North vs South: How Korea Was Divided
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The divided Korean peninsula is the last remnant of the Cold War: South Korea is a vibrant democracy, a strong market economy, and home to a world-renowned culture. North Korea is ruled by the most authoritarian regime in the world, plagued by famine and poverty, best known for its nuclear weapons. These two countries are diametrically opposed but also intrinsically connected by their long shared ethnic history. How was this country split by the great powers after the Japanese occupation and how did they take such divergent paths?
An armistice to the bloody fighting of the Korean War was drawn 70 years ago - it was a call for peace not an ending. As such, the Koreas are still technically at war with each other. To untangle the intricate and fascinating history of the relationship and divide between North and South Korea, Dan is joined by Dr Ramon Pacheco Pardo- Professor of International Relations at Kings College London and Dr Victor Cha, Professor of Government at Georgetown University.
Their book is 'Korea: A New History of South and North'
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:18.4 | Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History It. Back in 2004, it's only 20 years ago, kids. |
| 0:28.8 | 20 years ago, I was filming a TV show about the Korean War. And I was lucky enough to go into |
| 0:34.7 | the DMZ, the joint security area of the DMZ. You'll have seen it, perhaps more recently because |
| 0:39.4 | Donald Trump stepped into North Korea to meet with Kim Jong Un. It's a strange place. There are |
| 0:46.9 | blue bungalows, which straddle the border, which were designed for the peace talks that it was |
| 0:52.0 | hoped would follow the armistice, the end of fighting in the Korean War. Those peace talks |
| 0:56.9 | at that site have never really taken place. And you can go into those bungalows. In fact, |
| 1:01.5 | when I was there, each side get a certain amount of time and tourists from both the North and South |
| 1:05.6 | gets going to the bungalows. And then you walk around, have a look at them, then you leave, |
| 1:09.5 | and then the other side bring their tourists in. And through the window, so you actually inside |
| 1:13.4 | the bungalow, you're actually able to step onto North Korean source of technically up in |
| 1:16.6 | North Korean soil. And you get a situation where these North Korean border guards look through |
| 1:20.4 | the windows with sort of furious looks on their faces. And the South Koreans that we were told |
| 1:25.0 | station their tallest, fittest, most hench border guards at that area. So the North Koreans look |
| 1:30.9 | at them and go, geez, they're getting better food down South. But then I was lucky enough to go to |
| 1:35.6 | the bridge of no return where prisoners were exchanged at the end of the fighting. And the American |
| 1:39.3 | Colonel let me go on the bridge and he said, you should be okay. You should be okay. We haven't |
| 1:43.3 | had anyone snatched in a while. But you should know there was a sniper with his rifle, his sights |
... |
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