UCLA Center for East
Asian Studies
Today in Asian History
January 22
1909 U Thant, Secretary General of United Nations General Assembly (1961-72), was born. U Thant was a Burmese educator and diplomat who represented Burma at the U.N. from 1957 until he became Secretary-General. U Thant was involved in attempts to mediate the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Six-Day War in the Middle East (1967), and the Vietnam War. He died in 1974. Tay Win has created a page on U Thant.
1949 Chinese Communist forces took control of Beiping ("Northern Peace") to be renamed Beijing ("Northern Capital") when they established their government there. Fighting between the Communists and Nationalists continued. By the fall, the Communists had control over most of China and on October 1, 1949 proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
1950 Mao Zedong (Chair of the Chinese Communist Party) and Zhou Enlai (Foreign Minister) met with Joseph Stalin (leader of the Soviet Union) and Vyacheslave M. Molotov (Foreign Minister) in Moscow where they discussed economic cooperation and Soviet troops stationed in Manchuria. Click here to read a Soviet transcript of the meeting.
1971 Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh came under artillery attack from communist rebels for the first time. In 1975, the Maoist-inspired Khmer Rouge seized control of Phnom Penh and the rest of the country.
1996 Former generals and presidents Chun Doo-hwan (1980-88) and Roh Tae-woo (1988-92) were charged in South Korea with treason and mutiny in connection with their seizure of power in 1979 and the May 1980 massacre of hundreds of pro-democracy activists in Kwangju. Roh and Chun were already in jail on charges of corruption.
The U.S. Library of Congress Country Study on South Korea has brief sections devoted to "Chun takes over,""the students," and "Kwangju uprising."
''We believed that the government had limited power to settle the turmoil. So we thought that an extension of martial law was required.''
Roh, testifying on April 1, 1996Some documents indicate U.S. government approval of the crackdown on demonstrators.
The ex-presidents were convicted on December 16, 1996. Initially, Chun was sentenced to death and Roh to 22 ½ years in prison. An appeals court, noting service to the Korean nation, reduced the sentences to life in prison for Chun and seventeen years for Roh.
On December 22, 1997, South Korean President Kim Young-sam pardoned the two men, a move that was initiated by President-Elect Kim Dae-jung. A dozen former generals who were also serving time in prison for their roles in the 1979 coup and 1980 suppression of the Kwangju demonstrations were also released. [See January 23, 1981 entry for information about Kim's own imprisonment by Chun.]
The AI "Today in Asian History" page was compiled by Clayton Dube. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send them to <cdube@isop.ucla.edu>.
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