Asian History

Beate Sirota Gordon

Beate Sirota Gordon (/beɪˈɑːteɪ/; October 25, 1923 - December 30, 2012) was an Austrian-born American performing arts presenter and women's rights advocate. She was the former Performing Arts Director of the Japan Society and the Asia Society and was one of the last surviving members of the team that worked under Douglas MacArthur to write the Constitution of Japan after World War II.[1] During World War II, Sirota was completely cut off from her parents in Japan. She later said that in the U.S. in 1940, she was one of only sixty-five Caucasians who were fluent in Japanese.[6] During the war, she worked for the Office of War Information in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the Federal Communications Commission. She also worked for Time magazine.[5] As soon as the war ended, Sirota went to Japan in search of her parents, who survived the war as internees in Karuizawa, Nagano.[5] On Christmas Eve, 1945,[1] she was the first civilian woman to arrive in post-war Japan. Assigned to the Political Affairs staff, she worked for Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Douglas MacArthur's occupation army as a translator. In addition to Japanese, she was fluent in English, German, French, and Russian.[3] When the U.S. began drafting a new constitution for Japan in February 1946,[1] Sirota was enlisted to help and was assigned to the subcommittee dedicated to writing the section of the constitution devoted to civil rights.[5] She was one of only two women in the larger group, the other being economist Eleanor Hadley. Sirota played an integral role, drafting the language regarding legal equality between men and women in Japan,[7] including Articles 14 and 24 on Equal Rights and Women's Civil Rights. Article 14 states, in part: "All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin". Article 24 includes: Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. 2) With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes. These additions to the constitution were vital to women's rights in Japan. "Japanese women were historically treated like chattel; they were property to be bought and sold on a whim," Gordon said in 1999.[8] Sirota, as interpreter on MacArthur's staff, was the only woman present during the negotiations between the Japanese Steering Committee and the American team. In 1947, Sirota was a target of Major General Charles A. Willoughby's year-long investigation of leftist infiltration, in which he tried to construct a case against Sirota, charging her with advancing the Communist cause within the new government of Japan.[9]

Chun Doo Hwan

Chun Doo Hwan, (born Jan. 18, 1931, Hapch'ŏn, South Kyŏngsang, Korea [now in South Korea]), Korean soldier and politician who was president of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. Born into a peasant family, Chun entered the Korean Military Academy in 1951. Following his graduation in 1955, he became an infantry officer and in 1958 married Lee Soon Ja, daughter of Brig. Gen. Lee Kyu Dong. Chun commanded a South Korean division in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War and rose rapidly through the ranks. After Park Chung Hee seized power in 1961, Chun served as civil service secretary for the junta (1961-62) and, in 1963, with the nominal restoration of civilian government, as chief of personnel of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA; now the National Intelligence Service). He served in various other official posts and was made a brigadier general in 1978. After the assassination of President Park in 1979, Chun, as the chief of army security command, took charge of the investigation of his death. He arrested several suspects, including his rival, the army chief of staff, Gen. Chung Sŭng Hwa (December 1979), and he purged many of Chung's supporters in a virtual coup by one military faction against another. Although the official president was Choi Kyu Hah, Chun emerged as the real holder of power, and in April 1980 he became head of the KCIA. In May the military under Chun's leadership dropped all pretense of civilian rule, declared martial law, and brutally suppressed democratic civilian opposition in the city of Kwangju. After President Choi resigned on August 16, Chun resigned from the army and on August 27 became president. With the country still under martial law, Chun pushed through a new constitution in late 1980 that allowed him to govern with a firm hand. Chun's tenure was punctuated by several crises, notably a financial scandal in 1982 that forced him to replace half his cabinet and an assassination attempt in Burma (Myanmar) by North Korean agents in 1983 that resulted in the deaths of several top aides and ministers. As president, Chun devoted his efforts to maintaining economic growth and political stability. South Korea continued its export-led economic growth under Chun, and the nation industrialized rapidly. Chun was prohibited by the terms of the 1980 constitution from serving more than one seven-year term, and in 1987 he picked Roh Tae Woo to be the candidate of the ruling Democratic Justice Party (now part of the Grand National Party). He retired from politics after being succeeded by Roh in 1988. Despite public gestures of atonement for abuses of power during his presidency, Chun could not distance himself from the lingering public memory of his actions. In December 1995 both he and Roh were indicted on charges of having accepted bribes during their terms as president. In addition, the outcry over the extent of the fraud (hundreds of millions of dollars) prompted prosecutors to pursue charges (which had been brought by the prosecutor's office in 1994) related to their involvement in the 1979 coup and their actions during the 1980 uprising in Kwangju. Both were found guilty of all charges in August 1996. Chun was sentenced to death and Roh to 221/2 years in prison. Chun's sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment and Roh's to 17 years; both received presidential pardons in December 1997.

Indochina War

First War In the First Indochina War, the Viet Minh, supported by the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, fought to gain their independence from the French, supported initially by the remaining troops of the Japanese Army after its surrender to Britain, also by the French-loyalist Vietnamese Catholic minority, and later by the United States in the frame of the Cold War. This war of independence lasted from December 1946 until July 1954, with most of the fighting taking place in areas surrounding Hanoi. It ended with the French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and French withdrawal from Vietnam after the Geneva Agreements. Second War The Second Indochina War, commonly known as the Vietnam War, pitted the recently successful Communist Vietnam People's Army (VPA or PAVN, but also known as the North Vietnamese Army or NVA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (Vietnamese NLF guerrilla fighters allied with the PAVN, known in the America as the Viet Cong, meaning 'Communists Traitor to Vietnam')[2] against United States troops and the United States-backed by South Vietnamsse Government ARVN (Republic of Vietnam soldiers). During the War, the North Vietnamese transported most of their supplies via the Ho Chi Minh Trail (known to the Vietnamese as the Truong Son Trail, after the Truong Son mountains), which ran through Laos and Cambodia. As a result, the areas of these nations bordering Vietnam would see heavy combat during the war. For the United States, the political and combat goals were ambiguous: success and progress were ill-defined and, along with the large numbers of casualties, the Vietnam War raised moral issues that made the war increasingly unpopular at home. U.S. news reports of the 1968 Tet offensive, especially from CBS, were unfavorable in regard to the lack of progress in ending the war. Although the 1968 Tet offensive resulted in a military victory for South Vietnam and the United States, with virtually complete destruction of the NLF forces combat capability, it was, by the intensity of the combats, the contradiction it implied with recent reports of withdrawals of US troops and status of the war,[3] also a turning point in American voter opposition to U.S. support for their Cold War Vietnamese allies. The United States began withdrawing troops from Vietnam in 1970, with the last troops returning in January, 1973. The Paris Peace Accords called for a cease-fire, and prohibited the North Vietnamese from sending more troops into South Vietnam - although the North Vietnamese were permitted to continue to occupy those regions of South Vietnam they had conquered in the 1972 Easter Offensive. The North Vietnamese never intended to abide by the agreement. Fighting continued sporadically through 1973 and 1974, while the North Vietnamese planned a major offensive, tentatively scheduled for 1976. The North Vietnamese Army in South Vietnam had been ravaged during the Easter offensive in 1973, and it was projected that it would take until 1976 to rebuild their logistical capabilities. The withdrawal had catastrophic effects on the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). Shortly after the Paris Peace Accords, the United States Congress made major budget cuts in military aid to the South Vietnamese. The ARVN, which had been trained by American troops to use American tactics, quickly fell into disarray. Although it remained an effective fighting force throughout 1973 and 1974, by January 1975 it had disintegrated. The North Vietnamese hurriedly attacked the much weakened South, and was met with little resistance. Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was taken by the PAVN on April 30, 1975, and the Second Indochina War ended. The fighting that took place between North and South Vietnam following United States withdrawal is sometimes called the Third Indochina War; this term usually refers to a later 1979 conflict, however (see below). Third War The Third Indochina War, commonly known as the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, started on 1 May 1975 when the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army invaded the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc. Vietnamese forces quickly counter-attacked, regaining their territory and invading the Kampuchean island of Koh Wai. In August 1975, Vietnam returned island of Koh Wai to Kampuchea and both governments started making peaceful noises, but behind the scenes tensions were mounting. On 30 April 1977, Kampuchea started attacking Vietnamese villages. In September, six divisions crossed the border, advancing 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) into Tay Ninh Province. Angered by the scale of the attacks, the Vietnam People's Army assembled eight divisions to launch a retaliatory strike against Kampuchea. In December, in an effort to force the Kampuchean government to negotiate, the Vietnamese forces invaded Kampuchea, easily defeating the Kampuchean army. On 6 January 1978, Vietnamese forces were only 38 kilometers (24 mi) from Phnom Penh; however, the Kampuchean government remained defiant and the Vietnamese leadership realised they would not secure their political objective and decided to withdraw their troops. As Kampuchean forces soon resumed their attacks across the border, the Vietnamese launched another limited counter-attack in June, forcing the Kampucheans to retreat. Again the Vietnamese withdrew and the Kampucheans resumed their attacks. Vietnam had enough; in December 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion. Phnom Penh was captured in January 1979, the ruling Khmer Rouge were driven from power and a pro-Vietnamese government was installed. In 1984, Vietnam unveiled a plan for the disengagement of its army from Kampuchea. In 1988, the Vietnamese Government began withdrawing forces in earnest; the last men left in September 1989.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru (/ˈneɪruː, ˈnɛruː/;[1] Hindustani: [ˈdʒəʋaːɦərˈlaːl ˈneːɦru] (About this sound listen); 14 November 1889 - 27 May 1964) was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics before and after independence. He emerged as the paramount leader of the Indian independence movement under the tutelage of Mahatma Gandhi and ruled India from its establishment as an independent nation in 1947 until his death in 1964. He is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state: a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic. He was also known as Pandit Nehru due to his roots with the Kashmiri Pandit community while many Indian children knew him as Chacha Nehru (Hindi, lit., "Uncle Nehru").[2][3] The son of Motilal Nehru, a prominent lawyer and nationalist statesman and Swaroop Rani, Nehru was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and the Inner Temple, where he trained to be a barrister. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the Allahabad High Court, and took an interest in national politics, which eventually replaced his legal practice. A committed nationalist since his teenage years, he became a rising figure in Indian politics during the upheavals of the 1910s. He became the prominent leader of the left-wing factions of the Indian National Congress during the 1920s, and eventually of the entire Congress, with the tacit approval of his mentor, Gandhi. As Congress President in 1929, Nehru called for complete independence from the British Raj and instigated the Congress's decisive shift towards the left. Nehru and the Congress dominated Indian politics during the 1930s as the country moved towards independence. His idea of a secular nation-state was seemingly validated when the Congress, under his leadership, swept the 1937 provincial elections and formed the government in several provinces; on the other hand, the separatist Muslim League fared much poorer. But these achievements were seriously compromised in the aftermath of the Quit India Movement in 1942, which saw the British effectively crush the Congress as a political organisation. Nehru, who had reluctantly heeded Gandhi's call for immediate independence, for he had desired to support the Allied war effort during World War II, came out of a lengthy prison term to a much altered political landscape. The Muslim League under his old Congress colleague and now opponent, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had come to dominate Muslim politics in India. Negotiations between Nehru and Jinnah for power sharing failed and gave way to the independence and bloody partition of India in 1947. Nehru was elected by the Congress to assume office as independent India's first Prime Minister, although the question of leadership had been settled as far back as 1941, when Gandhi acknowledged Nehru as his political heir and successor. As Prime Minister, he set out to realise his vision of India. The Constitution of India was enacted in 1950, after which he embarked on an ambitious program of economic, social and political reforms. Chiefly, he oversaw India's transition from a colony to a republic, while nurturing a plural, multi-party system. In foreign policy, he took a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement while projecting India as a regional hegemon in South Asia. Under Nehru's leadership, the Congress emerged as a catch-all party, dominating national and state-level politics and winning consecutive elections in 1951, 1957, and 1962. He remained popular with the people of India in spite of political troubles in his final years and failure of leadership during the 1962 Sino-Indian War. In India, his birthday is celebrated as Bal Diwas (Children's Day).

