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Matters of trade and economic policy from a third major policy domain. During the 1980s, the economic relationship between South Korea and the United States emerged as a full-fledged foreign policy issue. South Korea is the seventh largest trading partner of the United States, as its economy continues a remarkable expansion, displayed to the whole world as Seoul hosted the successful 1988 Summer Olympics. U.S. policy concerns about the imbalance in trade between the two nations were reciprocated in South Korea and friction over trade issues in specific industries became a recurrent feature of relations between the two nations in the 1980s.

The final policy domain in U .S. relations with South Korea, human rights, is inseparable from the preceding three. Under the military governments of Presidents Park Chung Hee and later Chun Doo Hwan, South Korea pursued economic growth while the United States as least tacitly approved of the authoritarian approach. In the process those governments compiled a record of human rights abuses that included arrest, jailing, and occasionally torture of dissidents, and heavy-handed control of the press. For many Koreans, such abuses could be seen as a direct result of U.S. influence and policies which supported stability at the expense of everything else.

In summary, the four major dimensions of U.S. policy toward Korea-reunification, the military relationship, economy, and human rights-may be seen in historical context as different aspects of the U .S. creation and support of a particular kind of government and economy in South Korea as a bulwark against communism. It was in such a context that the tragic Kwangju incident occurred in 1980.

Increasing repression during the latter years of the Park Chung Hee government created a set of pressures which led to the assassination of President Park in 1979. There followed a brief period of public progress toward democratic reform, coinciding with the consolidation of power by general Chun Doo Hwan in a two-stage military coup. In the spring of 1980, this process of military control exacerbated student demonstrations in Kwangju, the capital of South Cholla province and a stronghold of support for opposition politician Kim Dae Jung.