ABSTRACT
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, has posed challenges for its regional neighbors and the world almost from the day of its founding on 9 September 1948. Its claim to sovereignty under a communist system emerged from Imperial Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, ending a particularly brutal 35-year foreign occupation of the Korean Peninsula. The sudden end to Japanese colonial rule in August 1945 led to the direct involvement by Allied victors (the United States and Soviet Union), who hastily established trusteeship governments in the respective southern and northern halves of Korea. Soon thereafter, United Nations (UN)-monitored elections in 1948 (impeded by the Soviets in the North) were held only in the South on 10May 1948, leading to the establishment on 15 August of the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea). The failure to unify the two occupation zones effectively created two separate states competing for singular legitimacy of the Peninsula.
