The epilogue explores the enduring legacies of this historical encounter between American soldiers and Chinese civilians. In the People’s Republic of China, the recurring persona of the Chinese victim facing American brutality, further popularized through propaganda during the Korean War, continues to influence popular Chinese anti-American nationalism. In the United States, while the occupation of China remains a largely forgotten history, practices in China created important precedents and patterns for US military involvement with other nations in the following decades. As tensions between the two nations reach new heights today, the legacy of this “lost era” continues to be contested through divergent historical accounts from both countries, shaped by radically changing geopolitical concerns. The shadow of the American occupation remains long and haunting.

This chapter revisits the role of prestige and credibility in the US decision to intervene in Vietnam in 1965. Why was the Johnson administration so concerned about losing prestige and credibility in Southeast Asia when the United States was widely acknowledged as the regional hegemon? This chapter argues that US hegemony in East Asia in the 1950s and 1960s was incomplete both in terms of its reach and “buy in” by key actors. That incompleteness in turn predisposed America’s leaders to place a premium on maintaining US prestige and credibility in the region and on the world stage. The imperative of protecting US reputation as a “guarantor” became a principal cause of the Johnson administration’s decision to fight in Vietnam in 1965. One implication of this argument is that the role of prestige and credibility concerns in shaping US decision-making is not a constant, it varies with the extent of US hegemony.

This chapter argues that the division of Korea has been wrongly attributed to Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Instead of being a result of the Cold War, the division itself was a cause of the Cold War. This chapter traces the history of US-Korean relations back to the nineteenth century, highlighting the growing interest of Americans in Korea which placed political pressure on US policymakers to support Korea in 1945. The chapter shows that American interest in Korea predated concerns over Soviet expansionism and was driven by factors such as the spread of Christianity in Korea, the desire to prevent Japanese domination in East Asia, and a sense of obligation stemming from a treaty signed in 1882. By reexamining the historical context of US involvement in Korea, the chapter challenges the prevailing Cold War narrative and offers a fresh perspective on the origins of the Korean conflict.

This chapter covers the Democrat Party’s first term in office (1950–54), focusing on two aspects of this period: first, its leaders’ consolidation of power; second, the ways in which their economic policies of lower taxes, expanded credit, and increased investment depended on close relations with the United States. To secure economic and military aid, Democrat Party leaders sent soldiers to fight in the Korean War and continuously reminded US officials of Turkey’s strategic value. Drawing on diplomatic archives from the United States, Britain, and Turkey, this chapter reveals the dynamics of these negotiations. Moreover, the chapter shows how control of economic policymaking was a crucial arena of intraparty power struggles, both among the top leadership and at the provincial level. Again, looking at examples from Balıkesir and Malatya, we see how tensions increased between the parties during the early 1950s. We also see how the DP’s control of government allowed it to steer projects to provinces it controlled and penalize provinces that rejected it.

The Cold War divided East Asia. Beginning around 1978, the communist People’s Republic of China implemented market-based reforms that unleashed spectacular economic takeoff, but which were not accompanied by corresponding political reforms. After a bloody war, Korea has remained divided between an impoverished and isolationistic communist regime in the north and the non-communist south. Japan’s postwar “developmental state” economy boomed, and by 1981 Japan had become the world’s largest automaker. Trade wars with the U.S. led to a sharp increase in the exchange value of the yen, however, and the bursting of the Japanese bubble economy in 1990. In Vietnam, after the defeat and withdrawal of French colonial forces, massive American military intervention in support of the non-communist south became deeply controversial. Eventually the U.S. disengaged, and Vietnam was reunified by communist northern forces in 1975. The Cold War therefore ended, somewhat surprisingly, with communist regimes still entrenched in East Asia in mainland China, Vietnam, and North Korea.

This chapter is a study of India’s involvement in the Korean War, particularly in the later stages of that war and in bringing it to a close through the successful negotiation of an armistice agreement. The period under review is 1950–1953. The Korean War is an insightful case study because it combines a study of the beginnings of Indian diplomacy at the UN with Nehru’s idea of Asia.

The Cold War conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, fought in the context of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, differed in the nature of surrender. After the first year of the Korean War, the war became a stalemate. However, the fighting ended only with an armistice two years later. The delay resulted in part from an ideological dispute between the belligerents. American negotiators insisted that POWs be allowed to refuse repatriation to the country for which they fought; the Communists insisted on compulsory repatriation. The armistice allowed POWs to choose, and the Communists were internationally embarrassed because large numbers of Chinese and North Koreans refused repatriation. The major American intervention in Vietnam was fought primarily as a guerrilla campaign, with some large-scale battles. The Americans made little headway, and protests against the war expanded. After Nixon won the 1968 presidential election, he first tried carrot and stick means to convince the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese to cease fighting. When these failed, he and Kissinger maneuvered to end the American intervention by any means necessary. The Paris Peace Accords granted nearly all the enemies’ demands so that the United States could withdraw American troops. Withdrawal amounted to utter surrender.

