General Matthew Ridgeway

In early 1951, the territory around Seoul and central Korea changed hands several times as the UN and Communist forces advanced and retreated. MacArthur insisted on the extension of the conflict into China, and on April 11, 1951, he was removed from his command on the charge of insubordination and replaced by General Matthew Ridgeway. By July 1951, the conflict had reached a stalemate, with the two sides fighting limited engagements, but with neither side in a position to force the other’s surrender. Both the United States and China had, at this point, achieved the short-term goal of maintaining the demarcation line at the 38th parallel, while the North and South Koreans had failed in the larger goal of uniting the country under their preferred political systems. Representatives of all the parties began to discuss peace.

For the next two years, small-scale skirmishes continued to break out, while the various representatives argued over the peace terms. After agreeing on the demarcation line and the settlement of airfields, the main issue blocking progress in the talks was the repatriation of prisoners of war. On July 27, 1953, the DPRK, PRC and UN signed an armistice (the ROK abstained) agreeing to a new border near the 38th parallel as the demarcation line between North and South Korea. Both sides would maintain and patrol a demilitarized zone (DMZ) surrounding that boundary line. The armistice also established a commission of neutral nations to oversee the voluntary repatriation of POWs. According to the agreement, each side would have to repatriate willing POWs within sixty days and send unwilling repatriates to the commission to oversee their departure to their preferred destinations. Under the supervision of the commission, some 14,227 Chinese and 7,582 North Koreas opted against repatriation; the Chinese were sent to Taiwan rather than the Chinese mainland. A handful of U.S. and British POWs in North Korea opted against repatriation as well, choosing instead to live in Communist China or North Korea.

The armistice was only a ceasefire agreement, not a formal peace treaty ending the war. A final peace treaty was supposed to be on the agenda at the Geneva Conference of 1954, but by the time that conference began, the French colonial war in Indochina took precedence. Ultimately, the United States and the ROK signed a mutual defense treaty, and U.S. troops became a part of the DMZ patrols on a semi-permanent basis.

The Korean War had long-lasting consequences for the entire region. Though it failed to unify the country, the United States achieved its larger goals, including preserving and promoting NATO interests and defending Japan. The war also resulted in a divided Korea and complicated any possibility for accommodation between the United States and China. The Korean War served to encourage the U.S. Cold War policies of containment and militarization, setting the stage for the further enlargement of the U.S. defense perimeter in Asia. These Cold War policies would eventually lead the United States to regional actions that included its attempts at preventing the fall of Vietnam to communism.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 641