Over 500 people attended the People’s Summit for Korea at the historic Riverside Church in New York City on July 25-26, which ended with a Times Square rally and march on July 27.

The Summit was organized by Nodutdol and convened by a list of other Korean and U.S.-based groups, including United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). Nodutdol describes itself as “an organization of diasporic Koreans and comrades organizing for a world free of imperialism and for Korea’s reunification and national liberation.”

With the Summit, Nodutdol — with a majority of members below 30 years of age — galvanized the Korean movement in the U.S. in an anti-imperialist direction. By changing the fulcrum point of its movement from the start of the Korean war in 1950 back to 1945, when U.S. imperialists replaced Japanese imperialists, Nodutdol opened up a whole new range of understanding of the struggle for an independent and united Korea. It’s not just an anti-war struggle but a systemic fight between two class systems.

The People’s Summit took place seven months after right-wing President Yoon Suk-Yeol illegally declared martial law on Dec. 3.

It’s significant that the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) played a major role in Yoon’s forced departure. KCTU had been holding weekly protests against Yoon for trying to raise the maximum workweek from 52 to 69 hours, for raiding union halls and arresting union organizers and for numerous other anti-labor policies.

In a country with a history of extreme worker exploitation, it shouldn’t be surprising that the union organization rate at workplaces with 300 or more workers in South Korea is 46%. In the U.S., only 9.9% of workers are in unions. (koreaherald.com, June 12, 2023)

When Yoon declared martial law, the KCTU’s experience in organizing weekly protests proved invaluable in organizing immediate and massive demonstrations demanding Yoon’s removal from office. It’s estimated that 20% of South Korea’s 52 million people participated in the street protests against Yoon in the days, weeks and months before Yoon was finally impeached on April 4.

Decades of Japanese colonialism, then U.S. imperialism

From 1910 to 1945, Korea was brutally occupied as a colony of Japan, despite a persistent resistance movement. This year, Aug. 15 will mark 80 years since the end of Japanese occupation in Korea. For the Korean people, this date is bittersweet.

After Japan lost and WWII ended in 1945, the Korean people were on their way to establishing an independent government across the peninsula, known as the Korean People’s Republic, when the U.S. intervened and began a brutal occupation against the will of the people there, setting the stage for the Korean War.

U.S. imperialists are not only responsible for killing 4 million people during the Korean War — including massacres at Daejeon, Jeju and No Gun Ri — they are also implicated since then for the deaths of many people resisting U.S. puppets and tyrants. The U.S.-backed military dictator Chun Doo-hwan brutally drowned the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in blood.

The U.S. has kept the Korean peninsula divided since 1953 despite the wishes of the vast majority of Korean people. U.S. presidents — both Democrats and Republicans — have kept intense economic, political, diplomatic and military pressure on North Korea for eight decades.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has not only survived harsh sanctions but has made impressive gains, not just in providing the basic necessities for its population, but in material and cultural advances.

South Korea today is an advanced industrial economy— but at the cost of brutal U.S.-backed military dictatorships and severe exploitation of workers through massive investments of U.S. capitalists who profit from low wages.

For decades U.S.-supported military dictators were the rule, until 1988, when a fragile comprador bourgeois government was instituted. The people’s victory over Yoon’s attempt to install martial law this year shows how much Koreans do not want to go back to the days of brutal military dictators.

But no matter who leads the government in Seoul, the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, along with tens of thousands of U.S. military contractors, continue to occupy Korean territory. The South Korean military — which relies on a draft that requires all male citizens to serve for approximately 18 to 21 months — is one of the largest standing armies in the world. The U.S. retains command and control over South Korea’s 500,000 active duty troops and another 3.1 million soldiers on reserve status.

Pentagon war plans for Asia

U.S. strategists are preparing for a new war in Asia, with new bases, alliances and threats. Those munitions are aimed at China and North Korea, effectively making South Korea a front line of U.S. imperialism in Asia.

Nodutdol points out that a century ago, Japan used Korea as a bridgehead to launch a wider war into Asia with the aim of conquering China. Today, the U.S. is doing the same thing. General Xavier Brunson, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, on May 16 called Korea a “fixed aircraft carrier … floating between Japan and China.” (stripes.com) The insulting statement implies the lives of the Korean people are nothing but cannon fodder for the military goals of the U.S.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with President Donald Trump, all identified China as their number one target, and they see Korea as crucial to Washington’s plans for war in the region. To that end, the U.S. held war games in Korea for 200 days in 2023 and 275 days in 2024. The U.S. is on track to break the record again this year.

Koreans who live near bases where the U.S. holds war games have had to deal with machine-gun fire, bombs and roaring war planes on a daily basis. Chemicals from U.S. weapons pollute their air, soil and water, increasing risks of cancer and other diseases. In March, the South Korean Air Force dropped eight 500-pound bombs on the working-class village of Nogok-ri during a U.S.-led war exercise, injuring 31 people and damaging over 150 buildings, most of them houses.

Every year on August 15, the U.S. and South Korea hold their largest series of war games in Korea: Ulchi Freedom Shield. During those military exercises, the two countries rehearse the invasion and occupation of North Korea and even the use of nuclear weapons against the Korean people. Washington claims these exercises are “defensive,” but they are really rehearsing war crimes against the Korean and other Asian peoples.

Trump is demanding South Korea pay for U.S. troops occupying the country by increasing annual payments to the U.S. from $1.13 billion to $10 billion under the Special Measures Agreement. On top of that, the U.S. now wants South Korea to increase its military budget to 5% of its Gross Domestic Product and is pressuring its government to buy more U.S. weapons.

Trump is also using tariffs as a threat to get the South Korean government to comply with new military demands.

In recognition of 80 years of U.S. occupation and in opposition to the war exercises, progressive organizations and movements across South Korea will converge for a national day of mobilization on Aug. 15.

There will be protests in U.S. cities as well, with the following demands:

1. U.S. out of Korea!
2. Cancel the Ulchi Freedom Shield war games!
3. Stop extorting Korea — Koreans will not pay for the U.S. occupation of their homeland!

Korea’s struggle is part of a growing international movement to end imperialist wars and build a new world rooted in sovereignty, dignity and the power of the people. Everyone should be in the streets with the Korean people on Aug. 15!

View all videos from the Summit on YouTube at BreakThrough News.