Korea’s Shanghai gov’t was born 100 years ago
Inspired by the massive independence movement burgeoning back home, a group of 29
Korean independence leaders gathered in a two-story building in the cosmopolitan
French Concession area of Shanghai on April 10, 1919.
They tasked themselves with establishing a new government in the aftermath of the nationwide
mass demonstrations which kicked off on March 1 in Seoul, in which Korea declared its
independence from Japanese colonial rule.
Shanghai was the ideal location for the Korean provisional government as a commercial
and diplomatic hub of Asia.
The independence activists from various regions quickly agreed to launch a provisional assembly.
The first meeting of the assembly was immediately convened, and was chaired by Yi Dong-nyeong,
who later served as a president of the Korean provisional government.
Their objective was to establish an independent country, as was proclaimed through the March 1
Independence Movement. They discussed the details of establishing a provisional government,
such as what to name the new country and what to include in its constitution.
The meeting continued into the next morning.
On April 11, 1919, the provisional government of the Republic of Korea was established.
The name of the new country was the Republic of Korea, and it was declared to be a democratic
republic.
The Shanghai government, over the next few months, consolidated a provisional council based in
Russia’s Vladivostok and the Hanseong government based in Seoul.
The Korean provisional government survived for over a quarter century. In the 1930s,
the government moved from Shanghai to other cities across China until Japan’s surrender on Aug.
15, 1945. It was officially dissolved on Aug. 15, 1948.