EI SUN OH
As the waves of diplomatic heat over the South China Sea gradually subsided in recent days – and while the Philippines and China explored options for negotiation on the one hand and the Vietnamese prime minister visited Beijing appearing to seek to repair their rifts on the other – tensions on and around the Korean Peninsula grew. Such was due primarily to the North’s continuing nuclear and missile tests and the South’s deployment of the terminal high-altitude air defense (THAAD) system in response. But to understand the current turmoil there better, we should perhaps briefly visit a brief history of modern Korea.