Kwangju

Kwangju Uprising, also called Kwangju Rebellion, Kwangju also spelled Gwangju, mass protest against the South Korean military government that took place in the southern city of Kwangju between May 18 and 27, 1980. Nearly a quarter of a million people participated in the rebellion. Although it was brutally repressed and initially unsuccessful in bringing about democratic reform in South Korea, it is considered to have been a pivotal moment in the South Korean struggle for democracy. The roots of the Kwangju Uprising may be traced to the authoritarianism of the Republic of Korea's first president, the anticommunist Syngman Rhee. During his almost 18 years in office, Rhee grew continuously more repressive toward his political opposition in particular and the country's citizens in general. Those conditions precipitated massive student-led demonstrations in early 1960 and Rhee's ouster in April of that year. After the country was governed for a brief period by a parliamentary system, a military coup led by Gen. Park Chung-Hee displaced the government in May 1961. Park became president the following year and remained in office for the next 18 years. As president, Park repressed the political opposition and the personal freedom of South Korea's citizens and controlled the press and the universities. In December 1972 he introduced the Yushin Constitution, which dramatically increased presidential powers and created a virtual dictatorship. When Park was assassinated on October 26, 1979, a power void resulted that was filled by Chun Doo-Hwan, a brigadier general who had taken control of the South Korean military through an internal coup. Once in power, Chun persuaded the new president, Choi Kyu-Hah, to name him chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in April 1980. The military, under Chun's leadership, declared martial law the following month. The situation soon escalated with a series of nationwide protests against military rule that were led by labour activists, students, and opposition leaders, who began calling for democratic elections. Kwangju—the provincial capital of South Chŏlla (South Jeolla), in southwestern South Korea—which had a long history of political opposition and a simmering grievance toward the Park regime, was a centre of the pro-democracy movement. On May 18 some 600 students gathered at Chonnam National University to protest against the suppression of academic freedom and were beaten by government forces. Civilian demonstrators joined the students. With the approval of the United States, which had maintained operational control over combined U.S. and Korean forces since the end of the Korean War, Chun's government sent elite paratroopers from the Special Forces to Kwangju to contain the unrest. When the soldiers arrived, they began beating the demonstrators. Rather than squelch the protest, the brutal tactics had the opposite affect, inciting more citizens to join in. As the uprising continued, protesters broke into police stations and armories to seize weapons. They armed themselves with bats, knives, pipes, hammers, Molotov cocktails, and whatever else they could find. They faced 18,000 riot police and 3,000 paratroopers. On May 20 a newspaper called the Militants' Bulletin was published to counter the "official" news being published by government-run or highly partisan media outlets such as the newspaper Chosun Ilbo, which had characterized the protesters as hoodlums with guns. By the early evening of May 21, the government had retreated, and the citizens of Kwangju declared the city liberated from military rule. The relative quiet lasted only six days. In the predawn hours of May 27, Chun's military forces unleashed tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and helicopters that began indiscriminately attacking the city. It took the military only two hours to completely crush the uprising. According to official government figures, nearly 200 people—the great majority of them civilians—were killed in the rebellion, but Kwangju citizens and students insisted that the number was closer to 2,000. Despite the uprising's failure to bring about democracy in the Korean peninsula, the sentiments surrounding the episode continued to simmer afterward. By the late 1980s public demand and scrutiny had led to the reinstitution of direct presidential elections under Chun's chosen successor, Roh Tae-Woo, and in 1993 Kim Young-Sam became the first president democratically elected by the Korean people. In 1998 Kim Dae-Jung, who had once been arrested and sentenced to death for his role during the Kwangju Uprising, became the second democratically elected president; Roh Moo Hyun, who became president in 2003, also had a connection to the uprising. In 1996 Chun and Roh Tae-Woo had been convicted of mutiny, treason, and corruption in connection with the 1979 coup and the Kwangju massacre, but Kim Dae-Jung upon taking office as president in 1997 pardoned both men. The events of 1980 in Kwangju continued to have a significant impact on the Korean people and the politics on the peninsula. The role played by the U.S. military during the uprising led to an increase in anti-American sentiment among South Korean students and activists. A national cemetery in Kwangju is dedicated to the victims killed during the struggle for democracy. A Kwangju museum devoted to the uprising and the designation of May 18 as a national day of commemoration likewise mark the significance of the Kwangju Uprising in the development of democracy in South Korea.

MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry)

MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) was created with the split of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in May 1949 and given the mission for coordinating international trade policy with other groups, such as the Bank of Japan, the Economic planning Agency, and the various commerce-related cabinet ministries. At the time it was created, Japan was still recovering from the economic disaster of World War II. With inflation rising and productivity failing to keep up, the government sought a better mechanism for reviving the Japanese economy. MITI has been responsible not only in the areas of exports and imports but also for all domestic industries and businesses not specifically covered by other ministries in the areas of investment in plant and equipment, pollution control, energy and power, some aspects of foreign economic assistance, and consumer complaints. This span has allowed MITI to integrate conflicting policies, such as those on pollution control and export competitiveness, to minimize damage to export industries. MITI has served as an architect of industrial policy, an arbiter on industrial problems and disputes, and a regulator. A major objective of the ministry has been to strengthen the country's industrial base. It has not managed Japanese trade and industry along the lines of a centrally planned economy, but it has provided industries with administrative guidance and other direction, both formal and informal, on modernization, technology, investments in new plants and equipment, and domestic and foreign competition. The close relationship between MITI and Japanese industry has led to foreign trade policy that often complements the ministry's efforts to strengthen domestic manufacturing interests. MITI facilitated the early development of nearly all major industries by providing protection from import competition, technological intelligence, help in licensing foreign technology, access to foreign exchange, and assistance in mergers. These policies to promote domestic industry and to protect it from international competition were strongest in the 1950s and 1960s. As industry became stronger and as MITI lost some of its policy tools, such as control over allocation of foreign exchange, MITI's policies also changed. The success of Japanese exports and the tension it has caused in other countries led MITI to provide guidance on limiting exports of particular products to various countries. Starting in 1981, MITI presided over the establishment of voluntary restraints on automobile exports to the United States to allay criticism from American manufacturers and their unions. Similarly, MITI was forced to liberalize import policies, despite its traditional protectionist focus. During the 1980s, the ministry helped to craft a number of market-opening and import promoting measures, including the creation of an import promotion office within the ministry. The close relationship between MITI and industry allowed the ministry to play such a role in fostering more open markets, but conflict remained between the need to open markets and the desire to continue promoting new and growing domestic industries. As late as the 1980s, prime ministers were expected to serve a tenure as MITI minister before taking over the government. MITI worked closely with Japanese business interests, and was largely responsible for keeping the domestic market closed to most foreign companies. MITI lost some influence when the switch was made to a floating exchange rate between the United States dollar and yen in 1971. Before that point, MITI had been able to keep the exchange rate artificially low, which benefited Japan's exporters. Later, intense lobbying from other countries, particularly the United States, pushed Japan to introduce more liberal trade laws that further lessened MITI's grip over the Japanese economy. By the mid-1980s, the ministry was helping foreign corporations set up operations in Japan.

Muhammed Ali Jinnah

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Urdu: محمد علی جناح‬‎ ALA-LC: Muḥammad ʿAlī Jināḥ, born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 - 11 September 1948) was a lawyer, politician, and the founder of Pakistan.[2] Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on 14 August 1947, and then as Pakistan's first Governor-General until his death. He is revered in Pakistan as Quaid-i-Azam (Urdu: قائد اعظم‬‎, "Great Leader") and Baba-i-Qaum (بابائے قوم‬, "Father of the Nation"). His birthday is considered a national holiday in Pakistan.[3][4] Born at Wazir Mansion in Karachi, Jinnah was trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn in London. Upon his return to British India, he enrolled at the Bombay High Court, and took an interest in national politics, which eventually replaced his legal practice. Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of his political career, Jinnah advocated Hindu-Muslim unity, helping to shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, in which Jinnah had also become prominent. Jinnah became a key leader in the All India Home Rule League, and proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims. In 1920, however, Jinnah resigned from the Congress when it agreed to follow a campaign of satyagraha, which he regarded as political anarchy. By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe that Muslims of the Indian subcontinent should have their own state. In that year, the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate nation. During the Second World War, the League gained strength while leaders of the Congress were imprisoned, and in the elections held shortly after the war, it won most of the seats reserved for Muslims. Ultimately, the Congress and the Muslim League could not reach a power-sharing formula for the subcontinent to be united as a single state, leading all parties to agree to the independence of a predominantly Hindu India, and for a Muslim-majority state of Pakistan. As the first Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah worked to establish the new nation's government and policies, and to aid the millions of Muslim migrants who had emigrated from the new nation of India to Pakistan after independence, personally supervising the establishment of refugee camps. Jinnah died at age 71 in September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan gained independence from the United Kingdom. He left a deep and respected legacy in Pakistan. Innumerable streets, roads and localities in the world are named after Jinnah. Several universities and public buildings in Pakistan bear Jinnah's name. According to his biographer, Stanley Wolpert, he remains Pakistan's greatest leader.

Postwar Constitution (Japan)

On May 3, 1947, Japan's postwar constitution goes into effect. The progressive constitution granted universal suffrage, stripped Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power, stipulated a bill of rights, abolished peerage, and outlawed Japan's right to make war. The document was largely the work of Supreme Allied Commander Douglas MacArthur and his occupation staff, who had prepared the draft in February 1946 after a Japanese attempt was deemed unacceptable.

Mohandas Gandhi

Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one." He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India's struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle-he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl-and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India's poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Dien Bien Phu

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (French: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu pronounced [bataj də djɛn bjɛn fy]; Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, IPA: [ɗîəˀn ɓīən fû]) was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist-nationalist revolutionaries. It was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that influenced negotiations underway at Geneva among several nations over the future of Indochina. As a result of blunders in French decision-making, the French began an operation to insert, then support, the soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the hills of northwestern Vietnam. Its purpose was to cut off Viet Minh supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos, a French ally, and tactically draw the Viet Minh into a major confrontation in order to cripple them. The plan was to resupply the French position by air, and was based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability. The Viet Minh, however, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French. The Viet Minh brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery (including antiaircraft guns). They moved these weapons through difficult terrain up the rear slopes of the mountains surrounding the French positions, dug tunnels through the mountain, and placed the artillery pieces overlooking the French encampment. This positioning of the artillery made it nearly impervious to French counter-battery fire. The Viet Minh opened fire with a massive artillery bombardment in March. After several days the French artillery commander, Charles Piroth, unable to respond with any effective counterbattery fire, committed suicide. The Viet Minh occupied the highlands around Điện Biên Phủ and bombarded the French positions. Tenacious fighting on the ground ensued, reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I. The French repeatedly repulsed Viet Minh assaults on their positions. Supplies and reinforcements were delivered by air, though as the key French positions were overrun, the French perimeter contracted and the air resupply on which the French had placed their hopes became impossible. As the Viet Minh antiaircraft fire took its toll, fewer and fewer of those supplies reached the French. The garrison was overrun in May after a two-month siege, and most of the French forces surrendered. A few of them escaped to Laos. The French government in Paris then resigned, and the new Prime Minister, the left-of-centre Pierre Mendès France, supported French withdrawal from Indochina. The war ended shortly after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords. France agreed to withdraw its forces from all its colonies in French Indochina, while stipulating that Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, with control of the north given to the Viet Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, and the south becoming the State of Vietnam, nominally under Emperor Bảo Đại, preventing Ho Chi Minh from gaining control of the entire country.[14] The refusal of Ngô Đình Diệm (the US-supported president of the first Republic of Vietnam [RVN]) to allow elections in 1956, as had been stipulated by the Geneva Conference, eventually led to the Vietnam War.

Mountbatten Plan

The Indian Independence Act 1947 (1947 c. 30 (10 & 11. Geo. 6.)) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. The Act received the royal assent on 18 July 1947, and Pakistan came into being on 14 August and India came into being on 15 August.[1] The legislation was formulated by the government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the Governor General of India Lord Mountbatten, after representatives of the Indian National Congress,[2] the Muslim League,[3] and the Sikh community[4] came to an agreement with Lord Mountbatten on what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan. This plan was the last plan for independence.

