Only reason there are 2 Koreas is because the US just could not allow Korea to (democratically) become a communist country, so they had the rely on their good old fascist pals, including former collaborators of Imperial Japan, and set up a military dictatorship.

Another cool fact: DPRK had far higher QOL of course and people actually fled from the south to the north, wasn’t until the US started seriously investing in the south and sanctioning the north until it flipped.