Answer:
The correct answer is D. After Korea was freed from Japanese occupation in 1945, Korea became a battleground between two strong powers. The United States backed non-communist Koreans in the south, and the Soviet and Chinese helped Korean communists gain power in the north.
Explanation:
At the suggestion of General Douglas MacArthur, in October 1943 the heads of state of the United States and the USSR met in Moscow and agreed that the USSR would declare war on Japan once the war in Germany had ended. This decision was supported by the belief that the Japanese Empire was more vulnerable in the north, in Manchuria and Korea, than in the south, in the Philippines, where it was winning the battles.
On August 8, 1945, two days after the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, the USSR declared war on Japan and the next day attacked the Korean peninsula by the north. This decision alarmed the United States, that after the atomic bombings on Japan, thus ensuring the early Japanese surrender, were no longer interested in the entry of the Soviet Union into the war. One day after the second atomic bombing in Nagasaki, on August 10, 1945, the United States sends troops to Busan, south of the Korean peninsula. Korea, on the other hand, counted on a guerrilla of communist ideology that faced Japan and supported the measures of the USSR. The US troops were also welcomed to their landing in Busan, to the south.
On August 10, when preparing the general surrender of Japan, the Operations Division of the US Department of War chose the 38th parallel as the boundary of the country's defense. On August 15 the surrender was published. Joseph Stalin, in a climate of increasing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, ordered his troops to stop north of the 38th parallel, while US troops were stationed at the South of it. Stalin admitted the surrender of Japan and said nothing about the division of Korea. The Americans took this act as an acceptance of it.
The North, which began to industrialize and sympathize with the Soviets, formed the Socialist State of North Korea on September 9, 1948. The USSR recognized its cabinet as the only legal for the entire peninsula. Meanwhile, in the south, South Korea was born on August 15 of the same year, then the poorest part of the peninsula.
