Was Ho Chi Minh the reason why the Vietnam War is history, but the wounds of Korea still fester?

John Barry Kotch says what sets apart the Korean War from the later conflict in Vietnam is the lack of a unified political elite amid the Soviet-US divide, especially the absence of a clear national leader like Ho Chi Minh

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un leads a memorial ceremony at the Fatherland Liberation War Martyrs Cemetery in Pyongyang on July 27, the 64th anniversary of the Korean War armistice agreement. Photo: AFP/KCNA via KNS

Published: 1:23pm, 28 Jul 2017Updated: 6:08pm, 28 Jul 2017

While the first world war ended with a punitive peace, complete with harsh reparations and prolonged occupation, setting the stage for the second world war, the latter was the opposite, ending with a relatively benign occupation of the two main Axis powers (Germany and Japan), a peace treaty, and their subsequent reintegration into the community of nations.

By contrast, post-second world war conflicts in global hotspots such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have experienced less favourable outcomes. Apart from Iraq, they have all been intra-state or civil wars in which outside powers have generally been unable to impose their will and – with the sole exception of the 1991 Gulf War and Vietnam – remain unresolved.

Korea and Vietnam, both brush-fire wars on China’s periphery, are studies in contrast. Why is there closure in Vietnam four decades after the fighting ended, while there is none in Korea six decades later, making it the living symbol of the unfinished business of the cold war and currently threatening a regional nuclear conflagration?

Commuters at a railway station in Seoul watch a TV news broadcast about North Korea’s test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, on July 4. Photo: AFP

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July 27 marked the 64th anniversary of the 1953 Korean War armistice agreement, which suspended but not did not end the conflict. And while many of the provisions of the ceasefire have been eviscerated during the intervening decades, such as the ban on the introduction of new and upgraded military equipment, the armistice agreement has by and large remained intact, albeit without a peace agreement putting to rest the underlying conflict.

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A key difference was that negotiations to end the Vietnam War were conducted at the political level in Paris, with the parties in face-to-face contact and zones of occupation delineated pending a final peace settlement, while those to end the Korean War took place at the military level in the field where copies of the armistice agreement were signed in triplicate by representatives of the three warring armies, the US-led UN Command, the North Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteers at the truce village of Panmunjom.