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Diplomacy of South and North Korea towards ‘Neutral Countries’ during the 1950’s

  • Asia Review
  • Abbr : SNUACAR
  • 2020, 10(1), pp.155~184
  • Publisher : 아시아연구소
  • Research Area : Social Science > Social Science in general
  • Received : June 22, 2020
  • Accepted : July 27, 2020
  • Published : August 31, 2020

Kim, Do-Min 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This research is a study on the diplomacy of South and North Korea towards ‘neutral countries’ during 1950’s. The findings of this research can be summarized as follows. From 1954, the Third Forces emerged, advocating anti-colonialism, peace and neutralism, and refusing to belong to the two camps of the Cold War. In 1957, North Korea entered into trade agreements with major Asian and African neutral countries (India, Indonesia, Burma, Egypt, Iraq, etc.). By contrast, the South Korean government was busy criticizing neutral countries that were leading neutralism and peace movement, because it regarded neutralism and peace movement that arose from 1954 as offensives by the communist camp. The South Korean government, however, had to face a considerable drop in the percentage of votes in its favor in the 1957 UN General Assembly vote on the Korea issue. Many of the abstentions were caused by the so-called new independent nations entering the United Nations, claiming ‘neutralism.’ As a result, the South Korean government sent the first friendly delegation to Asia and Africa to resolve the voting ‘crisis’ on the Korea issue at the UN General Assembly. In this way, the South Korean government was passive in its diplomacy towards neutral countries, acting under pressure from the UN diplomatic crisis.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.