2020/03/06 by Kornel Chang · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies #Japanese History and Culture #Asian Culture and Media Studies
paper · doi:10.1093/jahist/jaaa009
openalex publication_date 2020/03/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Two years into the occupation and the United States had made little progress on the political, economic, and technical problems ailing the southern zone of Korea. These problems ranged from rice and electricity shortages to soaring inflation to an internecine power struggle that sharply divided Koreans. The State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee wrote a scathing assessment in 1947 of the occupation government's performance: “Thus far the U.S. has done little more than hold its own in South Korea. The operation to date has been improvised from day to day to prevent complete collapse, and has left almost untouched the most basic problems.” The study cited the American occupation's mismanagement of the economy, its failures to enact land and labor reforms, and its support of unpopular rightists. The report presented Americans with a stark choice: “the United States is obliged to decide whether it will continue to occupy the South for an indefinite period, or whether it will withdraw and permit the Soviet Union to dominate the entire peninsula.” If the United States chooses to remain, the report warned sternly, “it will have to face up to the responsibility it is assuming in regard to the Korean people.”1