(Korean War History) The Division of Korea, 1945-1948, Post # 5

Prof. Kathryn Weathersby

As we discussed in the last post, the day before Japan surrendered, Stalin made no objection to the sudden American proposal to create two occupation zones in Korea, which changed the agreement the allies had made at Potsdam. However, in late August, as soon as the Red Army secured control of the territories they were slated to acquire -- Manchurian ports and the Kurile Islands -- the Soviet Foreign Ministry turned its attention to Korea. It prepared to discuss the political settlement for Korea at the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers that would open in London on September 11 by working out how the Soviet delegation could best approach the American idea of trusteeship for Korea.

The briefing paper the Ministry prepared began by instructing the Soviet delegation to insist on the one condition Stalin had demanded in his conversation on Korea with President Roosevelt: that no foreign troops would be stationed on the peninsula. They were to specify that Soviet forces would remain in Korea for as long as American troops were in the south, presumably for two years. After that time, occupation forces would withdraw and the proposed four-power trusteeship would begin.

The Foreign Ministry’s briefing paper then repeated the idealistic American formulation that the purpose of the trusteeship was to provide “assistance in the political, economic, and social restoration of the Korean people and the facilitation of their progressive development toward independence.” The instructions to the Soviet delegation, however, were based on the spheres of influence strategy that had guided Soviet foreign policy since the late 1930s. Therefore, the ministry viewed the American idea of trusteeship as a mechanism through which the victorious powers would gain control over desired portions of Korea, as well as of other former Japanese territories.

A priority for Moscow was to secure the sea lanes between its main naval base in Vladivostok and its Manchurian base at Port Arthur. Therefore, the Soviet delegation was instructed to demand exclusive control over the Korean ports of Pusan and Incheon, as well as Cheju Island. To persuade the US to agree to these concessions, the Soviet diplomats were to mention the Americans’ “wish to receive for themselves strategic regions in the Pacific Ocean,” a reference to the US intention to hold onto several small Pacific islands seized from Japan in order to use them as naval bases. If the Americans rejected Moscow’s requests, the Soviet diplomats would propose joint Soviet-Chinese control of those three Korean territories. There was a precedent for such an arrangement, since the Soviet Union had reached agreement with China in separate talks during the Potsdam conference that the two states would jointly control the Russian-built Manchurian railroads and ports.

Secondly, the Foreign Ministry thought a trusteeship over Korea might provide a way to gain control over a strategically important Japanese island by annexing it to Korea. The Soviet delegation was to demand that Tsushima be transferred to Korea, on the grounds that “throughout history” it “had served as a staging ground for aggressive actions by Japan against the continental countries and in particular against Korea.” When the Americans refused this demand, as expected, the Soviets would propose that they create an international trusteeship for the Pacific islands the US had seized from Japan: Bonin, and the Volkanos, Marianas, Carolinas, and Marshall Islands. The Soviet delegation would then offer to back away from this proposal as long as the Americans agreed to their demand for Pusan, Incheon, and Cheju Island.

In the end, the Soviet delegation in London never put forward its proposal regarding a trusteeship for Korea. In the next post, we will examine why discussion of the Korean issue was delayed at the Foreign Ministers’ Conference and how this circumstance solidified the division of the peninsula.