Korea, Provisional Government of the Republic of

The Korean Provisional Government (KPG), formally the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (Korean: 대한민국 임시정부), was a Korean government-in-exile based in China during Japanese rule over Korea.

The KPG was founded in Shanghai on 11 April 1919. A provisional constitution providing for a democratic republic named the "Republic of Korea" was enacted. It introduced a presidential system and three branches (legislative, administrative and judicial) of government. The KPG inherited the territory of the former Korean Empire. The Korean resistance movement actively supported the independence movement under the provisional government, and received economic and military support from the Kuomintang, the Soviet Union, and France. After 1932, the KPG moved to a number of different cities and eventually settled in Chongqing until the end of World War II in 1945. Several of the buildings used as the headquarters of the KPG in Shanghai and Chongqing are now preserved as museums.

After the surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945, the provisional government came to an end. Its members returned to Korea, where they put together their own political organizations under the American military administration and competed for power in what would become South Korea. On 15 August 1948, Syngman Rhee, who had been the first president of the Provisional Government, became the first president of the Republic of Korea.

The current South Korean government claims through the 1987-amended constitution of South Korea that there is continuity between the KPG and the current South Korean state, though this has been disputed by scholars and historians.

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