Chapter 5 analyzes the evolving security structures in East Asia since the end of World War II. What counts as security for the countries in the region and beyond, and the policy choices made accordingly, have made East Asian security the way it is today. Evolution shapes every component of international security, specifically the nation, the nature of politics, and epistemology. Conventional security theories such as the security dilemma and alliance apply to East Asia partly because Western practice and theory have become parts of East Asian practice and theoretical thinking. At the same time, East Asia had a much longer history, and was not a blank canvas for outside influence. The mixture of the old and new explains why East Asian security concepts and practices seem partly familiar and partly strange, which is characteristic of East Asian international relations.

The politics of Vietnam was born in the early Cold War when Republicans made a concerted effort to undercut the national security advantage that Democrats enjoyed after a decisive victory in World War II. The years after the war are often remembered as a period when politics stopped at the water’s edge. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although there were a number of factors that moved the US military deep into the jungles of Vietnam, including a “domino theory” positing that if one country fell to communism everything around it would follow, partisan politics was a driving force behind this disastrous strategy. The same political logic and prowess that led President Lyndon Johnson to strengthen the legislative coalition behind his Great Society simultaneously pushed him into a hawkish posture in Southeast Asia.

This chapter explores Stalin's approach to China, in particular his difficult relationship with Mao Zedong. It shows Stalin at pains to redefine his strategy as the Chinese Civil War produced an unexpected set of victories for the Communists. By delving into the details of Anastas Mikoyan's negotiations with Mao in Xibaipo, and later Mao's talks with Stalin in Moscow, the chapter brings out hidden tensions between would-be allies while explaining how and why, despite these tensions, Beijing and Moscow managed to conclude a treaty of alliance. The chapter also explores the road to the Korean War, highlighting Stalin's reasons for permitting North Korea's Kim Il Sung to invade South Korea in June 1950. The war allowed Stalin to both strengthen the Sino-Soviet alliance and keep the Americans occupied, postponing the possibility of a conflict in Europe.

This chapter offers a brief overview of US relations with the Korean Peninsula from the late nineteenth century through the Trump administration to provide a historical framework for understanding the chapters that follow. While laying out this framework, this chapter also advances the argument that the policies of the Trump administration toward the Korean Peninsula were not the dramatic breaks with the past the administration often claimed they were. President Trump was hardly the first American president to be skeptical of the US alliance with the ROK and attempt to change it – though the bluntness with which he did this was unprecedented. While Trump’s three meetings with Kim Jong-un could rightly be called historic in a narrow sense, there is ample evidence they were just the latest installment of what some scholars refer to as “entrepreneurial diplomacy” with the DPRK. In the broader historical context of US relations with the Korean Peninsula, President Trump’s policies toward the ROK and the DPRK appear more as variations on a theme than dramatic breaks with the past.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks to end impunity for the world’s worst crimes to contribute to their prevention. But what is its impact to date? This book takes an in-depth look at four countries under scrutiny of the ICC: Afghanistan, Colombia, Libya, and Uganda. It puts forward an analytical framework to assess the impact of the ICC on four levels: on domestic legal systems (systemic effect); on peace negotiations and agreements (transformative effect); on victims (reparative effect); and on the perceptions of affected populations (demonstration effect). It concludes that the ICC is having a normative impact on domestic legal systems and peace agreements, but it has brought little reparative justice for victims, and it does not necessarily correspond with how affected populations view justice priorities. The book concludes that justice for the world’s worst crimes has no “universal formula” that can easily be captured in the law of the ICC.

The period from 1945 to 1960 was a mixture of the darker aspects of the time and the brighter aspects of the succeeding period. While there were disorder, division, and war, many of the conditions for the subsequent development were provided during this period. South Korea became an exception among the ex-colonies by escaping from socialism and being closely integrated with advanced capitalist countries. The country built a system whereby private enterprises faced workers with poor labor rights while carrying out the land reform. After the war, the growth rate was not impressive, as the prevalent government failure made it impossible to overcome the market failure. Yet import-substituting industrialization proceeded, through which chaebol emerged as a major player in the economy. The country implemented disinflation, enhanced education level, and began to promote exports, providing a condition for future growth, but the former two rather helped precipitate a crisis in 1960.

This chapter gives brief descriptions of Post-WWII interstate conflicts linked to the main phases in great power tensions: the bipolar Cold War, with Korean war 1950, the Viet Nam war 1965, Interventions, Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, the Détente and unipolar conflict resolving world that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union and the multipolar world that is emerging thereafter with terrorism, Russian intervention in Georgia and war in Ukraine and sharp tensions between the Koreas and in the East and South China Seas.