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Synonyms

Korea; East Asia; Strategic location; Japanese colonialism; US Imperialism; South Korea; North Korea; Client state; History; Trump; Moon Jae-in; Kim Jong Un; US-China rivalry

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The Korean peninsula is where Russia, China, Japan and the United States meet and contest. It is the most strategically valuable location in the world and inevitably has been of consuming interest to imperialism, either to use as a strategic base for onward expansion or to deprive competitors of control. The actors have changed over the course of history – the Mongol and Japanese empires are no longer and the hegemony of the recently arrived US empire is under challenge especially from China. Korea, divided by the US into North and South in 1945 as part of its strategy against the Soviet Union, is still struggling to find a way to reunification and independence. Current US policy on Korea can only be understood within the framework of imperialism and resistance to it.

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Correspondence to Tim Beal .

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© 2019 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Beal, T. (2019). Korea and Imperialism. In: Ness, I., Cope, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_92-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_92-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91206-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-91206-6

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Korea and Imperialism
    Published:
    15 July 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_92-2

  2. Original

    Korea and Imperialism
    Published:
    14 May 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_92-1