Looking back, what was accomplished? The end of World War II sundered the Korean peninsula, leaving half allied with the Soviet Union, half with the U.S. Ready to reunify the country by force — and, with help from Moscow, strong enough to dare it — North Korea sent its tanks south across the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950. Communist leader Kim Il Sung hoped to destroy the U.S.-backed regime of South Korean President Syngman Rhee in a bold blitzkrieg. Kim nearly succeeded before U.S. troops and a hastily assembled United Nations force pushed the North Koreans back to the Yalu River on the Chinese border, prompting the intervention of a 1.2 million-man Chinese army that ultimately brought the conflict to a stalemate. After three years of battle, 33,600 American, 58,000 South Korean and 500,000 North Korean and Chinese soldiers had lost their lives. And little had changed.

Today the peninsula is still divided near the 38th parallel — half communist, half capitalist; half dependent on Soviet military and economic support, half still reliant on the presence of 43,000 U.S. troops. But the old reasons for these alliances are fading. The Soviet Union is no longer eager — or able — to finance the aggressive extension of communism by its satellites, and communism itself is a dying ideology. South Korea has risen from the ashes to become an economic powerhouse capable of assuming most of its own defense against a diminished threat from the North. Yet the U.S. is still there. In the new world order of the 1990s, will transformation come anytime soon to North and South Korea? And what would that mean for U.S. involvement?

A strong hint of change came three weeks ago, when the leaders of South Korea and the Soviet Union met for the first time. The summit between Roh Tae Woo and Mikhail Gorbachev demonstrated how far both nations have come: trade between Seoul and Moscow is expected to reach $1 billion this year, and diplomatic relations are pending. Despite its ties to the North, the Soviet Union needs investment and trade from Seoul more than it needs to help sustain one of the world’s last holdouts against reform.

But a deep gulf continues to separate the two Koreas. Technically North and South Korea are still at war, and they have moved no closer to reunification. As long as Kim, now 78, continues to rule the North, significant reform or concessions to the South are unlikely. And even though millions in North and South Korea share a yearning for reunification, the two countries have pursued different paths for too long to reconcile easily. As a Korean proverb says, “We may sleep in the same bed, but we have different dreams.”

SOUTH KOREA

Few issues more clearly symbolize the 40-year stalemate than the continued presence of U.S. soldiers on Korean soil. While the majority of South Koreans still welcome — even count on — them, the question of how much longer they will stay is beginning to trouble both Seoul and Washington. Young Korean protesters call the troops an obstacle to reunification, while Americans cannot understand why South Korea, with its booming economy and population, continues to need American help.

South Korean politicians unanimously support retaining U.S. troops. They note that while Seoul fields a 650,000-man army, North Korea’s Soviet-equipped force is more than 1 million strong. Just as worrisome is Kim Il Sung’s unpredictability, amply demonstrated in his complicity in terrorist acts like the bombing of a Korean Air Lines flight in 1987 that killed 115 people. Many fear he could become even more dangerous if he felt threatened by the kind of reforms that have toppled communist dictators in Eastern Europe.

The Bush Administration agrees that some American forces should stay. But Washington wants South Korea to assume more responsibility for its own defense. Current plans call for a ten-year, three-phase troop reduction, beginning with the withdrawal of 7,000 U.S. soldiers by 1994. In addition, Seoul has been asked to double its direct financial support to $680 million this year.

If South Korea’s resurrection has been an economic miracle, the country has been slower to mature politically. A succession of authoritarian rulers transformed the nation into the world’s 13th largest trader — but at great cost to personal freedom. The first truly free elections in 27 years were held in 1987, when Roh beat a divided opposition by pledging to support democracy.

He has largely fulfilled that promise, lifting restrictions on the press and political activity. Although the relaxation of labor laws unleashed an epidemic of strikes, they are subsiding as salaries go up. While the government’s popularity tends to rise and fall with the economic statistics, most citizens today want nothing more than domestic stability.

