Founding of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
After the March First Movement, on 11 April 1919, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was founded in Shanghai, the first Korean government to adopt a democratic republic. In September it merged the several provisional governments.
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After the March First Movement the Korean National Council in the Maritime Province, the Hanseong government in Seoul and a government in Shanghai were formed in quick succession. On 11 April 1919 the Provisional Assembly in Shanghai adopted the name "Republic of Korea" and a Provisional Charter establishing a democratic republic; on 11 September the three governments merged under President Syngman Rhee and Premier Yi Dong-hwi, with separate legislative, executive and judicial branches.
For secret links with Korea it built the yeontongje (an underground administration down to township level) and the gyotongguk (a communications network run through the Irish-owned Ilung Company in Dandong), sold independence bonds and raised funds through the Ilung Company and the Baeksan Trading Company. It kept diplomatic missions in Paris (Kim Kyu-sik) and Washington, published the Dongnip sinmun, compiled historical materials on Korea–Japan relations and placed the Western and Northern military administrations under its war ministry.
By around 1921 the yeontongje and gyotongguk had been exposed and broken and diplomacy had achieved little, and the government stagnated. Rhee’s petition for a League of Nations mandate and disputes over strategy led to the National Representatives’ Conference of 1923.