In the first week of class, we learned about the impact that China and Japan had on Korean development. Chinese culture heavily influenced Korean culture. It has such a tremendous impact in many areas of Korean culture, including arts, written language, religion and government administration. Moreover, in-class we did individual research looking at different people. For example, I researched the former President of South Korea, Park Chung-Hee. He ruled for 18 years, and within this time he dramatically improved the economy, but it was at the cost of political liberty and freedom. He attended a military academy in Japan, which was how he became so impressed with Japan’s economic and military status. He was formally a Second Japanese Lieutenant in WWII. He only became a Korean officer when Korea was freed from the Japanese. Park Chung-Hee eventually became brigadier general for the Korean war and was eventually promoted to General in 1958. In May of 1961, he led a military coup that overthrew the second republic of Korea and remained the leader of the coup until three years later when he won his first term as president of the third republic. While in power he created policies that restricted personal freedom, suppressed the press and political organization, and maintained control over the judicial systems and universities. Overall, he was an efficient ruler who decided to force the people to give up civil liberties in order to bring the government into stability.
