South Korea's constitution traces its legal roots to a government in exile in Shanghai
In April 1919, with Korea under Japanese rule, 29 activists met in Shanghai's French Concession and declared a democratic Republic of Korea. That government in exile moved from city to city for 26 years. Today South Korea's constitution says the country carries on its legal traditions, and its first president led both.
Japan made Korea a protectorate in 1905 and annexed it outright in 1910. Dozens of independence groups formed, but none was accepted as the single voice of the cause. Rumours in January 1919 that the former emperor Gojong had been poisoned fed into a mass protest at his funeral on 1 March, the start of the March First Movement. When Japanese authorities crushed it, many activists fled abroad, including future founders of the exile government.
Shanghai suited them. It was a transport hub, foreign powers kept offices there, and the French Concession offered some distance from Japanese reach. On 10 April 1919 the Provisional Assembly met on Route Père Robert, and the next day it proclaimed the Provisional Government, adopting a charter for a democratic republic with separate legislative, executive and judicial branches. Syngman Rhee was chosen as prime minister in absentia, and An Chang Ho later helped shift the system from a parliamentary cabinet to a presidency.
Kim Kyu-sik, a scholar who spoke languages from French to Sanskrit, had already carried a petition to Paris in early 1919 but was barred from the peace conference because no Korean government yet existed. His push for demonstrations at home helped spark the March protests. Rival exile bodies appeared too, in Russia's Maritime Province in March and in Seoul in April, but after arguments over where to sit they merged into the Shanghai government on 11 September 1919. Even a royal, Prince Imperial Uihwa, tried to join and was caught by the Japanese army in Manchuria.
After 1932 the government kept relocating before settling in Chongqing, backed at various times by the Kuomintang, the Soviet Union and France. Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945 ended its role, and members returned to compete for power under American administration. Exactly three years later, Rhee became the first president of the Republic of Korea.
Source: Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