Self-Defense Forces (SDF)

The Japan Self-Defense Forces (自衛隊 Jieitai), or JSDF, occasionally referred to as JSF, JDF, or SDF, are the unified military forces of Japan that were established in 1954, and are controlled by the Ministry of Defense. In recent years they have been engaged in international peacekeeping operations including UN peacekeeping.[6] Recent tensions, particularly with North Korea,[7] have reignited the debate over the status of the JSDF and its relation to Japanese society.[8] New military guidelines, announced in December 2010, will direct the JSDF away from its Cold War focus on the former Soviet Union to a focus on China, especially regarding the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands, while increasing cooperation with the United States, South Korea, Australia and India.[9]

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)

The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (自由民主党 Jiyū-Minshutō), frequently abbreviated to LDP or Jimintō (自民党), is a conservative[11] political party in Japan. The LDP has near continuously been in power since its foundation in 1955, with the exception of a period between 1993 and 1994, and again from 2009 to 2012. In the 2012 election it regained control of government. It holds 291 seats in the lower house and 121 seats in the upper house, with the Komeito the governing coalition has the supermajority in both houses. Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and many present and former LDP ministers are also known members of Nippon Kaigi, a monarchist and negationist organization.[12] The LDP is not to be confused with the now-defunct Liberal Party (自由党 Jiyūtō), which merged with the Democratic Party of Japan (民主党 Minshutō) to become the Democratic Party (民進党 Minshintō), the main opposition party until 2017.[13]

Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge (/kəˈmɛər ˈruːʒ/, French: [kmɛʁ ʁuʒ], "Red Khmers"; Khmer: ខ្មែរក្រហម Khmer Kror-Horm) was the name given to Cambodian (Khmer) communists (rouge, French for red) and later the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in Cambodia who infamously carried out the Cambodian genocide. The Khmer Rouge's army was slowly built up in the jungles of Eastern Cambodia during the late 1960s and was supported by the North Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong, and the Pathet Lao. The Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War when, in 1975, they captured the Cambodian capital and overthrew the government of the Khmer Republic. Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan installed a government called the Democratic Kampuchea and immediately set about forcibly depopulating the country's cities, murdering hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents and carrying out the Cambodian genocide in which 1.5 to 3 million people (around 25% of Cambodia's population) were killed. The Khmer Rouge regime was highly autocratic, xenophobic, paranoid, and repressive. The genocide was under the guise of the Khmer Rouge enforcing its social engineering policies.[1] Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the death of thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria. Part of the purification included numerous genocides of Cambodian minorities. Arbitrary executions and torture were carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during genocidal purges[2] of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978. The regime was removed from power in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and quickly destroyed most of the Khmer Rouge's army. The Khmer Rouge then fled to Thailand whose government saw them as a buffer force against the Communist Vietnamese. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight the Vietnamese and the new People's Republic of Kampuchea government during the Cambodian-Vietnamese War which ended in 1991. The Cambodian governments-in-exile (including the Khmer Rouge) held onto Cambodia's UN seat (with considerable international support) until 1993, when the monarchy was restored and the country's name was changed to the Kingdom of Cambodia. A year later, thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered themselves in a government amnesty. In 1996, a new political party, the Democratic National Union Movement, was formed by Ieng Sary, who was granted amnesty for his role as the deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge.[3] The organization (Khmer Rouge) was largely dissolved by the mid-1990s, and finally surrendered completely in 1999.[4] In 2014, two Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were jailed for life by a UN-backed court, which found them guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign.

Korean War

The Korean War (in South Korean Hangul: 한국전쟁; Hanja: 韓國戰爭; RR: Hanguk Jeonjaeng, "Korean War"; in North Korean Chosŏn'gŭl: 조국해방전쟁; Hancha: 祖國解放戰爭; MR: Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng, "Fatherland: Liberation War"; 25 June 1950 - 27 July 1953)[38][39][b] was a war between North Korea (with the support of China and the Soviet Union) and South Korea (with the principal support of the United States). The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea[41][42] following a series of clashes along the border.[43][44] The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea. China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union also gave some assistance to the North. As a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions with separate governments. Both claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—moved into the south on 25 June 1950.[45] The United Nations Security Council authorized the formation and dispatch of UN forces to Korea[46] to repel what was recognized as a North Korean invasion.[47][48] Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel.[49] After the first two months of war, South Korean and U.S. forces rapidly dispatched to Korea were on the point of defeat, forced back to a small area in the south known as the Pusan Perimeter. In September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Incheon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were forced back north. UN forces rapidly approached the Yalu River—the border with China—but in October 1950, mass Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war.[45] The surprise Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951. After these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate. North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in air-to-air combat for the first time in history, and Soviet pilots covertly flew in defense of their communist allies. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty has been signed, and according to some sources the two Koreas are technically still at war, engaged in a frozen conflict.[50][51] In April 2018, the leaders of North and South Korea met at the demilitarized zone[52] and agreed to sign a treaty by the end of the year to formally end the Korean War.[53] As a war undeclared by all participants, the conflict helped bring the term "police action" into common use. It also led to the permanent alteration of the balance of power within the United Nations, where Resolution 377—passed in 1950 to allow a bypassing of the Security Council if that body could not reach an agreement—led to the General Assembly displacing the Security Council as the primary organ of the UN.[54]

Tiananmen Square

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, commonly known in mainland China as the June Fourth Incident (六四事件), were student-led demonstrations in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China, in 1989. More broadly, it refers to the popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests during that period, sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement (八九民运). The protests were forcibly suppressed after the government declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks killed at least several hundred demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454.[2][5] Set against a backdrop of rapid economic development and social changes in post-Mao China, the protests reflected anxieties about the country's future in the popular consciousness and among the political elite. The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy which benefitted some people but seriously disaffected others; the one-party political system also faced a challenge of legitimacy. Common grievances at the time included inflation, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. The students called for democracy, greater accountability, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech, though they were loosely organized and their goals varied.[6][7] At the height of the protests, about a million people assembled in the Square.[8]

USAMGIK

The United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from September 8, 1945 to August 15, 1948. The country in this period was plagued by political and economic chaos, which arose from a variety of causes. The after effects of the Japanese occupation were still felt in the occupation zone, as well as in the Soviet zone in the North.[1] Popular discontent stemmed from the U.S. Military Government's support of the Japanese colonial government; then once removed, keeping the former Japanese governors on as advisors; by ignoring, censoring and forcibly disbanding the functional and popular People's Republic of Korea (PRK); and finally by supporting United Nations elections that divided the country.[1] In addition, the U.S. military was largely unprepared for the challenge of administering the country, arriving with no knowledge of the language or political situation.[2] Thus, many of their policies had unintended destabilizing effects. Waves of refugees from North Korea (estimated at 400,000)[3] and returnees from abroad also helped to keep the country in turmoil.[4]

Domino theory

The domino theory was a Cold War policy that suggested a communist government in one nation would quickly lead to communist takeovers in neighboring states, each falling like a perfectly aligned row of dominos. In Southeast Asia, the U.S. government used the now-discredited domino theory to justify its involvement in the Vietnam War and its support for a non-communist dictator in South Vietnam. In fact, the American failure to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam had much less of an impact than had been assumed by proponents of the domino theory. With the exception of Laos and Cambodia, communism failed to spread throughout Southeast Asia.

Zaibatsu

Zaibatsu (財閥, "financial clique") is a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji period until the end of World War II.

Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek (/ˈtʃæŋ kaɪˈʃɛk, ˈdʒjɑːŋ/;[3] 31 October 1887 - 5 April 1975), also romanized as Chiang Chieh-shih and known as Chiang Chungcheng, was a political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975. Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, as well as a close ally of Sun Yat-sen's. Chiang became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT following the Canton Coup in early 1926. Having neutralized the party's left wing, Chiang then led Sun's long-postponed Northern Expedition, conquering or reaching accommodations with China's many warlords.[4] From 1928 to 1948, Chiang served as chairman of the National Government of the Republic of China (ROC). Chiang was socially conservative, promoting traditional Chinese culture in the New Life Movement and rejecting both capitalism and western democracy alongside Sun's nationalist democratic socialism in favour of an authoritarian government.[citation needed] Unable to maintain Sun's good relations with the communists, Chiang purged them in a massacre at Shanghai and repression of uprisings at Kwangtung and elsewhere. At the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which later became the Chinese theater of World War II, Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang and obliged him to establish a Second United Front with the communists. After the defeat of the Japanese, the American-sponsored Marshall Mission, an attempt to negotiate a coalition government, failed in 1946. The Chinese Civil War resumed, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong defeating the Nationalists and declaring the People's Republic of China in 1949. Chiang's government and army retreated to Taiwan, where Chiang imposed martial law and persecuted critics in a period known as the "White Terror". After evacuating to Taiwan, Chiang's government continued to declare its intention to retake mainland China. Chiang ruled Taiwan securely as President of the Republic of China and General of the Kuomintang until his death in 1975, just one year short of Mao's death.[5] Like Mao, Chiang is regarded as a controversial figure: supporters credit him with playing a major part in the Allied victory of the Second World War and unifying the nation and a national figure of the Chinese resistance against Japan, as well as his staunch anti-Soviet and anti-communist stance; detractors and critics denounce him as a dictator at the front of an authoritarian autocracy who suppressed and purged opponents and critics and arbitrarily incarcerated those he deemed as opposing to the Kuomintang among others.

Diem regime

During his presidency, Diệm imposed programs to reform Saigon society in accordance with Catholic and Confucian values. Brothels and opium dens were closed, divorce and abortion were made illegal, and adultery laws were strengthened.[70] Besides, Diệm's government established many schools and universities, such as the National Technical Center at Phú Thọ in 1957, the University of Saigon (1956), the University of Hue (1957), and the University of Dalat (1957)[71] Diệm also paid attention to the preservation of Vietnamese traditional culture. Diệm restored and organized some traditional festivals, such as Hung kings ancestor festival (No, but on the contrary, Ngo Dinh Diệm during his nine years in power did not allow any celebration of the Hung kings, the Vietnam National founding fathers [72],[73]and[74]), The Trưng sisters festival ... According to Diệm, the values of traditional culture, along with Catholic and Confucian values were powerful in the fight against Materialism.[75] Regarding economic development, Diệm and Nhu, in the political program of the Can Lao party and National Revolutionary Movement, pointed out the key factors of the RVN economy: a developed and independent economy, support for local capitalists, stabilized currency and reduced budget deficits; enhanced building infrastructure to meet military needs and create a prosperous South Vietnam. In 1957, Diệm's government suggested the 5-year plan (1957-1961), which aimed at expanding cultivated area to 20 percent and improving agricultural production to 25%, restoring exploitative industry and developing infrastructure. On 31 December 1955, Diệm promulgated Decree 48 on RVN independence on currency and banknotes (This is not in accordance with the first sentence of the last paragraph under "Being Prime Minister and consolidation of power" subtitle, with ref 54).[76] Diệm's government also encouraged the development of handicrafts, industry, and commerce. In October 1957, Diệm established the Center for Technological Development for Investment, Instruction, and Cooperation and supported private technological activities to gradually diminish the role of foreign capitalists, especially French capitalists in industry and to enhance the role of indigenous capitalists in the RVN economy. In 1961, Diệm suggested the second 5-year plan (1962-1966) to continue the first 5-year plan. During the first Republic of Vietnam, some indigenous industrial zones or factories were founded, such as the Cogido paper factory in An Hảo (1961), Vinatexco and Vimytex textile factories, the Khánh Hội glassware factory, the Hà Tiên and Thủ Đức cement factories, the Đa Nhim hydroelectric facility (1961), Đà Lạt nuclear research centre (1963), and the Biên Hòa industrial zone (1963). During 1956-1960, Diệm built a relatively stable RVN with a stable economy along with development of infrastructure and people's standards of living due to export of home comforts. Nevertheless, Diệm also admitted the dependence of RVN's economy on US assistance: "Today, the country is not self-sufficient. We can say that foreign assistance is a kind of compensation for the services our people have provided to the free world to protect SEA market, and to fight against manipulations of international communism".[77]

