Request for UN Membership
In 1919 Korean expatriates in China set up the Provisional Government of the Korean Republic to oppose the Japanese takeover of the Korean Peninsula. In 1945 near the end of World War II, the Korean Provisional Government increased its efforts to gain international recognition and applied to the newly formed United Nations (UN) for membership. The group issued the following statement at the opening meeting of the United Nations in San Francisco in April 1945.
Statement Seeking Recognition and UN Membership By the Provisional Government Of the Korean Republic
Korea asks admission into the ranks of the United Nations now and requests the Allied Powers to consider her case without further delay. Furthermore, she is willing, able, and prepared to assume the full responsibility that goes with a sovereign state's membership in the United Nations.
Keeping the Korean question dangling in midair increases the anxiety of the thirty million Korean people and the feeling of uncertainty on the part of all other small nations. Recognizing Korea now as an ally will strengthen the faith of the underground resistance in the occupied areas of Asia, and it will enhance the hope of humanity everywhere in the ultimate triumph of democracy.
The nations at war with Japan have everything to gain and nothing to lose by accepting Korea now as an active ally. She should be given moral and material support in her prolonged fight against the common enemy Japan. This will contribute toward the postwar political stability in Asia and promote the interest of democracy. The time to recognize Korea is now, not after Japan has been defeated....
The history of the Far East for the last fifty years proves that no lasting peace is possible in that part of the world so long as Korea is used as a pawn by rival powers in international power politics. It is obvious that no security organization can be permanent unless strategic Korea is included as a member. There is no reasonable doubt that Korea, when free, can make ends meet economically, maintain a stable government, and contribute her share to the international security organization for the lasting peace and welfare of the world.
But outweighing all these considerations in the scale that determines the qualifications of a country for membership in the United Nations is the amount of sacrifices Korea has made in the cause of human freedom. All the fury of the oppressor's brutality during the past forty years did not stamp out the spirit of liberty in the Korean heart. Korea can count more than one Lidice of its own, towns whose whole population was massacred and whose dwellings, schools, and churches were put to the torch. Yet Korean determination for independence has never wavered....
Now the people of Korea see the dawn of their hope and want their country to be accepted as one of the United Nations so that they may contribute a greater share to the final victory over Japan, thereby shortening the duration of the war in the Pacific and hastening the day of their liberation.
Their claim is not based on delusions. Korea looms large in strategic importance as Allied aerial and naval power is gradually forging an iron ring around Japan. Korea is the bridge to the Asiatic mainland, and the control of this bridge is essential to the final encirclement of the enemy. When the Allies land on Korean soil, they will find the people waiting for them, ready to aid. Their aid will be invaluable because of their intimate knowledge of the terrain and of the ways of the enemy. Their experience in sabotage and guerrilla warfare will be at the disposal of the Allies.
In order to gain the eager cooperation of the Korean people and to avoid all confusion during and immediately following the military campaign in the peninsula, it would be wise, indeed necessary, to utilize the machinery that has long been set up and that is functioning—the Korean Provisional Government, the oldest government in exile.
When this Provisional Government was democratically organized in 1919 by representatives of all the people in Korea, it was given a clear mandate to carry on until Korea becomes free, at which time it will be replaced by a permanent government by the people. For the past twenty-six years, the Korean Provisional Government in exile has performed its work according to the original mandate of the people, and Koreans everywhere have recognized it as their own. It has proved its stability. It has been their only government.
Let those who fear that through the Provisional Government expatriates might impose the will of a minority upon the people within Korea remember that as soon as Korea becomes free, a new constitution will be adopted. The form of government and the type of officials the people want will be decided by the people themselves. Until then, the Provisional Government is the symbol of Korean freedom and the rallying point of all Korean military and political activities. It speaks for the Korean people, and it should be the agency through which the Allies deal with the Koreans.
Aside from the principle of the Atlantic Charter that every nation has a natural right to live under a government of its own choosing, practical world policy demands that this Provisional Government of the Korean Republic be given immediate recognition and that Korea be allowed to become a member of the United Nations, so that the Korean people may be encouraged to move in the direction of parliamentary democracy and to lend greater active support to the war effort of the Allies.
Source: Peter H. Lee, ed. Sourcebook of Korean Tradition, vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
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