are today.
The Chinese troops left by 1958. There were still neutral nation observers from Poland and Czechoslovakia, both of whom have left since the fall of the Soviet Union and their subsequent gravitation towards NATO and western Europe. The US has not left Korea since the Korean War, although it has steadily withdrawn troops down to approximately 28,500 these days.
As far as a shooting war, don't be fooled - the border is still a very tense place. Throughout the late 60's the North sent in infiltration teams to murder soldiers, blow up buildings, and even to attempt to kill the President! In the 70's, things calmed down a bit, but take a look at Operation Paul Bunyan in August of 1976 to see how the US responded to the murder of two officers in the DMZ. Without going into details (20 year rule), check out the Battle of Yeongpyeong-do (there were two of them, 1999 and 2002), the sinking of the Cheonan (2010), the shelling of Yeongpyeong-do (2010), and the land mine attack that maimed some soldiers just last year. The US military's slogan in Korea is "ready to fight tonight" and there has never been a time during the 64 years since the armistice that it's been "obvious" the war wouldn't start up again.