Kim Il Sung

Kim Il-sung or Kim Il Sung (/ˈkɪm ˈɪlˈsʌŋ, ˈsʊŋ/;[1] Chosŏn'gŭl: 김일성, Korean: [kimils͈ʌŋ]; born Kim Sŏng-ju (김성주); 15 April 1912 - 8 July 1994) was the leader of North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994.[2] He held the posts of Premier from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to 1994. He was also the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) from 1949 to 1994 (titled chairman from 1949 to 1966 and general secretary after 1966). Coming to power after the end of Japanese rule in 1945, he authorized the invasion of South Korea in 1950, triggering a defense of South Korea by the United Nations led by the United States. Following the military stalemate in the Korean War, a cease-fire was signed on 27 July 1953. He was the second longest-serving non-royal head of state/government in the 20th century, in office for more than 45 years. Under his leadership, North Korea became a communist state with a publicly owned and planned economy. It had close political and economic relations with the Soviet Union. By the 1960s, North Korea enjoyed a relatively high standard of living, outperforming the South, which was affected by political instability and economic crises.[3][4][5] The situation reversed in the 1980s, as a stable South Korea became an economic powerhouse fueled by Japanese and American investment, military aid and internal economic development while North Korea stagnated.[6] Differences emerged between North Korea and the Soviet Union, central among them Kim Il-sung's philosophy of Juche, which focused on Korean patriotism and self-reliance. Despite this, the country received funds, subsidies, and aid from the USSR (and the Eastern Bloc) until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The resulting loss of economic aid adversely affected the North's economy. During this period, North Korea also remained critical of the United States defense force's presence in the region, which it considered imperialism, seizing the American ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2) in 1968. He outlived Joseph Stalin by four decades, Mao Zedong by two, and remained in power during the terms of office of six South Korean presidents, ten U.S. presidents, and twenty-one Japanese prime ministers. Kim's cult of personality dominated domestic politics in North Korea. At the 6th WPK Congress in 1980, his son Kim Jong-il, was elected as a Presidium member and chosen as his heir apparent to the supreme leadership. Kim Il-sung's birthday is a public holiday in North Korea and it is called the "Day of the Sun". In 1998, Kim Il-sung was given the title "Eternal President of the Republic". North Korea under his reign was characterized, by U.S. based Freedom House and others, as a totalitarian state with widespread human rights abuses, including mass executions and prison camps.[7][8]

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (abbreviated as DPRK, DPR Korea or Korea DPR), is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang is the nation's capital and largest city. To the north and northwest, the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in China) and Tumen rivers;[14] it is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two. Nevertheless, North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands.[15] Both North Korea and South Korea became members of the United Nations in 1991.[16] In 1910, Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan. After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones, with the north occupied by the Soviets and the south occupied by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948, separate governments were formed: the socialist Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the capitalist Republic of Korea in the south. An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950-1953). The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, but no peace treaty was signed.[17] North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant, socialist state and formally holds elections.[18] Various media outlets have called it Stalinist,[27] particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung and his family. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the ruling family,[28] holds power in the state and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members.[29] Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution in 1972.[30][31] The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms. Most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded.[32] From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people,[33] and the population continues to suffer malnutrition. North Korea follows Songun, or "military-first" policy.[34] It is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, the United States and India.[35] It possesses nuclear weapons.[36][37] International organizations have assessed that human rights violations in North Korea are commonplace and have no parallel in the contemporary world.[38][39][40]

Park Chung Hee

Park Chung-hee (Korean pronunciation: [pak̚.t͈ɕʌŋ.ɦi] or [pak̚] [tɕʌŋ.ɦi]; 14 November 1917 - 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician, general, and dictator who served as the President of South Korea from 1963 until his assassination in 1979, assuming that office after first ruling the country as head of a military junta installed by the May 16 coup in 1961. Before his presidency, he was the chairman of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction from 1961 to 1963 after a career as a military leader in the South Korean Army. Park's coup brought an end to the interim government of the Second Republic and his election and inauguration in 1963 ushered in the Third Republic. In 1972, Park declared martial law and recast the constitution into a highly authoritarian document, bringing in the Fourth Republic. After surviving several previous attempts, including two operations associated with North Korea, Park was assassinated on 26 October 1979 by his close friend Kim Jae-gyu, the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, at a safe house in Seoul.[3] Cha Ji-chul, chief of the Presidential Security Service, was also fatally shot by Kim. Kim and his many accomplices were captured, tortured, tried, convicted and executed as Choi Kyu-hah became Acting President pursuant to the Yushin Constitution's Article 48. Major General Chun Doo-hwan quickly amassed sweeping powers after his Defense Security Command was charged with investigating the unexpected assassination, first taking control of the military and the KCIA before installing another military junta and finally assuming the presidency in 1980. It remains unclear today whether the assassination was spontaneous or premeditated and the motivations of Kim Jae-gyu are still debated. Economic growth continued even after Park's death and the country eventually democratized. Later presidents included people arrested under Park's regime. Park has been ranked by the public as the greatest South Korean president but he still remains a controversial figure in modern South Korean political discourse and among the Korean populace in general for his dictatorship and undemocratic ways. While some credit him for sustaining the Miracle on the Han River, which reshaped and modernized Korea, others criticize his authoritarian way of ruling the country (especially after 1971) and for prioritizing economic growth and contrived social order at the expense of civil liberties. The Park Chung-hee Presidential Library and Museum opened in 2012.[4] On 25 February the next year, Park's daughter, Park Geun-hye, was elected the first female president of South Korea serving until her impeachment and removal on 10 March 2017 as a result of an influence-peddling scandal.

Zhou Enlai

Zhou Enlai (Chinese: 周恩来; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai; 5 March 1898 - 8 January 1976) was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served along with Chairman Mao Zedong and was instrumental in the Communist Party's rise to power, and later in consolidating its control, forming foreign policy, and developing the Chinese economy. A skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West after the stalemated Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and the 1955 Bandung Conference, and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding the bitter disputes with the United States, Taiwan, the Soviet Union (after 1960), India and Vietnam. Zhou survived the purges of other top officials during the Cultural Revolution. While Mao dedicated most of his later years to political struggle and ideological work, Zhou was the main driving force behind the affairs of state during much of the Cultural Revolution. His attempts at mitigating the Red Guards' damage and his efforts to protect others from their wrath made him immensely popular in the Cultural Revolution's later stages. As Mao's health began to decline in 1971 and 1972 and following the death of disgraced Lin Biao, Zhou was elected First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party by the 10th Central Committee in 1973 and thereby designated as Mao's successor, but still struggled against the Gang of Four internally over leadership of China. Zhou's health was also failing, however, and he died eight months before Mao on 8 January 1976. The massive public outpouring of grief in Beijing turned to anger at the Gang of Four, leading to the Tiananmen Incident. Although Zhou was succeeded by Hua Guofeng, Zhou's ally Deng Xiaoping was able to outmaneuver the Gang of Four politically and took Hua's place as paramount leader by 1978.

Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping (UK: /ˈdʌŋ ˈsjaʊpɪŋ/,[1] US: /ˈʃaʊpɪŋ/;[2] 22 August 1904 - 19 February 1997),[3] courtesy name Xixian (希贤),[4] was a Chinese politician. He was the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989. After Chairman Mao Zedong's death, Deng led his country through far-reaching market-economy reforms. While Deng never held office as the head of state, head of government or General Secretary (that is, the leader of the Communist Party), he nonetheless was responsible for economic reforms and an opening to the global economy. During his paramount leadership, his official state positions are Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1978-1983 and Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China from 1983-1990 while his official party positions are Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1977-1982 and Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China from 1981-1989. Born into a peasant background in Guang'an, Sichuan province, Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s, where he became a follower of Marxism-Leninism. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1923. Upon his return to China he joined the party organization in Shanghai, then was a political commissar for the Red Army in rural regions and by the late 1930s was considered a "revolutionary veteran" because he participated in the Long March.[5] Following the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Deng worked in Tibet and the southwest region to consolidate Communist control. As the party's Secretary General in the 1950s, Deng presided over anti-rightist campaigns and became instrumental in China's economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward of 1957-1960. However, his economic policies caused him to fall out of favor with Mao, and he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution. Following Mao's death in 1976, Deng outmanoeuvred the late chairman's chosen successor Hua Guofeng in December 1978. Inheriting a country beset with social conflict, disenchantment with the Communist Party and institutional disorder resulting from the leftist policies of the Mao era, Deng became the paramount figure of the "second generation" of party leadership. Some called him "the architect"[6] of a new brand of thinking that combined socialist ideology with pragmatic market economy whose slogan was "socialism with Chinese characteristics". Deng opened China to foreign investment and the global market, policies that are credited with developing China into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world for several generations and raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions.[7] Deng was also criticized for ordering the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, but praised for his reaffirmation of the reform program in his Southern Tour of 1992 and the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese control in 1997. He was the Time Person of the Year in 1978 and 1985, the second Chinese leader (after Chiang Kai-shek) and the third communist leader (after Joseph Stalin, picked twice, and Nikita Khrushchev) to be selected. He died in February 1997, aged 92.

Taiwan

Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, Republic of China took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the Republic of China's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the Republic of China government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction had, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the Republic of China represented China at the UN until 1971, when it lost its seat to the PRC.

Liu Shaoqi

Liu Shaoqi (pronounced [ljǒu ʂâutɕʰǐ]; Chinese: 刘少奇; 24 November 1898 - 12 November 1969) was a Chinese revolutionary, politician, and theorist. He was Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee from 1954 to 1959, First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1956 to 1966 and Chairman of the People's Republic of China, China's de jure head of state, from 1959 to 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China. For 15 years, President Liu was the third most powerful man in China, behind only Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. Originally groomed as Mao's successor, Liu antagonized him in the early 1960s before the Cultural Revolution, and from 1966 onward was criticized, then purged, by Mao. Liu disappeared from public life in 1968 and was labelled the "commander of China's bourgeoisie headquarters", China's foremost "capitalist-roader", and a traitor to the revolution. He died under harsh treatment in late 1969, but was posthumously rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping's government in 1980 and granted a national memorial service.

Napalm

Napalm is a mixture of a gelling agent and either gasoline (petrol) or a similar fuel. It was initially used as an incendiary device against buildings and later primarily as an anti-personnel weapon, as it sticks to skin and causes severe burns when on fire. Napalm was developed in 1942 in a secret laboratory at Harvard University, by a team led by chemist Louis Fieser under the United States Chemical Warfare Service.[1] Its first recorded use was in the European theatre of war during World War II. It was used extensively by the US in incendiary attacks on Japanese cities in World War II as well as during the Korean War and Vietnam War.

Satyagraha

Satyagraha, (Sanskrit and Hindi: "holding onto truth") concept introduced in the early 20th century by Mahatma Gandhi to designate a determined but nonviolent resistance to evil. Gandhi's satyagraha became a major tool in the Indian struggle against British imperialism and has since been adopted by protest groups in other countries.

Taisho democracy

Taishō period, (1912-26) period in Japanese history corresponding to the reign of the Taishō emperor, Yoshihito (1879-1926). It followed the Meiji period and represented a continuation of Japan's rise on the international scene and liberalism at home. Politically, the country moved toward broader representational government. The tax qualification for voting was reduced, enfranchising more voters, and was eliminated in 1925. Party politics flourished, and legislation favourable to labour was passed. Japan continued to push China for economic and political concessions and entered into treaties with Western nations that acknowledged its interests in Korea, Manchuria, and the rest of China. Rural Japan did not fare as well as urban Japan, and an economic depression at the end of the Taishō period caused much suffering. See also Shōwa period.

