初期 在美僑胞社會가 大韓民國 建國에 미친 影響

Early Korean Immigrants to America : Their Role in the Establishment of the Republic of Korea

The Republic of Korea and its constitutional government owe a debt of gratitude to those Koreans living abroad during the first decades of the 20th century. The current framework of the Republic of Korea was inherited from the provisional government, which in turn, was born out of the vision of Korean-Americans. They established branches of the Commonwealth Association and the Korean National Association in the United States, Hawaii, Siberia, and Manchuria (from 1908 to 1945), and Shinmin-hoe(New Peoples Association) in Korea (from1907 to 1912). Key members of Shinmin-hoe formed the cornerstone of the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai. And once it was established, the Korean-Americans willingly took up the responsibility of financial sponsoring to set up the government office, establish the Restoration Army and operate the Europe-America Commission in the United States and the provisional government in China. Some ardent members of Korean-Americans joined secret O.S.S. missions of U.S. Army against Japan. When Korea was liberated in 1945 from the Japanese colonial rule, the vision for the a new nation was split in four directions : the first one was American-style Democratic Nation with balance of power which had been pursued by the most Korean-Americans, the second was Liberal Democracy based on a Parliamentary-Cabinet System by intellectuals living in Korea who had studied in Europe or Japan, the third was A Single Party System Integrating Political Party and Administration by right-wing independence fighters mainly in China, and the fourth was Soviet-style Dictatorship of the Proletariat by the left-wing living home and abroad. Therefore, from the onset, a truly united nation was impossible. Recently some leftist Korean scholars have argued that Korea could have been founded united but for Dr. Rhee Syngman and American intervention. Such an argument denies the fact that work to set up a communist government had already begun in February 1946 in north Korea. Among the four visions for the new country, the one seeking to establish a Soviet Union-style state could not possibly be integrated with the other three. And since the Korean Independence Party, which advocated a single-party system integrating political party and administration, was composed of anti-communists, it could embrace left-wing as minor partner, but it could not back left-wing causes. For those reasons, talks between the South and North in April, 1948 promoted by Kim Gu and Kim Kyusik, were bound to fail. As the leftists sought totalitarianism single party rule, they certainly could not participate in the Constituent Assembly election. Thanks to the concerted efforts, monetary assistance and most importantly with right vision of new nation of Korean-Americans, the Republic of Korea was come into being.