THE UNITED STATES AND THE KOREAN QUESTION

THE UNITED STATES bore the burden of defeating Japan in the war, and therefore became the party primarily concerned with the handling of the Korean question. For the Korean people, “the Korean question” meant liberation and independence from Japan's colonial rule. For the United States, however, it did not have a true place in its East Asian relations until the outbreak of the war in the Pacific. After the war began, various political and strategic goals with regard to the Korean peninsula, at both the global and East Asian levels, became subsumed into “the Korean question.” Yet, after the war's end, the Korean question followed a trajectory that was the total opposite of American intentions, and was also at complete odds with Korean hopes.

With the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, Korean nationalists in the United States and elsewhere immediately raised the matter of independence, believing that Japan's defeat would equal a sure guarantee of their country's independent destiny. Before the war started, Korean organizations in China had already launched a campaign in this regard, promising cooperation with the United States, and at the same time demanding that the American government, for its part, should make a public commitment to the independence of Korea. The Korean Provisional Government (KPG) in Chongqing sent a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, in the name of Executive Chief Kim Ku and Foreign Minister Cho Soang (Tjo Soang), requesting formal recognition by the United States of this “government.” The two claimed that they were “determined to fight Japan in cooperation with China and the United States.”

At least in terms of its rhetoric, the United States included the liberation and independence of Korea as one of its general war objectives. In August 1941, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill announced a joint statement, promising to restore the sovereignty and self-government of weaker nations. Later, the United States promised several times that it would expel Japan from all the territories that it had taken by “violence and greed.”