SCAP

The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) (originally briefly styled Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers[1]) was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the Allied occupation of Japan following World War II. In Japan, the position was generally referred to as GHQ (General Headquarters), as SCAP also referred to the offices of the occupation, including a staff of several hundred U.S. civil servants as well as military personnel. Some of these personnel effectively wrote a first draft of the Japanese Constitution, which the National Diet then ratified after a few amendments. Australian, British, Indian, and New Zealand forces under SCAP were organized into a sub-command known as British Commonwealth Occupation Force. These actions led MacArthur to be viewed as the new Imperial force in Japan by many Japanese political and civilian figures, even being considered to be the rebirth of the shōgun-style government[2] which Japan was ruled under until the start of the Meiji Restoration. Biographer William Manchester argues that without MacArthur's leadership, Japan would not have been able to make the move from an imperial, totalitarian state, to a democracy. At his appointment, MacArthur announced that he sought to "restore security, dignity and self-respect" to the Japanese people.[3]

Viet Minh

Việt Minh (Vietnamese: [vîət mīɲ] (About this sound listen); abbreviated from Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh Hội, French: "Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam", English: "League for the Independence of Vietnam") was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on May 19, 1941. The Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh Hội had previously formed in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936 when Vietnamese Nationalist or other Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front. This organization soon lapsed into inactivity, only to be revived by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and Hồ Chí Minh in 1941.[1] The Việt Minh established itself as the only organized anti-French and anti-Japanese resistance group.[2] The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. The United States supported France. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China. After World War II, the Việt Minh opposed the re-occupation of Vietnam by France and later opposed South Vietnam and the United States in the Vietnam War. The political leader and founder of Việt Minh was Hồ Chí Minh. The military leadership was under the command of Võ Nguyên Giáp. Other founders were Lê Duản and Phạm Văn Đồng.

Droit du seigneur

Droit du seigneur, (French: "right of the lord"), a feudal right said to have existed in medieval Europe giving the lord to whom it belonged the right to sleep the first night with the bride of any one of his vassals. The custom is paralleled in various primitive societies, but the evidence of its existence in Europe is all indirect, involving records of redemption dues paid by the vassal to avoid enforcement of some lordly rights. Many intellectual investigations have been devoted to the problem. A considerable number of feudal rights were related to the vassal's marriage, particularly the lord's right to select a bride for his vassal, but these were almost invariably redeemed by a money payment, or "avail"; and it seems likely that the droit du seigneur amounted, in effect, only to another tax of this sort.

Hirohito

Hirohito (1901-1989) was emperor of Japan from 1926 until his death in 1989. He took over at a time of rising democratic sentiment, but his country soon turned toward ultra-nationalism and militarism. During World War II (1939-45), Japan attacked nearly all of its Asian neighbors, allied itself with Nazi Germany and launched a surprise assault on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. Though Hirohito later portrayed himself as a virtually powerless constitutional monarch, many scholars have come to believe he played an active role in the war effort. After Japan's surrender in 1945, he became a figurehead with no political power.

Swaraj

Swarāj (Hindi: स्वराज swa- "self", raj "rule") can mean generally self-governance or "self-rule", and was used synonymously with "home-rule" by Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati and later on by Mahatma Gandhi,[1] but the word usually refers to Gandhi's concept for Indian independence from foreign domination.[2] Swaraj lays stress on governance, not by a hierarchical government, but by self governance through individuals and community building. The focus is on political decentralisation.[3] Since this is against the political and social systems followed by Britain, Gandhi's concept of Swaraj advocated India's discarding British political, economic, bureaucratic, legal, military, and educational institutions.[4] S. Satyamurti, Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru were among a contrasting group of Swarajists who laid the foundation for parliamentary democracy in India. Although Gandhi's aim of totally implementing the concepts of Swaraj in India was not achieved, the voluntary work organisations which he founded for this purpose did serve as precursors and role models for people's movements, voluntary organisations, and some of the non-governmental organisations that were subsequently launched in various parts of India.[5] The student movement against oppressive local and central governments, led by Jayaprakash Narayan, and the Bhoodan movement, which presaged demands for land reform legislation throughout India, and which ultimately led to India's discarding of the Zamindari system of land tenure and social organisation, were also inspired by the ideas of Swaraj.

Cripps Mission

The Cripps Mission was a failed attempt in late March 1942 by the British government to secure full Indian cooperation and support for their efforts in World War II. The mission was headed by Sir Stafford Cripps, Lord Privy Seal which held the rank of a senior minister, and leader of the House of Commons. Cripps belonged to the left-wing Labour Party, traditionally sympathetic to Indian self-rule, but was also a member of the coalition War Cabinet led by the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had long been the leader of the movement to block Indian independence. Cripps was sent to negotiate an agreement with the nationalist leaders, speaking for the majority Hindu population, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, speaking for the minority Muslim population. Cripps worked to keep India loyal to the British war effort in exchange for a promise of full self-government after the war. He also promised to give India dominion status and to hold elections once the war was over. Cripps discussed the proposals with the Indian leaders and published them. Both the major parties, the Congress and the Muslim League rejected his proposals and the mission failed. Cripps had designed the proposals himself, but they were unacceptable to Churchill and to the two Indian groups; no middle way was found. Congress moved towards the Quit India movement whereby it refused to cooperate in the war effort; in response, the British imprisoned practically the entire Congress leadership for the duration of the war. Jinnah and the Muslims did support the war effort and gained in status in Britain. He was pleased to see that the right to opt out of a future Union was included.[1][2]

Peace and Security Treaty of 1951

Treaty of San Francisco (サンフランシスコ講和条約 San-Furanshisuko kōwa-Jōyaku), Peace Treaty with Japan (日本国との平和条約 Nihon-koku tono Heiwa-Jōyaku) or commonly known as the Treaty of Peace with Japan, Peace Treaty of San Francisco, or San Francisco Peace Treaty), mostly between Japan and the Allied Powers, was officially signed by 48 nations on September 8, 1951, in San Francisco. It came into force on April 28, 1952 and officially ended the American-led Allied Occupation of Japan. According to Article 11 of the Treaty, Japan accepts the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and of other Allied War Crimes Courts imposed on Japan both within and outside Japan.[1] This treaty served to officially end Japan's position as an imperial power, to allocate compensation to Allied civilians and former prisoners of war who had suffered Japanese war crimes during World War II, and to end the Allied post-war occupation of Japan and return sovereignty to that nation. This treaty made extensive use of the United Nations Charter[2] and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[3] to enunciate the Allies' goals. This treaty, along with the Security Treaty signed that same day, is said to mark the beginning of the San Francisco System; this term, coined by historian John W. Dower, signifies the effects of Japan's relationship with the United States and its role in the international arena as determined by these two treaties and is used to discuss the ways in which these effects have governed Japan's post-war history. This treaty also introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan due to its lack of specificity as to what country Taiwan was to be surrendered, and hence some supporters of Taiwan independence argue that sovereignty of Taiwan is still undetermined.

Cheju Island uprising

From April 1948 to May 1949, the Korean province of Jeju Island was subjected to a communist insurgency and subsequent anticommunist suppression campaign, killing between 14,000 and 30,000 people.[2][3]:139, 193 The proximate cause of the rebellion was scheduling of elections for May 10, 1948, by the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) in the hope of creating a new government for all of Korea. The elections, however, were only planned for the south of the country, the area controlled by UNTCOK. Fearing the elections would further reinforce division, guerrilla fighters of the communist South Korean Labor Party (SKLP) reacted with protests and by attacking local police and rightist paramilitary groups stationed on Jeju Island.[3]:166-167[4] Though atrocities were committed by both sides, historians have noted that the methods used by the South Korean government to suppress protesters and rebels were especially cruel.[3]:171[4][5]:13-14 On one occasion, American soldiers discovered the bodies of 97 people including children, killed by government forces. On another, American soldiers reported government police forces carrying out an execution of 76 villagers, including women and children.[3]:186 Up to 10% of the island's population died during or as a result of the conflict,[3]:195[5]:13 and another 40,000 fled to Japan.[4][6] In the decades after the uprising, memory of the event was suppressed by the government through censorship and repression.[5]:41 In 2006, almost 60 years after the rebellion, the Korean government apologized for its role in the killings. The government also promised reparations but as of 2018, nothing had been done to this end.[7]

Hong Kong

Hong Kong (Cantonese: [hœ́ːŋ.kɔ̌ːŋ] (About this sound listen)), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the eastern side of the Pearl River estuary in East Asia. Along with Macau, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and several other major cities in Guangdong, the territory forms a core part of the Pearl River Delta metropolitan region, the most populated area in the world. With over 7.4 million Hongkongers of various nationalities[note 1] in a territory of 1,104 square kilometres (426 sq mi), Hong Kong is the fourth-most densely populated region in the world. Hong Kong was formerly a colony of the British Empire, after the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island from Qing China at the conclusion of the First Opium War in 1842. Originally a lightly populated area of farming and fishing villages,[14] the territory has become one of the most significant financial centres and trade ports in the world.[15] With the exception of the Second World War, during which the colony was occupied by the Empire of Japan, Hong Kong remained under British control until 1997, when it was returned to China. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system apart from mainland China.[e] As the world's seventh-largest trading entity,[16][17] its legal tender, the Hong Kong dollar, is the 13th-most traded currency.[18] Hong Kong's tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by competitive simple taxation and supported by its common law judiciary system.[19] Although the city boasts one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, it suffers from severe income inequality.[20] The territory features the most skyscrapers in the world, surrounding Victoria Harbour, which lies in the centre of the city's dense urban region.[21] It has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the seventh-highest life expectancy in the world.[3] Over 90% of its population makes use of well-developed public transportation.[22] Seasonal air pollution originating from neighbouring industrial areas of mainland China, which adopts loose emissions standards, has resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates in winter.[23][24][25]

Amritsar massacre

In Amritsar, India's holy city of the Sikh religion, British and Gurkha troops massacre at least 379 unarmed demonstrators meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh, a city park. Most of those killed were Indian nationalists meeting to protest the British government's forced conscription of Indian soldiers and the heavy war tax imposed against the Indian people. A few days earlier, in reaction to a recent escalation in protests, Amritsar was placed under martial law and handed over to British Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, who banned all meetings and gatherings in the city. On April 13, the day of the Sikh Baisakhi festival, tens of thousands of people came to Amritsar from surrounding villages to attend the city's traditional fairs. Thousands of these people, many unaware of Dyer's recent ban on public assemblies, convened at Jallianwala Bagh, where a nationalist demonstration was being held. Dyer's troops surrounded the park and without warning opened fire on the crowd, killing several hundred and wounding more than a thousand. Dyer, who in a subsequent investigation admitted to ordering the attack for its "moral effect" on the people of the region, had his troops continue the murderous barrage until all their artillery was exhausted. British authorities later removed him from his post. The massacre stirred nationalist feelings across India and had a profound effect on one of the movement's leaders, Mohandas Gandhi. During World War I, Gandhi had actively supported the British in the hope of winning partial autonomy for India, but after the Amritsar Massacre he became convinced that India should accept nothing less than full independence. To achieve this end, Gandhi began organizing his first campaign of mass civil disobedience against Britain's oppressive rule.

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh first emerged as an outspoken voice for Vietnamese independence while living as a young man in France during World War I. Inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution, he joined the Communist Party and traveled to the Soviet Union. He helped found the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 and the League for the Independence of Vietnam, or Viet Minh, in 1941. At World War II's end, Viet Minh forces seized the northern Vietnamese city of Hanoi and declared a Democratic State of Vietnam (or North Vietnam) with Ho as president. Known as "Uncle Ho," he would serve in that position for the next 25 years, becoming a symbol of Vietnam's struggle for unification during a long and costly conflict with the strongly anti-Communist regime in South Vietnam and its powerful ally, the United States.

