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281 Conclusion Syngman rhee was a freedom fighter. He was, however, unlike other Korean freedom fighters of his day. rhee had a low estimate of the efficacy of military or terroristic resistance against an aggressive Japanese colonial agenda. tactics such as bombings and assassination attempts did not appeal to him, not just because of their inability to yield the necessary political results but because condoning and supporting terrorist activities would have betrayed the values on which he founded his entire political career. rhee did not reside in the company of soldiers, nor did he desire to build an armed force to do his personal bidding. thus forsaking violence , rhee relied almost solely on diplomacy and publicity/propaganda— diplomacy and publicity/propaganda centered mainly on the United States. Set in this light, there is a certain nobility in the fact that rhee consistently and constantly applied his will to solving the Korean problem within the constraints of reason, logic, and the internationally recognized protocols of diplomatic interactions. In the decades that have passed since rhee’s death in Honolulu in 1965, students of Korean history have come to their own conclusions as to just how a native of Hwanghae Province became the republic of Korea’s first president in 1948, despite having carried out his independence movement mainly outside the peninsula. their conclusions have not always been generous. Pointing to rhee’s successive political setbacks suffered after 1922 and his lengthy inability to win diplomatic recognition for the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) from the Western powers for so many agonizing years of colonial rule, it was perhaps easy to attribute rhee’s 1948 victory to machinations and aggressive propping up perpetrated by the U.S. government. From this standpoint, rhee was not someone who rose to power through legitimate means, but someone who cunningly mobilized foreign forces to his advantage, or, worse, was simply a puppet on strings held by a foreign power. the foregoing survey of rhee’s career from his birth to 1948 indeed proves that (1) he repeatedly failed in attempts to obtain the recognition of the KPG, which he represented, from the United States and other major powers after 1919, (2) he suffered the utmost humiliation of being impeached and dismissed from the presidency by the KPG in Shanghai in 1925, (3) he was ostracized by a large segment of the Korean residents in Hawai‘i as a “divider” or “dictator” after he seized control of the Korean National association of Hawaii through a coup in 1915, and also after his 282 Conclusion business venture on the island of Hawai‘i failed in 1930, (4) he often took recourse to litigation and mob tactics in dealing with his political enemies in Hawai‘i and California, in order to maintain his prestige and power throughout the period from 1915 to 1945, and (5) he was constantly criticized by the members of the Korean National association in los angeles as well as the Sino-Korean Peoples’ league of Hawaii as a senile and incompetent diplomat while he was engrossed in obtaining recognition of the KPG from the U.S. government in the early 1940s. this survey also shows that he did not receive full-fledged support from the U.S. government until September 1947—that is, about ten months before he achieved the coveted presidency of the republic of Korea. Nonetheless, to claim that Syngman rhee relied on U.S. support to rise to power, and not his own abilities and efforts, is an overly myopic view. my own view, based on his seventy-three-year career as the champion of Korean independence, is that rhee’s 1948 election as president was a tribute to his peerless competence and steadfast effort. He possessed ample qualifications to be president and won the support of the South Korean people and the U.S. government through unparalleled persistence and determination . rhee possessed qualities lacking in his political rivals of the time, including Kim Ku, the chairman of the KPG in Chongqing; Yŏ Un-hyŏng, the chairman of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence ; Kim Kyu-sik, the speaker of the South Korean Interim legislative assembly; and Pak Hŏn-yŏng, the secretary-general of the South Korean labor Party—who survived rhee’s archrivals of earlier days, namely, Pak Yong-man (d. 1928), Yi tong-hwi (d. 1935), and an Ch’ang-ho (d. 1938). It was this foursome that emerged as rhee’s chief contestants for power...

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