WI: South Korea formally ends Korean War in 70's-80's?

As is generally known, the DPRK and South Korea retain a formal "state of war" between themselves, since the South refused to sign the peace treaty ending the war. What if it did in the 70's-80's, how much opposition would there be in the South (presumably among the military and conservative politicians) and what political and international effects would it have?

I could see the continued presence of US troops in the South being a bigger issue, for example.
 
What if it did in the 70's-80's, how much opposition would there be in the South (presumably among the military and conservative politicians)

Well, it might depend on what period in the 70s/80s you're talking about. Park Chung Hee had been re-elected as a technical civilian president in 1971, but began ruling as a military dictator in 1972, when he declared martial law and enacted an authoritarian constitution. And Chun Doo Hwan, who came to power shortly after Park was assassinated, as far as I know was never anything but a military dictator. Roh Tae Woo was also a military man, but was voted president in 1988, in an election that was probably about as democratic as it could be, taking place during the last days of a military dictatorship. I think Roh governed more-or-less democratically, though enforcement of the National Security Laws were almost certainly harsher than it is now(it does remain in effect, and is still occassionally used, albeit quite sparingly, to harass left-wingers).

So, if the question is what would the military and the conservatives think about ending the war, well, guys like Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan(and maybe Roh, depending how you regard him) pretty much WERE the conservatives and the military. Personally, I can't see any of those three wanting to end the war. If you're hypothesizing a situation where they go rogue and do a "Nixon To China" thing, my guess would be that there would indeed be elements within the military who would oppose that.

Under the more liberal Kim Dae Jung in the late 90s, the South did initiate a limited outreach to the North, known as the Sunshine Policy. Conservatives grumbled, but I don't think there was ever any serious talk about the military stepping in to toss him out. Not sure how it would have gone if he'd actually proposed a peace agreement, and I don't even know if that's what he was aiming for in the immediacy. Despite the anti-American rhetoric of some of his followers, KDJ never proposed kicking out the Yanks, and neither did his even more anti-American successor, Roh Moo Hyun.
 
I do know that in one of the years in the early 70's both Koreas actually released a communiqué indicating their desire to reunify, but obviously nothing came of that.

There was also this:
President Kim Il Sung advanced a plan for founding the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo at the Sixth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in October Juche 69 (1980).

He stated that the most realistic and reasonable way to reunify the country independently, peacefully and on the principle of great national unity was to draw the north and south together into a confederal state, leaving the ideas and social systems existing in the north and south as they were. He therefore proposed a new plan to reunify the country by founding a confederal republic through the establishment of a unified national government on condition that the north and the south recognize and tolerate each other's ideas and social system, a government in which the two sides are represented on an equal footing and under which they exercise regional autonomy respectively with equal rights and duties.

He recommended that in the unified state of a confederal type a supreme national confederal assembly should be formed with an equal number of representatives from north and south and an appropriate number of representatives of overseas nationals and that this assembly should organize a confederal standing committee to guide the regional governments of the north and south and to administer all affairs of the confederal state.

He added that it would be a good idea to call the confederal state the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo.

The DCRK should be a neutral country which does not participate in any political, military alliance or bloc. As a unified state, embracing the whole of the territory and people of the country, it should pursue a policy which agrees with the fundamental interests and demands of the entire Korean people.
Of course this is already getting quite far ahead, if it's even remotely possible in the early 80's.
 
Interesting. Though keep in mind that three years after that, North Korea tried to assassinate the South Korean president with a bombing in Rangoon Burma, killing several of his ministers in the process. And in 1987, they blew up a Korean civilian airplane for no other reason than to scare people away from the Seoul Olympics.

Not that I'd spend much time weeping for Chun Doo Hwan's ministers, or for Chun himself if the Norks had managed to off him as well. Those guys were pretty much the worst of the worst. The airplane bombing was just pointless carnage, however.

Whatever it's sincerity, Kim Il Sung's 1980 proposal sounds like a very good idea for any interim period between a peace treaty and full unification.
 
Perhaps a "rogue" South Korean leader in the 70's-80's could use renewed talks with the North and appeals to reunification (resulting in signing the peace treaty, not actual reunification nor confederation) as a buffer against any military coup threats, since AFAIK the South Korean populace as a whole was a lot less "hardline" on the issue than the government.
 
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