Indira Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindustani: [ˈɪnːdɪrə ˈɡaːnd̪ʱi] (About this sound listen); born Nehru; 19 November 1917 - 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman and central figure of the Indian National Congress.[1] She was the first and, to date, the only female Prime Minister of India. Indira Gandhi belonged to the Nehru-Gandhi family and was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister. Despite her surname Gandhi, she is not related to the family of Mahatma Gandhi. She served as Prime Minister from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984, making her the second longest-serving Indian prime minister after her father. Gandhi served as her father's personal assistant and hostess during his tenure as Prime Minister between 1947 and 1964. She was elected Congress President in 1959. Upon her father's death in 1964 she was appointed as a member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and became a member of Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting.[2] In the Congress Party's parliamentary leadership election held in early 1966 (upon the death of Shastri) she defeated her rival, Morarji Desai, to become leader, and thus succeeded Shastri as Prime Minister of India. As Prime Minister, Gandhi was known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented centralisation of power. She went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in East Pakistan, which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh, as well as increasing India's influence to the point where it became the regional hegemon of South Asia. Citing fissiparous tendencies and in response to a call for revolution, Gandhi instituted a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 where basic civil liberties were suspended and press was censored. Widespread atrocities were carried out during the emergency. In 1980, she returned to power after free and fair elections. She was assassinated by her own bodyguards and Sikh nationalists in 1984. The assassins, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, were both shot by other security guards. Satwant Singh recovered from his injuries and was executed after being convicted of murder. In 1999, Indira Gandhi was named "Woman of the Millennium" in an online poll organised by the BBC.[3]

Jiang Qing

Jiang Qing[a] (Chinese: 江青; pinyin: Jiāng Qīng; Wade-Giles: Chiang Ch'ing, March 19, 1914 - May 14, 1991), also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese Communist Revolutionary, Chinese actress, and major political figure during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party and Paramount leader of China. She used the stage name Lan Ping (蓝苹) during her acting career, and was known by many other names. She married Mao in Yan'an in November 1938 and served as the inaugural "First Lady" of the People's Republic of China. Jiang Qing was best known for playing a major role in the Cultural Revolution and for forming the radical political alliance known as the "Gang of Four". Jiang Qing served as Mao's personal secretary in the 1940s and was head of the Film Section of the Communist Party's Propaganda Department in the 1950s. She served as an important emissary for Mao in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. In 1966 she was appointed deputy director of the Central Cultural Revolution Group. She collaborated with Lin Biao to advance Mao's unique brand of Communist ideology as well as Mao's cult of personality. At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing held significant influence in the affairs of state, particularly in the realm of culture and the arts, and was idolized in propaganda posters as the "Great Flagbearer of the Proletarian Revolution". In 1969, Jiang gained a seat on the Politburo. Before Mao's death, the Gang of Four controlled many of China's political institutions, including the media and propaganda. However, Jiang Qing, deriving most of her political legitimacy from Mao, often found herself at odds with other top leaders. Mao's death in 1976 dealt a significant blow to Jiang Qing's political fortunes. She was arrested in October 1976 by Hua Guofeng and his allies, and was subsequently condemned by party authorities. Since then, Jiang Qing has been officially branded as having been part of the "Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Counter-Revolutionary Cliques"[1] (林彪江青反革命集团), to which most of the blame for the damage and devastation caused by the Cultural Revolution was assigned. Though she was initially sentenced to death, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983. After being released for medical treatment, Jiang Qing committed suicide in May 1991.[2][3]

Joseph Dodge

Joseph Morrell Dodge (November 18, 1890 - December 2, 1964) was a chairman of the Detroit Bank, now Comerica. He later served as an economic adviser for postwar economic stabilization programs in Germany and Japan, headed the American delegation to the Austrian Advisory commission, and worked as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's director of the Bureau of the Budget.[1] Dodge formed economic reconstruction plans for West Germany after World War II, and implemented financial reforms in 1948. He later moved to Japan, having drafted another economic stabilization plan, widely known as the "Dodge Line", in December 1948, as the financial adviser to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur.[2] Arriving in February 1949 to implement these reforms, Dodge served as a "lightning-rod" to redirect fiscal criticism away from MacArthur and chose to keep a low profile.[2] The Dodge Line was a financial and monetary contraction policy drafted by Joseph Dodge for Japan to gain economic independence after World War II.[1] It was announced on March 7, 1949. It recommended: Balancing the national budget to reduce inflation More efficient tax collection Dissolving the Reconstruction Finance Bank because of its uneconomical loans Decreasing the scope of government intervention Fixing the exchange rate to 360 yen to one US dollar to keep Japanese export prices low Dodge had the Reconstruction finance bank, which was a major conductor of inflation-financed subsidies, shut down. He took important steps to restore Japan's foreign trade to private hands. The terms of all transactions were determined at the unchanging official exchange rate of $1 = 360 yen.

Juche (chuch'e)

Juche (/dʒuːˈtʃeɪ/[2]; Korean: 주체, lit. 'subject'; Korean pronunciation: [tɕutɕʰe]), usually left untranslated[1] or translated as "self-reliance", is the official state ideology of North Korea, described by the government as Kim Il-sung's "original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought".[3] It postulates that "man is the master of his destiny",[4] that the North Korean masses are to act as the "masters of the revolution and construction" and that by becoming self-reliant and strong a nation can achieve true socialism.[4] Kim Il-sung (1912-1994) developed the ideology, originally viewed as a variant of Marxism-Leninism until it became distinctly "Korean" in character[3] whilst incorporating the historical materialist ideas of Marxism-Leninism and strongly emphasising the individual, the nation state and its sovereignty.[3] Consequently, Juche was adopted into a set of principles that the North Korean government has used to justify its policy decisions from the 1950s onwards. Such principles include moving the nation towards claimed jaju ("independence"),[3] through the construction of jarip ("national economy") and an emphasis upon jawi" ("self-defence") in order to establish socialism.[3] The practice of Juche is firmly rooted in the ideals of sustainability through agricultural independence and a lack of dependency. The Juche ideology has been criticized by many scholars and observers as a mechanism for sustaining the totalitarian rule of the North Korean regime[5][full citation needed] and justifying the country's heavy-handed isolationism and oppression of the North Korean people.[5] It has also been described as a form of Korean ethnic nationalism, but one which promotes the Kim family as the saviours of the "Korean race" and acts as a foundation of the subsequent personality cult surrounding them.[3][5][6]

Guomindang (Kuomintang)

KMT; often translated as the Nationalist Party of China)[9] is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan) based in Taipei and is currently the opposition political party in the Legislative Yuan. The predecessor of the Kuomintang, the Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui), was one of the major advocates of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the subsequent declaration of independence in 1911 that resulted in the establishment of the Republic of China. The KMT was founded by Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen shortly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. Sun was the provisional President, but he later ceded the presidency to Yuan Shikai. Later led by Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT formed the National Revolutionary Army and succeeded in its Northern Expedition to unify much of mainland China in 1928, ending the chaos of the Warlord Era. It was the ruling party in mainland China until 1949, when it lost the Chinese Civil War to the rival communist People's Republic of China (PRC). Although it lost most of its territory on mainland China, the KMT retreated to Taiwan where it continued to govern as an authoritarian single-party state. This government retained China's UN seat (with considerable international support) until 1971. Since 1987 Taiwan is no longer a single-party state and political reforms beginning in the 1990s have loosened the KMT's grip on power. Nevertheless, the KMT remains one of Taiwan's main political parties, with Ma Ying-jeou, elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012, being the seventh KMT member to hold the office of the presidency. However, in the 2016 general and presidential elections the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) gained control of both the Legislative Yuan and the Presidency (Tsai Ing-wen). The party's guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, advocated by Sun Yat-sen. The KMT is a member of the International Democrat Union. Together with the People First Party and New Party, the KMT forms what is known as the Taiwanese Pan-Blue Coalition, which supports eventual unification with the mainland. However, the KMT has been forced to moderate its stance by advocating the political and legal status quo of modern Taiwan, as political realities make the reunification of China unlikely. The KMT holds to a "One China Principle": it officially considers that there is only one China, but that the Republic of China rather than the People's Republic of China is its legitimate government under the 1992 Consensus. In order to ease tensions with the PRC, the KMT has since 2008 endorsed the "Three Noes" policy as defined by Ma Ying-jeou: no unification, no independence and no use of force.[10]

Kim Dae-jung

Kim Dae-jung or Kim Dae Jung (Korean pronunciation: [kim.dɛ.dʑuŋ];[a] 6 January 1924 - 18 August 2009) was President of South Korea from 1998 to 2003, the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and the only Korean Nobel Prize recipient in history. He was sometimes referred to as the "Nelson Mandela of South Korea".[2] Soon after President Park was assassinated by one of his close aides in October 1979, Kim had his civil and political rights restored. After a few months of political unrest another group of soldiers seized power and Kim Dae-jung was thrown into prison, again, in May 1980 on charges of treason. In November of that year, a military court sentenced him to death. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and then to a 20-year term. In December 1982, his prison term was suspended, and he was allowed to travel to the United States. Kim ended his exile in the U.S. and returned home in early 1985 despite his supporters' warnings that he might meet the same tragic fate as Philippine Senator Benigno Aquino. Back in Seoul, he was immediately put under house arrest but his return intensified the nationwide pro-democracy movement. In June 1987, Kim was cleared of all outstanding charges and his civil and political rights were fully restored. He ran and was defeated in presidential elections in 1987 and 1992. In December 1997, he was elected to the presidency, winning 40.3 per cent of the votes. When he was inaugurated as the eighth President of the Republic of Korea, it marked the first transition of power from the ruling to the opposition party in Korea's modern history. Taking over the government in the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis, President Kim devoted himself to the task of economic recovery and managed to pull the country back from the brink of bankruptcy. Reforms and restructuring that began early in his Administration still continue. President Kim Dae-jung's vision for the Korean people led him to pursue a policy of engagement toward North Korea. He and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il worked together on a joint declaration they signed on June 15, 2000 paving the way for a brighter future for all Koreans and other peace-loving peoples of the world.

Kim Jong Il

Kim Jong-il or Kim Jong Il (Korean: 김정일, Korean: [kim.dzɔŋ.il];[a] 16 February 1941 - 17 December 2011) was the leader of North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), from the death of his father Kim Il-sung in 1994 until his own death in 2011. Kim was born in Vyatskoye, Russia, when it was still part of the Soviet Union. By the early 1980s, Kim had risen to become the heir apparent for the leadership of the DPRK and assumed important posts in the party and army organs. Kim succeeded his father and founder of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung, following the elder Kim's death in 1994. Kim was the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), WPK Presidium, Chairman of the National Defence Commission (NDC) of North Korea and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army (KPA), the fourth-largest standing army in the world. During Kim's rule, the country suffered from a famine and had a poor human rights record. Kim involved his country in state terrorism and strengthened the role of the military by his Songun, or "military-first", politics. Kim's rule also saw tentative economic reforms, including the opening of the Kaesong Industrial Park in 2003. In April 2009, North Korea's constitution was amended to officially refer to him (and his later successors) as the "supreme leader of the DPRK".[2] The most common colloquial title given to him during his reign was "The Dear Leader" to distinguish him from his father Kim Il-sung, "The Great Leader". Following Kim's failure to appear at important public events in 2008, foreign observers assumed that Kim had either fallen seriously ill or died. On 19 December 2011, the North Korean government announced that he had died two days earlier,[3] whereupon his third son, Kim Jong-un, was promoted to a senior position in the ruling WPK and succeeded him.[4] After his death, Kim was designated as the "Eternal General Secretary" of the WPK and the "Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission", in keeping with the tradition of establishing eternal posts for the dead members of the Kim dynasty.

Long March

LONG MARCH BEGINS: OCTOBER 16, 1934 With defeat imminent, the Communists decided to break out of the encirclement at its weakest points, and the Long March began on October 16, 1934. Secrecy and other tactics confused the Nationalists, and it was several weeks before they realized that the main body of the Red army had fled. The retreating force initially consisted of more than 85,000 troops, by some estimates, and thousands of accompanying personnel. Weapons and supplies were borne on men's backs or in horse-drawn carts, and the line of marchers stretched for miles. The Communists generally marched at night, and when the enemy was not near, a long column of torches could be seen snaking over valleys and hills into the distance. Mao began to regain his influence, and in January, during a meeting of party leaders in the captured city of Zunyi, he re-emerged as a top military and political leader. He then changed strategy, breaking his force into several columns that would take varying paths to confuse the enemy. And the destination would now be Shaanxi province, in the northwestern region of the country, where the Communists hoped to fight the Japanese invaders and earn the respect of China's masses. LONG MARCH ENDS: OCTOBER 20, 1935 After enduring starvation, aerial bombardment and almost daily skirmishes with Nationalist forces, Mao halted his columns in northern Shaanxi on October 20, 1935, where they met other Red army troops. The Long March was over. By some estimates, 8,000 or fewer marchers completed the journey, which covered more than 4,000 miles and crossed 24 rivers and 18 mountain ranges. The Long March marked the emergence of Mao Zedong as the undisputed leader of the Chinese Communists. Learning of the Communists' heroism and determination in the Long March, thousands of young Chinese traveled to Shaanxi to enlist in Mao's Red army. After fighting the Japanese for a decade, the Chinese Civil War resumed soon after the end of World War II (1939-45). In 1949, the Nationalists were defeated, and Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. He served as head of the Communist Party of China until his death in 1976.

