Essays on Korean Peninsula

Korea was bisected at the end of the Second World War, as a response to the differing political climates which each half of the peninsula espoused – North Korea preferred the communism of the Soviet Union, while South Korea was more in line with the policies and politics espoused by the west, the U.S. in particular. During the early fifties, hostilities between the two halves of the country reached breaking point, and the Korean War broke out, with the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea attempting to reunify the country by conquering South Korea, and the American army attempting to ...

Problem

In 2008, Japan tried to re-establish diplomatic relations with North Korea. Diplomatic relations had not existed between the two countries since the Korean Peninsula. Japan promised to provide North Korea with economic and financial instruments to boost its economy while North Korea agreed to investigate the case of the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Korean government in the 1970s and 1980s (Smith, 2013). Japan also made a commitment that in the event that North Korea fulfilled its part of the negotiated promises, it was going to lift economic sanctions that were imposed in 2006. Despite sitting at ...

In order to define ‘economic development’, I have looked into the literature on the subject to subsidize my answer. I have looked particularly into the works of Acemoglu, Laibson, & List (2016) and Rahnama-Moghadam, Samavati, & Dilts (1995). Acemoglu, Laibson, & List (2016, p. 205) indicate that the term less developed country (LDC) fosters images of backwardness, poverty, and lower levels of technological sophistication. They claim there is some truth in these images but, nonetheless, there is a broad range of countries that are correctly described as being less developed. One country has not reached the known levels of financial well-being that ...

1. Since 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War, China has undergone many social and economic changes, for both ideological and practical reasons. When the communist party came to power, China had just ended a civil war, which had widespread negative effects on the economy of China. This lead to a phase of recovery which lasted a few short years. Also, the goals of the ruling government had changed; in order to be a communist nation, China would have to rapidly industrialize. This caused the institution of several five-year plans, the first of which began ...