But undemocratic laws and practices persist, most of them defended in the name of the threat from the north. It is still a crime to give any support to North Korea, even to write or paint about it. Suspected subversives are routinely beaten, and the government keeps politicians under surveillance. While these remnants of the authoritarian past have severely tested U.S. support, Washington now believes Seoul is on the right track.

In fact, the South is at a generational turning point, torn between those who remember the hardship and the dangers of the past and young people who often seem heedless of the lessons of history. Many older South Koreans still distrust the chaotic uncertainties of democracy, with its attendant student riots and labor unrest. While they may be uncomfortable with the nation’s continued dependence on U.S. troops, they remember all too clearly why the soldiers are there.

But to the young, the U.S. troops are only an unwelcome tool of American colonialism. Although radical students constitute a mere fraction of the population, their xenophobic views — blaming the U.S. for everything from the % slow pace of democratization to the country’s economic problems — are winning sympathy from a growing number of Koreans.

The one issue that unites all generations, however, is their longing for reunification. South Koreans look enviously toward East and West Germany, but they know that the two Germanys never clashed in war. And unlike the rapidly changing East European nations, North Korea remains a hostile state.

NORTH KOREA

Only 120 miles north of Seoul lies another world. There, from a drab, cheerless capital, the self-proclaimed “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung presides over an Orwellian state where the radios have dials that cannot be tuned and loudspeakers broadcast propaganda 20 hours a day into every home. Such totalitarianism is fast becoming extinct everywhere else in the world, but Kim not only survives, he is virtually worshiped by his people.

Kim’s popularity is all the more impressive given the failures of his rule. Food shortages are common, and energy is scarce. Hardships, when they are acknowledged at all, are attributed to the need to maintain a strong defense. Internal travel is carefully monitored, and households are organized into groups of five, with each family encouraged to report subversive activities by its neighbors. Still, few North Koreans admit envying their brethren in the South. Most accept their government’s description of South Korea as an undemocratic U.S.-puppet regime plagued by AIDS, pollution and prohibitive costs.

The key to the future is the Kims. While Kim Il Sung may be above criticism, his son and intended successor, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, 48, is not. The younger Kim, who is in charge of the nation’s day-to-day affairs, is being groomed for the communist world’s first dynastic succession, but many North Koreans privately blame him for the country’s economic problems.

Most observers expect young Kim’s rule to be short lived. “As soon as his father dies, Kim will be overthrown by the military,” predicts Kwon Moon Sool, director of the Research Institute on National Security Affairs in Seoul. In an attempt to guard against a coup, Kim has installed trusted allies in the Defense Ministry and the army. But if his father’s death provokes unrest, the military could well take over: there are no known democratic alternatives or any organized opposition groups.

So far, the elder Kim has kept his nation ignorant of the tumultuous events shaking the rest of the communist world. The only “news” allowed in North Korea is local propaganda. As a result, North Korea is not a place where the citizens are clamoring for democracy.

Kim may have more cause for concern in the abrupt shift by the Soviet Union. While Moscow continues to provide arms, relations between the two nations began cooling well before Gorbachev’s summit with Roh. In April Radio Moscow broadcasts criticized North Koreans as “completely brainwashed.” Soviet officials accompanying Gorbachev to the summit could barely conceal their impatience with Pyongyang.

Even in a hermetically sealed society, ideas do seep in. Some privileged academics, artists and athletes have traveled abroad and been exposed to the freedom of the outside world. Many foreign analysts believe the pressure for change will eventually be overwhelming — but only after Kim Il Sung is gone. Says Professor Kim Kook Chin, of Seoul’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security: “They have to open up their system to develop their economy. But if they do open the door, it will undermine their system. The more they open up, the more vulnerable they will be.”

For years, battered by the conflicting demands of its larger neighbors, Korea shut out the world and became a “Hermit Kingdom.” Today that is neither possible nor desirable. South Korea’s future is bright: economic prosperity should ease the transition to full democracy and lessen military dependence on the U.S., resulting in a more balanced partnership that will be welcomed by both nations. For North Korea, however, the immediate future is likely to be brutish. Until the kind of change that transformed Eastern Europe comes to this Asian outpost, reunification of the peninsula remains a dream for both North and South — dreams that are still very different.

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