Seventy years ago to the week, North and South Korea signed the armistice which ended mutual hostilities, but no peace treaty. The two states are still, in theory, at war. Today one of the world’s most brutal, nuclear-sabre-rattling dictatorships rules a starving people forced to live on a permanent war footing. To the south, a democracy thrives in one of Asia’s wealthiest economies. Its GDP is roughly 57 times that of the North’s, with a population of 52 million, twice the latter’s size.
Reunification remains, like in Ireland, the primary objective of the Southern state, but with time its prospect and popular enthusiasm for it fades, especially among the young. The economic and political price is increasingly seen as just too high. In a poll last year just 46 per cent felt that unification was “very” or “somewhat” necessary. Nearly 27 per cent felt that it wasn’t necessary, but a majority still supports the presence of 28,500 US troops in their country.
The drift apart continues. To mark the armistice anniversary Pyongyang , which still regards the signing as a “victory”, invited Russian and Chinese officials to the capital to reaffirm strengthened links. In Seoul, the anniversary is celebrated with remembrance ceremonies for the 2.5 million Korean dead of the war and as a victory for the free world.
The three-year war pitched international forces on either side under the separate banners of the UN, largely the US which lost 37,000 men, against those of China and the Soviet Union. Ireland was not a member of the UN at the time but many Irish and of Irish extraction fought in British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand regiments.
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Some 157 members of the Royal Ulster Rifles died or were wounded, mostly in the infamous battle of Happy Valley in which they held back advancing Chinese forces to allow the evacuation of Seoul. Ten years ago Irish diplomats in Seoul joined veterans in erecting a monument to them, and they were rightly honoured at a ceremony in Belfast on Thursday.