1920년대 전반기 하와이 故國訪問團의 추진과 성격

A Study on the Propulsion and Characteristics of Group of Korean Ethnic Visitors in Hawaii to their Motherland in the Early 1920’s

The Japan implemented a project of the visit of Korean ethnic people in foreign nations to their motherland as a part of the conciliatory policies toward those people. It was not until 1916 that the Japan started pursuing such project toward Korean ethnic people in Hawaii. Understanding that the Korean society in Hawaii is run mainly by those minority ethnic intellectuals, the Japanese authorities concocted the scheme to order the Japanese consulate to lure Korean church pastors and leaders into promoting such project. Missionary Bishop M. C. Harris was selected as the person most adequate for engaging in Korean ethnic people overseas. He had a close connection with Rhee Syng-man and Min Chan-ho in Hawaii, as well as key members of YMCA in Korea. Harris met the Japanese consul in Honolulu and Cynn Heung-wu who accompanied with him in 1916 when he visited Hawaii, and had a discussion about how to conciliate Korean ethnic people in Hawaii. Such discussion was made mainly by Korean YMCA members including Cynn Heung-wu - group in favor of Rhee Syng-man - Japanese consul, under the arrangement of Harris. But such project had been suspended in November 1918 just before it was just about to be facilitated, due to the independence movement that took place on the 1st of March in the following year. In 1921~1922, a project of the visit of Korean ethnic people in foreign nations to their motherland was resumed. It was July 1923 that such project pursued again by Cynn Heung-wu, Kim Yoon-soo and Lee Jeong-beom was, finally, gone into effect. But teachers and students in the school which was run by President Rhee running the Provisional Government received Japanese passports. The factthat they did so meant that they acknowledged they are ‘Japanese imperial colonial subjects’. In the face of public harsh criticisms for it from the Korean society in America, Rhee Syng-man enforced to implement such project mentioned above. It is deemed that Rhee Syng-man did it in an attempt to construct his own power at home and abroad including Hawaii, after June 1922 when he was distrusted from the provisional legislative institution. Accordingly, a project of the visit of Korean ethnic people in foreign nations to their motherland pursued under the leadership of Rhee Syng-man was to badly affect the independence movement foundations and groups including Korean society in America, let alone the Korean Provisional Government; to trigger the divisions and discords between the Korean Provisional Government and Korean society, on the part of the Japan.