Lin Biao

Lin Biao (December 5, 1907 - September 13, 1971) was a Marshal of the People's Republic of China who was pivotal in the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeast China. Lin was the general who commanded the decisive Liaoshen and Pingjin Campaigns, in which he co-led the Manchurian Field Army to victory and led the People's Liberation Army into Beijing. He crossed the Yangtze River in 1949, decisively defeated the Kuomintang and took control of the coastal provinces in Southeast China. He ranked third among the Ten Marshals. Zhu De and Peng Dehuai were considered senior to Lin, and Lin ranked directly ahead of He Long and Liu Bocheng. Lin abstained from taking an active role in politics after the civil war ceased in 1949. He led a section of the government's civil bureaucracy as one of the co-serving Deputy Vice Premiers of the People's Republic of China from 1954 onwards, becoming First-ranked Vice Premier from 1964. Lin became more active in politics when named one of the co-serving Vice Chairmen of the Communist Party of China in 1958. He held the three responsibilities of Vice Premier, Vice Chairman and Minister of National Defense from 1959 onwards. Lin became instrumental in creating the foundations for Mao Zedong's cult of personality in the early 1960s, and was rewarded for his service in the Cultural Revolution by being named Mao's designated successor as the sole Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China, from 1966 until his death. Lin died on September 13, 1971, when a Hawker Siddeley Trident he was aboard crashed in Öndörkhaan in Mongolia. The exact events of this "Lin Biao incident" have been a source of speculation ever since. The Chinese government's official explanation is that Lin and his family attempted to flee following a botched coup against Mao. Others have argued that they fled out of fear they would be purged, as Lin's relationship with other Communist Party leaders had soured in the final few years of his life. Following Lin's death, he was officially condemned as a traitor by the Communist Party. Since the late 1970s Lin, and Mao's wife Jiang Qing (with her Gang of Four) have been labeled the two major "counter-revolutionary forces" of the Cultural Revolution, receiving official blame from the Chinese government.

Manchuquo

Manchukuo (traditional Chinese: 滿洲國; pinyin: Mǎnzhōuguó; Japanese: 満州国; "State of Manchuria") was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia from 1932 until 1945. It was initially governed as a republic, but in 1934 it became a constitutional monarchy. It had limited international recognition and was de facto under the control of Japan. The area, collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese, was the homeland of the Manchus, including the emperors of the Qing dynasty. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and a pro-Japanese government was installed one year later with Puyi, the last Qing emperor, as the nominal regent and emperor.[1] Manchukuo's government was dissolved in 1945 after the surrender of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. The territories formally claimed by the puppet state were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945,[2] and then formally transferred to Chinese administration in the following year.[a] Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese, Mongols, White Russians and other minorities. The Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula was ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory.

March First Movement

March First Movement, also called Samil Independence Movement, series of demonstrations for Korean national independence from Japan that began on March 1, 1919, in the Korean capital city of Seoul and soon spread throughout the country. Before the Japanese finally suppressed the movement 12 months later, approximately 2,000,000 Koreans had participated in the more than 1,500 demonstrations. About 7,000 people were killed by the Japanese police and soldiers, and 16,000 were wounded; 715 private houses, 47 churches, and 2 school buildings were destroyed by fire. Approximately 46,000 people were arrested, of whom some 10,000 were tried and convicted. The movement was begun by 33 Korean cultural and religious leaders who, after almost 10 years of Japanese rule, drew up a Korean "Proclamation of Independence" and then organized a mass demonstration in Seoul for March 1, 1919, their late emperor's commemoration day. On the appointed day, the 33 leaders, hoping to bring international pressure on Japan to end her colonial rule in Korea, signed and read their proclamation and had coconspirators read it in townships throughout the country. The suppressed anti-Japanese feelings of Koreans were released in one great explosion, and mass demonstrations took place in many parts of the country, forming the largest national protest rallies against foreign domination in Korean history. Though the movement failed to bring about its paramount goal of national independence, it was significant in strengthening national unity, leading to the birth in Shanghai of the Korean Provisional Government (q.v.), and drawing worldwide attention. Finally, the failure of the March First Movement greatly enhanced the rise of the Korean communist party. Today, March 1 is a national holiday in both North and South Korea.

Minimata

Minamata disease (Japanese: 水俣病 Hepburn: Minamata-byō), sometimes referred to as Chisso-Minamata disease (チッソ水俣病 Chisso-Minamata-byō), is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms. A congenital form of the disease can also affect fetuses in the womb. Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, in 1956. It was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation's chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, which, when eaten by the local populace, resulted in mercury poisoning. While cat, dog, pig, and human deaths continued for 36 years, the government and company did little to prevent the pollution. The animal effects were severe enough in cats that they came to be named as having "dancing cat fever".[1] As of March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognised as having Minamata disease (1,784 of whom had died)[2] and over 10,000 had received financial compensation from Chisso.[3] By 2004, Chisso Corporation had paid $86 million in compensation, and in the same year was ordered to clean up its contamination.[4] On March 29, 2010, a settlement was reached to compensate as-yet uncertified victims.[5] A second outbreak of Minamata disease occurred in Niigata Prefecture in 1965. The original Minamata disease and Niigata Minamata disease are considered two of the four big pollution diseases of Japan.

Mukden incident

Mukden Incident, (September 18, 1931), also called Manchurian Incident, seizure of the Manchurian city of Mukden (now Shenyang, Liaoning province, China) by Japanese troops in 1931, which was followed by the Japanese invasion of all of Manchuria (now Northeast China) and the establishment of the Japanese-dominated state of Manchukuo (Manzhouguo) in the area. Most observers believe the incident was contrived by the Japanese army, without authorization of the Japanese government, to justify the Japanese invasion and occupation that followed. It contributed to the international isolation of Japan and is seen as a crucial event on the path to the outbreak of World War II. Throughout the early 20th century the Japanese had maintained special rights in Manchuria, and they had felt that the neutrality of the area was necessary for the defense of their colony in Korea. They were thus alarmed when their position in Manchuria was threatened by the increasingly successful unification of China in the late 1920s by the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), at the same time that Soviet pressures on Manchuria increased from the north. Responding to this pressure, officers of the Japanese Kwantung (Guandong) Army, which was stationed in Manchuria, initiated an incident in Mukden without the approval of the civil government of Japan.

Kishi Nobusuke

Nobusuke Kishi (岸 信介 Kishi Nobusuke, 13 November 1896 - 7 August 1987) was a Japanese politician and the 56th and 57th Prime Minister of Japan from 25 February 1957 to 12 June 1958, and from then to 19 July 1960. He is the maternal grandfather of Shinzō Abe, twice prime minister in 2006-2007 and 2012-present. Known for his brutal rule of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo in Northeast China, Kishi was called Shōwa no yōkai (昭和の妖怪; "the Shōwa era monster/devil").[2] After World War II, Kishi was imprisoned for three years as a Class A war crime suspect. However, the U.S. government released him as they considered Kishi to be the best man to lead a post-war Japan in a pro-American direction. As such, he has been called "America's Favorite War Criminal."[3] He went on to consolidate the Japanese conservative camp against perceived threats from the Japan Socialist Party in the 1950s, and is credited with being a key player in the initiation of the "1955 System," the extended period during which the Liberal Democratic Party was the overwhelmingly dominant political party in Japan.[4]

Agreed Framework

On Oct. 21, 1994, the United States and North Korea signed an agreement-the Agreed Framework-calling upon Pyongyang to freeze operation and construction of nuclear reactors suspected of being part of a covert nuclear weapons program in exchange for two proliferation-resistant nuclear power reactors. The agreement also called upon the United States to supply North Korea with fuel oil pending construction of the reactors. An international consortium called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) was formed to implement the agreement. The Agreed Framework ended an 18-month crisis during which North Korea announced its intention to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), under which North Korea committed not to develop nuclear weapons. (See ACA's Chronology of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear and Missile Diplomacy for more information on U.S.-North Korean nuclear relations.) The Agreed Framework succeeded in temporarily freezing North Korea's plutonium production capabilities and placing it under IAEA safeguards by freezing operation of North Korea's 5 MWe reactor at Yongbyon and stopping construction of two other reactors - a 50 MWe reactor at Yongbyon and a 200 MWe reactor at Taechon. Experts estimate that without the Agreed Framework, North Korea could have hundreds of nuclear weapons at this point.

Red Guards

Red Guards (simplified Chinese: 红卫兵; traditional Chinese: 紅衛兵; pinyin: Hóng Wèibīng) were a student mass paramilitary social movement mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution.[1] According to a Red Guard leader, the movement's aims were as follows: Chairman Mao has defined our future as an armed revolutionary youth organization...So if Chairman Mao is our Red-Commander-in-Chief and we are his Red Guards, who can stop us? First we will make China Maoist from inside out and then we will help the working people of other countries make the world red...And then the whole universe.[2] Despite being met with resistance early on, the Red Guards received personal support from Mao, and the movement rapidly grew. Mao made use of the group as propaganda and to accomplish goals such as destroying symbols of China's pre-communist past, including ancient artifacts and gravesites of notable Chinese figures. However, the government was very permissive of the Red Guards, who were even allowed to inflict bodily harm on people viewed as dissidents. The movement quickly grew out of control, frequently coming into conflict with authority and threatening public security until the government made efforts to rein the youths in. The Red Guard groups also suffered from in-fighting as factions developed among them. By the end of 1968, the group as a formal movement had dissolved.

Syngman Rhee

Syngman Rhee (Korean: 리승만, pronounced [i.sɯ̽ŋ.mɐn]; April 18, 1875 - July 19, 1965) was a South Korean politician, the first and the last Head of State of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and President of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. His three-term presidency of South Korea (August 1948 to April 1960) was strongly affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean Peninsula. He led South Korea through the Korean War. His presidency ended in resignation following popular protests against a disputed election. Rhee was regarded as an anti-Communist authoritarian leader and is thought to have ordered thousands of extrajudicial killings of communist supporters within South Korea. He died in exile in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until 1976. Launched by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of China, its stated goal was to preserve 'true' Communist ideology in the country by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Maoist thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Revolution marked Mao's return to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward. The movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected the country's economy and society to a significant degree. The movement was launched in May 1966, after Mao alleged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society at large, aiming to restore capitalism. To eliminate his rivals within the Communist Party of China, Mao insisted that these "revisionists" be removed through violent class struggle. China's youth responded to Mao's appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country. The movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in widespread factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials, most notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. During the same period, Mao's personality cult grew to immense proportions. In the violent struggles that ensued across the country, millions of people were persecuted and suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, hard labor, sustained harassment, seizure of property and sometimes execution. A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. Cultural and religious sites were ransacked. Mao officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, but its active phase lasted until the death of military leader and proposed Mao successor Lin Biao in 1971. After Mao's death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the Party declared that the Cultural Revolution was "responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic".[1]

