Kim Kyu-sik

Kim Kyu -sik ( born January 29, 1881 in Busan, Korea at that time the, present-day South Korea, † December 10, 1950 near Manpo, North Korea) was a Korean independence activist and politician. He was Vice President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.

He was (now a part of Busan) born in Dongnae and become an early age to orphan. He was educated by American missionaries and got the name of this "John." Later he traveled to the USA and earned at Roanoke College in Virginia the bachelor's degree. He then studied at Princeton and earned a master's degree there in 1904.

1905 Kim returned back to Korea and took up a teaching position. After 1910, Korea was annexed by the Japanese Empire, Kim went into exile in China.

As an authorized representative of the Provisional Government Kim Kyu -sik traveled to Paris to achieve independence of Korea from Japan at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. He was sent by Yuh Woon- hyung and Chang Duk -soo, who had established in the summer of 1919 in Shanghai Sinhan Cheongnyeondang. But his efforts proved fruitless, as the U.S. considers the 14- point program of President Woodrow Wilson on the self -determination of peoples in favor of the former allies Japan for less important.

At Roanoke College, Salem ( Virginia) in 1923 he earned his doctorate of jurisprudence. In 1935, he founded the People's Revolutionary Party ( 민족 혁명당 ) in Nanjing. He was a leading member of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, whose vice-president, he was established in 1940 under Kim Gu.

After the liberation of Korea from Japanese troops at the end of World War II in 1945, he returned again to his native country to take part in the establishment of an independent state. The country was divided into two occupation zones between the Soviet Union and the United States. The American military government preferred together with Kim Yuh Woon- hyung as moderate politicians to build a new government. In September 1947, the U.S. put the Korean question on the agenda of the UN was founded a few years earlier. It was decided to ignore the objections of Korean politicians in the years 1948 to hold elections in South Korea.

After all the efforts for unification of Korea had failed, Kim withdrew from politics. As in 1950, the Korean War broke out, he was kidnapped and brought to the North. He died a short time later near Manpo on 10 December 1950.