North Korea’s perceptions and activities regarding the Korean problem at the Geneva Conference, 1954

This study examined the specific aspects of North Korea’s perception and response to the Geneva Conference on Korean Peninsula Issues held in 1954. North Korea held several meetings with China and the Soviet Union and prepared specific preparedness plans. Throughout the Geneva conference, the cooperative relationship between North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union was close, and they showed their unity by presenting a pre-coordinated unified plan at the meeting. The North Korean leadership attempted to strengthen internal mobilization and control by utilizing the ‘crisis’ of the deadlock at the Geneva Conference.<br/> In a situation where the meeting was deadlocked, some Commonwealth countries raised the need for an international monitoring body in consideration of the hostility between North and South Korea, which had just experienced the Korean War, and this issue emerged as an important issue. North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union agreed on the need for this organization and counter-proposed that it be composed of neutral countries that did not participate in the Korean War, rather than the United Nations. But the meeting ended quickly without reaching a specific agreement.<br/> During the meeting, North Korea, China and some of the free camp countries faced the widespread hostility on the Korean Peninsula, which had just entered the war, and reached some consensus on the need for an international monitoring organization such as a neutral country to control this and achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula. The history of meeting and dialogue needs to be reexamined as a valuable example of peace negotiations that must be remembered in the reality of the Korean Peninsula currently engulfed in the imminent threat of war.