The history of South Korea begins with the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945. At that time, South Korea and North Korea were divided, despite being the same people and on the same peninsula. In 1950, the Korean War broke out. North Korea overran South Korea until US-lead UN forces intervened. At the end of the war in 1953, the border between South and North remained largely similar. Tensions between the two sides continued. South Korea alternated between dictatorship and liberal democracy. It underwent substantial economic development.
The politics of South Korea take place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the president is the head of state, and of a multi-party system. To ensure a separation of powers, the Republic of Korea Government is made up of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The government exercises executive power and legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises a Supreme Court, appellate courts, and a Constitutional Court.
The Republic of Korea Armed Forces, also known as the ROK Armed Forces, are the armed forces of South Korea. The ROK Armed Forces is one of the largest and most powerful standing armed forces in the world with a reported personnel strength of 3,600,000 in 2022.
The president of the Republic of Korea, also known as the president of South Korea (Korean: 대통령), is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of Korea. The president leads the State Council, and is the chief of the executive branch of the national government as well as the commander-in-chief of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces.
Syngman Rhee was a South Korean politician who served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee is also known by his art name Unam. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea from 1919 to his impeachment in 1925 and from 1947 to 1948. As president of South Korea, Rhee's government was characterised by authoritarianism, limited economic development, and in the late 1950s growing political instability and public opposition.
The national flag of the Republic of Korea, also known as the Taegeukgi, has three parts: a white rectangular background, a red and blue taegeuk in its center, accompanied by four black trigrams, one in each corner. Flags similar to the current Taegeukgi were used as the national flag of Korea by the Joseon dynasty, the Korean Empire, as well as the Korean government-in-exile during Japanese rule. South Korea adopted the Taegeukgi for its national flag when it gained independence from Japan on 15 August 1945.
Korean nationalism can be viewed in two different contexts. One encompasses various movements throughout history to maintain a Korean cultural identity, history, and ethnicity. This ethnic nationalism was mainly forged in opposition to foreign incursion and rule. The second context encompasses how Korean nationalism changed after the partition in 1945. Today, the former tends to predominate.
The Korean Provisional Government (KPG), formally the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, was a Korean government in exile based in China during the Japanese occupation of Korea.
The National Emblem of the Republic of Korea consists of the taegeuk symbol present on the South Korean national flag surrounded by five stylized petals and a ribbon bearing the inscription of the official Korean name of the country, in Korean characters. The Taegeuk represents peace and harmony. The five petals all have meaning and are related to South Korea's national flower, the Hibiscus syriacus, or Rose of Sharon.
The Constitution of the Republic of Korea is the supreme law of South Korea. It was promulgated on July 17, 1948, and last revised on October 29, 1987.
Brian Reynolds Myers, usually cited as B. R. Myers, is an American professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, best known for his writings on North Korean propaganda. He is a contributing editor for The Atlantic and an opinion columnist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Myers is the author of Han Sǒrya and North Korean Literature, A Reader's Manifesto, The Cleanest Race, and North Korea's Juche Myth.
Constitution Day or Jeheonjeol in South Korea is observed on 17 July, the day that the South Korean constitution was proclaimed in 1948. The date was deliberately chosen to match the founding date of 17 July of the Joseon dynasty.
South Korean–Taiwan relations
Sin Ik-hui was a Korean independence activist and politician. He was Speaker of the National Assembly during President Syngman Rhee's first term and second term.
Byun Hee-jae is a South Korean conservative political commentator. He is also one of the founder of conservative weekly newspaper name Mediawatch.
The Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula was adopted between the President of the Republic of Korea (ROK), Moon Jae-in and the President of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un, on 27 April 2018, during the 2018 inter-Korean Summit on the South Korean side of the Peace House in the Joint Security Area.
Lee Jong-seok is the 8th President of the Constitutional Court of Korea, appointed by President Yoon Suk Yeol in November 2023.
Yoon Suk Yeol is a South Korean politician who is the 13th and current president of South Korea since 2022. Prior to his presidency, he served as the prosecutor general of South Korea between 2019 and 2021.
Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 9 March 2022. Under the South Korean constitution, presidents are restricted to a single five-year term, meaning that incumbent president Moon Jae-in was ineligible to run for a second term. Opposition candidate Yoon Suk Yeol of the People Power Party won the election, defeating candidate Lee Jae-myung of the incumbent Democratic Party.
Han Dong-hoon is the 69th Minister of Justice of the Republic of Korea, serving in the administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol. Han previously served as a junior anti-corruption prosecutor and played a leading role in multiple high-profile cases, including those involving Samsung executive Lee Jae-yong, former Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, and family members of former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk. Considered a protégé and close associate of Yoon, Han served as a principal deputy when the president held senior positions in the Korean prosecution service.