Gang of Four

The Gang of Four (simplified Chinese: 四人帮; traditional Chinese: 四人幫; pinyin: Sìrén bāng) was a political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The gang's leading figure was Mao Zedong's last wife Jiang Qing. The other members were Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen.[1] The Gang of Four controlled the power organs of the Communist Party of China through the later stages of the Cultural Revolution,[citation needed] although it remains unclear which major decisions were made by Mao Zedong and carried out by the Gang, and which were the result of the Gang of Four's own planning. The Gang of Four, together with disgraced general Lin Biao who died in 1971, were labeled the two major "counter-revolutionary forces" of the Cultural Revolution and officially blamed by the Chinese government for the worst excesses of the societal chaos that ensued during the ten years of turmoil. Their downfall on October 6, 1976, a mere month after Mao's death, brought about major celebrations on the streets of Beijing and marked the end of a turbulent political era in China. Their fall did not amount to a rejection of the Cultural Revolution as such. It was organised by the new leader, Hua Guofeng, and others who had risen during that period. Repudiation of the entire process came later, with the return of Deng Xiaoping[2] and Hua's gradual loss of authority.[3]

Great Leap Forward

The Great Leap Forward (Chinese: 大跃进; pinyin: Dà Yuèjìn) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1958 to 1962. The campaign was led by Chairman Mao Zedong and aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization. However, it is widely considered to have caused the Great Chinese Famine. Chief changes in the lives of rural Chinese included the incremental introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization. Private farming was prohibited, and those engaged in it were persecuted and labeled counter-revolutionaries. Restrictions on rural people were enforced through public struggle sessions and social pressure, although people also experienced forced labor.[1] Rural industrialization, officially a priority of the campaign, saw "its development... aborted by the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward."[2] It is widely regarded by historians that The Great Leap resulted in tens of millions of deaths.[3] A lower-end estimate is 18 million, while extensive research by Yu Xiguang suggests the death toll from the movement is closer to 55.6 million.[4] Historian Frank Dikötter asserts that "coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history".[5] The years of the Great Leap Forward saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1962 being one of two periods between 1953 and 1976 in which China's economy shrank.[6] Political economist Dwight Perkins argues, "enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all. ... In short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster."[7] In subsequent conferences in March 1960 and May 1962, the negative effects of the Great Leap Forward were studied by the CPC, and Mao was criticized in the party conferences. Moderate Party members like President Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping rose to power, and Chairman Mao was marginalized within the party, leading him to initiate the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

"Rape of Nanjing"

The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The massacre is also known as the Rape of Nanking or, using Pinyin romanization, the Nanjing Massacre or Rape of Nanjing. The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. During this period, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants who numbered an estimated 40,000 to over 300,000,[7][8] and perpetrated widespread rape and looting.[9][10] Since most Japanese military records on the killings were kept secret or destroyed shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945, historians have been unable to accurately estimate the death toll of the massacre. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo estimated in 1946 that over 200,000 Chinese were killed in the incident.[11] China's official estimate is more than 300,000 dead based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal in 1947. The death toll has been actively contested among scholars since the 1980s.[3][12] The event remains a contentious political issue and a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations. The Chinese government has been accused of exaggerating aspects of the massacre such as the death toll,[13] while historical negationists and Japanese nationalists go as far as claiming the massacre was fabricated for propaganda purposes.[8][14][15][16] The controversy surrounding the massacre remains a central issue in Japanese relations with other Asia-Pacific nations as well, such as South Korea and the Philippines.[17] Although the Japanese government has admitted to the killing of a large number of non-combatants, looting, and other violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Nanking,[18][19] and Japanese veterans who served there have confirmed that a massacre took place,[20] a small but vocal minority within both the Japanese government and society have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred. Denial of the massacre and revisionist accounts of the killings have become a staple of Japanese nationalism.[21] In Japan, public opinion of the massacre varies, but few deny outright that the event occurred.[21]

Partition of 1947

The Partition of India was the division of British India[a] in 1947 which accompanied the creation of two independent dominions, India and Pakistan.[1] The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan is today the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of three provinces, Assam, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wide Hindu or Muslim majorities. The boundary demarcating India and Pakistan became known as the Radcliffe Line. It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury, between the two new dominions. The partition was set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj, as the British government there was called. The two self-governing countries of Pakistan and India legally came into existence at midnight on 14-15 August 1947.[2] The partition displaced over 14 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions; there was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.[3][b] The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their relationship to the present.

Republic of China

The Republic of China was a sovereign state in East Asia, that occupied the territories of modern China, and for part of its history Mongolia and Taiwan. It was founded in 1912, after the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty, was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution. The Republic's first president, Sun Yat-sen, served only briefly before handing over the position to Yuan Shikai, former leader of the Beiyang Army. His party, then led by Song Jiaoren, won the parliamentary election held in December 1912. Song was assassinated shortly after, and the Beiyang Army led by Yuan Shikai maintained full control of the government in Beijing. Between late 1915 and early 1916, Yuan tried to reinstate the monarchy, before resigning after popular unrest. After Yuan's death in 1916, members of cliques in the former Beiyang Army claimed their autonomy and clashed with each other. During this period, the authority of the republican government was weakened by a restoration of the Qing government. In 1925, Sun's Kuomintang established a rival government in the southern city of Guangzhou together with the fledgling Communist Party of China. The economy of the north, overtaxed to support warlord adventurism, collapsed in 1927-28. General Chiang Kai-shek, who became KMT leader after Sun's death, started his military Northern Expedition campaign in order to overthrow the government in Beijing. The government was overthrown in 1928 and Chiang established a new nationalist government in Nanjing. In April 1927, he massacred the communists in Shanghai, which forced the communists into armed rebellion, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. There was industrialization and modernization, but also conflict between the Nationalist government in Nanjing, the communists, remnant warlords, and the Empire of Japan. Nation-building took a backseat to war with Japan when the Imperial Japanese Army launched an offensive against China in 1937 that turned into a full-scale invasion. After the unconditional surrender of Japan in 1945, fighting quickly resumed between the KMT and the Communists, with both sides receiving foreign assistance due to the ongoing friction between the United States and Soviet Union. In 1947, the Constitution of the Republic of China replaced the Organic Law of 1928 as the country's fundamental law. In 1949, the Communists established the People's Republic of China, overthrowing the Nationalist government on the mainland, who retreated to Taiwan.

Salt March

The Salt March, also known as the Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to produce salt from the seawater in the coastal village of Dandi (now in Gujarat), as was the practice of the local populace until British officials introduced taxation on salt production, deemed their sea-salt reclamation activities illegal, and then repeatedly used force to stop it. The 25-day march lasted from 12 March 1930 to 6 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. It gained worldwide attention which gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement. Mahatma Gandhi started this march with 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march was over 240 miles. They walked for 24 days 10 miles a day. The march was the most significant organised challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920-22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of sovereignty and self-rule by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930.[1] Gandhi led the Dandi March from his base, Sabarmati Ashram, 242 miles (390 km) to the coastal village of Dandi, which was at a small town called Navsari (now in the state of Gujarat) to produce salt without paying the tax, growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way. When Gandhi broke the salt laws at 6:30 am on 6 April 1930, it sparked large scale acts of civil disobedience against the British Raj salt laws by millions of Indians.[2] The campaign had a significant effect on changing world and British attitudes towards Indian sovereignty and self-rule [3][4] and caused large numbers of Indians to join the fight for the first time. After making salt at Dandi, Gandhi continued southward along the coast, making salt and addressing meetings on the way. The Congress Party planned to stage a satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works, 25 miles south of Dandi. However, Gandhi was arrested on the midnight of 4-5 May 1930, just days before the planned action at Dharasana. The Dandi March and the ensuing Dharasana Satyagraha drew worldwide attention to the Indian independence movement through extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. The satyagraha against the salt tax continued for almost a year, ending with Gandhi's release from jail and negotiations with Viceroy Lord Irwin at the Second Round Table Conference.[5] Over 60,000 Indians were jailed as a result of the Salt Satyagraha.[6] However, it failed to result in major concessions from the British.[7] The Salt Satyagraha campaign was based upon Gandhi's principles of non-violent

Sunshine policy

The Sunshine Policy refers to the theoretical basis for South Korea's foreign policy towards North Korea. Its official title is 'Taebuk hwahae hyŏmnyŏk chŏngch'aek (The Reconciliation and Cooperation Policy vis-à-vis the North),' and is also known as 'Taebuk unyŏng chŏngch'aek (The Operational Policy vis-à-vis the North)' and 'Pŏ-ong chŏngch'aek (The Embracing Policy).'[1] In 1998 the South Korean President, Kim Dae-jung, described a policy that was meant to soften North Korea's attitude towards South Korea, naming it after one of Aesop's fables, 'The North Wind and the Sun'. The name came from Aesop's Fable - shared with a Korean diplomat over dinner by Elizabeth Young, Lady Kennet - and the idea built on the traditional Korean ways of dealing with enemies by giving them gifts to prevent them from causing harm.[2] The policy emerged largely in the context of growing economic gap between the two Koreas, where the South was moving in the path of strengthening its nation powered by the economic prosperity achieved from president Park Chung-hee's administration in the 1970s throughout the 1990s while the North was falling into severe economic decline. Facing bankruptcy and spending excessive portion of its funds on warfare along with the nuclear program, North Korea faced widespread starvation among its people during the time.[2] Sunshine Policy was aimed at mitigating this gap in economic power and restoring lost communication between two nations. Furthermore, the background to South Korea's decision to engage North Korea through cooperation rather than maintaining a conservative stance in the past hints to a change in the domestic politics as well. According to Son Key-Young, Sunshine Policy emerged ultimately as an evidence of evolving South Korean national identity since the Cold War which "ushered in an era of unprecedented confusion in South Korea over whether to define North Korea as friend or foe" (p. 4)[3] The policy resulted in greater political contact between the two States and some historic moments in Inter-Korean relations; the two Korean summit meetings in Pyongyang (June 2000 and October 2007), as well as several high-profile business ventures, and brief meetings of family members[4][5] separated by the Korean War. In 2000, Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful implementation of the Sunshine Policy. Following the election of Moon Jae-in in 2017, South Korea began reconciling with North Korea once more, thus beginning the possible revival of the Sunshine Policy.

Tet offensive

The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the attacks, news coverage of the massive offensive shocked the American public and eroded support for the war effort. Despite heavy casualties, North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the slow, painful American withdrawal from the region.

Viet Cong

The Việt Cộng (Vietnamese: [vîət kə̂wŋmˀ] (About this sound listen)), also known as the National Liberation Front, was a mass political organization in South Vietnam and Cambodia with its own army - the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF) - that fought against the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War, eventually emerging on the winning side. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the regular North Vietnamese army. During the war, communists and anti-war activists insisted the Việt Cộng was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of Hanoi. Although the terminology distinguishes northerners from the southerners, communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.[6]

Siam

The history of Thailand from 1932 to 1973 was dominated by military dictatorships which were in power for much of the period. The main personalities of the period were the dictator Luang Phibunsongkhram (better known as Phibun), who allied the country with Japan during the Second World War, and the civilian politician Pridi Phanomyong, who founded Thammasat University and was briefly prime minister after the war. A succession of military dictators followed Pridi's ouster—Phibun again, Sarit Thanarat, and Thanom Kittikachorn—under whom traditional, authoritarian rule was combined with increasing modernisation and Westernisation under the influence of the US The end of the period was marked by Thanom's resignation, following a massacre of pro-democracy protesters led by Thammasat students.

Yoshida Shigeru

Yoshida Shigeru, (born Sept. 22, 1878, Tokyo—died Oct. 20, 1967, Ōiso, Japan), Japanese political leader who served several terms as prime minister of Japan during most of the critical transition period after World War II, when Allied troops occupied the country and Japan was attempting to build new democratic institutions. Yoshida served as prime minister for most of the period between 1946 and 1954, forming five separate cabinets. Having built a large personal following, he was able to rule almost autocratically, giving Japan stability in this critical recovery period. He guided his country back to economic prosperity, setting the course for postwar cooperation with the United States and western Europe. In 1951 he negotiated the peace treaty that ended World War II, as well as a security pact between Japan and the United States. In 1954 Hatoyama Ichirō, who had been taken off the Allied political purge list in 1951, challenged Yoshida for leadership of the Liberal Party, forcing him out of office. When the two conservative parties merged into the Liberal-Democratic Party under Hatoyama's leadership in 1955, Yoshida retired from politics.