South Korea–United States Relations | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

In 1882 the United States became the first Western power to sign a treaty (the Treaty of Amity and Commerce) with Korea. At that time, U.S. policy toward Korea was one of nonintervention. The treaty was signed to increase trade and improve the circumstances of Americans who were shipwrecked on the Korean coast on their way to and from China. The Koreans signed the treaty with the hope of enlisting the United States in Korea's efforts to offset growing Japanese power in the region. However, such a relationship did not develop, and Japan annexed Korea in 1910.

American involvement became prominent again at the end of the Japanese occupation of Korea, when Japan surrendered to the Allied forces after its World War II defeat in 1945. The United States established a military government south of the thirty-eighth parallel on the Korean Peninsula. In an attempt to establish a democratic Korea and to contain Communist expansion in Asia, the United States initiated United Nations–sponsored elections, which gave birth to the Republic of Korea (ROK) on 15 August 1948.

The U.S.-ROK relationship was cemented when North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950. The Korean War (1950–1953) saw U.S. and U.N. troops together with ROK forces fighting to a stalemate with the North Koreans. The signing of the 1954 U.S.ROK Mutual Defense Treaty created a new security alliance that committed the United States to defending the ROK against external aggression. Since then, South Korea has depended on the presence of U.S. troops located in various bases around the peninsula to deter any attempted North Korean invasion.

Due to domestic difficulties in the late 1960s, the administration of President Richard Nixon (1913–1994) decided to reduce its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States removed twenty-four thousand troops from South Korea but declared it would still defend the ROK in the event of attack from North Korea. With U.S. assistance totaling $1.5 billion, South Korea increased its defense capabilities to match those of North Korean forces by the 1970s.

In 2002, regular joint ROK-U.S. military exercises and thirty-seven thousand U.S. troops stationed in South Korea reflected America's strong commitment to the security of South Korea. To reciprocate for American support over the years, South Korea sent 300,000 ROK soldiers to fight in the Vietnam War (1954–1975) and offered assistance totaling $500 million during the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991).

The 1990s saw the United States playing a mediating role in inter-Korean relations. South Korea andthe United States consistently coordinated efforts to resolve threats arising from nuclear and missile issues on the Korean Peninsula. In 1993, North Korea refused to allow the International Atomic Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear reactors. This triggered speculations about North Korea's capacity to produce nuclear weapons, which, if such capabilities existed, could have a tremendous impact on the security of the Korean Peninsula.

A settlement was reached with North Korea through the 1994 Agreed Framework. The United States and its allies, namely South Korea and Japan, agreed to finance and provide the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) with a pair of lightwater nuclear reactors through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. In return, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear activities and to allow inspections by the IAEA to determine whether it had violated the Nonproliferation Treaty by using spent nuclear fuel to reprocess plutonium in order to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Subsequently, in 1997, the South Korean president Young Sam (b. 1927) and U.S. president Bill Clinton (b. 1946) jointly initiated four-party peace talks between the United States, the ROK, the DPRK, and the People's Republic of China, North Korea's ally to the north. The talks were held to build confidence, promote inter-Korean dialogue, and establish a permanent south-north agreement ending hostilities in the Korean Peninsula. Although these goals have not been realized, the four-party talks have provided the best opportunity to date for the United States and South Korea to discuss broader security issues with North Korea.

In the aftermath of the Korean War, to reconstruct and stabilize its war-torn economy, South Korea depended heavily on U.S. aid and economic assistance. By 1973, the United States had provided a total of $3.5 billion to rebuild South Korea's economy. The economic relationship between the two countries changed from one of client-patron to that of a mutually interdependent association when the Korean economy began to show remarkable growth in the early 1980s. For the last thirty years, the United States has figured prominently as an important source of investment, technology transfer, and foreign capital for South Korea. South Korea's dependence on exports for growth made the United States (the world's largest market) its most important trading partner. Moreover, the United States also became the principal supplier of raw materials and machinery to resource-poor South Korea.

In the late 1980s, Washington began to take exception to South Korea's trade surpluses, which became a source of friction between the two countries. Correcting this trade imbalance became a priority. The Koreans agreed to give up their status as a "priority foreign country" in terms of trade practices with the United States and to work for appreciation of the Korean won and liberalization of Korea's import market.

The two-way trade volume between South Korea and the United States expanded from $300 million in 1963 to $67 billion in 2000. The United States has become the largest trading partner and investor country in South Korea. South Korea in turn is the United States's seventh-largest trading partner, sixth-largest export market, and fourth-largest market for agricultural goods.

Although U.S.-ROK relations are strong, they are multifaceted. In recent years, anti-Americanism has begun to emerge within South Korean nationalism. The Kwangju uprising (1980) was a turning point in the Korean public's view of U.S. involvement in its internal affairs. Following the killings of demonstrators by government troops in the Kwangju uprising, many student activists blamed the United States for supporting the oppressive regime of President Chun Doo Hwan and for causing the division of the Korean Peninsula. Student demonstrations in 1980s led to the burning of the American Cultural Center in Pusan (1982), the seizure of the United States Information Service building in Seoul (1985), and attempted arson at the American Cultural Center in Kwangju (1989).

These days, public criticism of the stationing of American troops in South Korea is on the rise, due to civil and criminal incidents involving U.S. soldiers and locals, use of Korean land and facilities, and mistreatment of Korean employees by the U.S. military. Many agree that contentious issues cannot be dealt with until the one-sided Status of Forces Agreement, which gives preferential treatment to American troops in South Korea, is altered to take into account the demands of the host country. However, these bilateral frictions are outweighed by the mutual security concerns of the peninsula, which remain the cornerstone of South Korea's relations with the United States.

Curtis, Gerald, and Sung-joo Han. (1983) The U.S.–South Korea Alliance: Evolving Patterns of Security Relations. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Dong, Wonmo, ed. (2000) The Two Koreas and the United States. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Khoo, Youngnok, and Sung-joo Han, eds. (1985) The Foreign Policy of the Republic of Korea. New York: Columbia University Press.

Kwak Tae-Hwan, ed. (1982) U.S.-Korean Relations: 1882– 1982. Seoul: Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University.

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