I was talking to my Korean friend about foreign intervention and influence in Korea. While I see US intervention at least in the southern part as an overall positive thing given SK's robust economy, democracy and whatnot especially compared to the other countries with similar economies to SK at the end of WWII which I believed partially stems from US intervention during the Korean war. He argues that US and/or USSR intervention is the main reason that the peninsula is divided and without foreign intervention independence activists such as 김구 (Kim Gu) would have liberated the country united. Would this have been realistic given the scope of the Japanese Empire and the resources available to the Korean independence movement? Would there have been a realistic way for Korea to be a independent country as an united peninsula in the following aftermath of WWII?
So this is a long and complicated topic and it might take me multiple posts to answer.
So I’m 1919, after the March 1st Movement, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was formed in Shanghai as a result of a merger of multiple pro-independence groups and “governments.”
This was nine years after the annexation of Korea by Japan. Korea had not been an independent nation for some time.
Many of the early leaders, like Dosan Ahn Chang-Ho and Synghman Rhee, noted the different failures of the Korean movements of liberation since then.
Various armed independence groups, bolstered by the absorption of the disbanded Imperial Korean Army, have tried to take major cities and Seoul, but have failed.
Rhee argued that Korea, being a small and weak nations, needed to strategically use diplomacy to gain independence.
Even some of the more avid advocates of an armed struggle, like Kim Gu and Kim Won-Bong, were closely associated with diplomacy with other nations, particularly the Republic of China and the Kuomintang.
Kim Gu advocated using guerrilla tactics and targeted acts of sabotage and assassinations. However this was all in concert with the KMT. To emphasize how tied up the Provisional Government was with the KMT, Chiang Kai-Shek told Kim Gu to consider him as an familial uncle to Kim. When a Korean anarchist associated with the Korean independence movement bombed and killed Japanese generals in Shanghai, Chiang gave a speech in support.
Koreans were allowed in and were trained in the Whampoa Military Academy while different Korean soldiers and guerrilla were integrated into the National Revolutionary Army. The Korean Liberation Army itself was considered to be a wing of the NRA and even fought in the Burmese front.
While the KLA became associated with the KMT and its army, Kim and Rhee also gained Support from the US during the Pacific War. The KLA cooperated closely with the OSS.
The US and the ROC came to an understanding that Korea will be an independent nation after the defeat and occupation of Japan, under UN and ROC influence.
This changed when the Soviets entered the war against Japan. The Soviets expressed a desire to occupy Hokkaido along with the Kruill Islands and The southern half of Sakhalin Island. This was avoided by asking the Soviets to occupy the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.
After the war, the People’s Republic of Korea was temporarily established before US troops entered the south. It was abolished by American authorities while in the north, its committees were kept, but much of its leadership purged.
For the history of the PRK, I’d suggest looking up Fyodor Tertisky For Rhee and his strategy of using diplomacy, look into David Field’s works
Both their lectures and articles online for free