PETITION
TO
THE REPUBLIC GOVERNMENT OF CHINA
BY
THE KOREANS IN HAWAII
Korean National Information Bureau,
P. O. Box 1919—Cable address:   Konation
Honolulu, T. H., U. S. A.
December 11th, 1931.
To His Excellency Lin Sen,
The President, The Chinese Republic Government,
Nanking, China:
We, the Koreans of the Hawaiian Islands do voice the sentiment of twenty million of our countrymen and
we humbly subscribe to this petition and to this plea do we most urgently beg that the Chinese Government comply
with the high mandate of the international justice and with the treaty between the respective governments of China
and Korea dated in September eleventh in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred ninety nine (1899) by
officially recognizing the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
"There shall be permanent peace and friendship between the Emperor of China and the Emperor of Korea, and between their respective subjects, who shall enjoy equally in the respective countries of the High Contracting Parties full protection and the advantages of favorable treatment. If
other powers should deal unjustly or oppressively with either government the other, on being informed of the case, will exert their good offices to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feelings."
Chinese and Koreans are of the same race and civilization, and are bound to stand and fall together. For
peculiar reasons as well as our mutual cause of geographical, racial relation and historical association, our interests
and sympathy in China have been in standing for many centuries. We emphasize that there is a genuine friendly
feeling between these two countries. We are confident in the belief that the Chinese people at large regard the
Koreans with brotherly affection. Korea has adopted her custom, her literature, her arts, and her science from
China, and she thoroughly understands the characteristics of the Chinese people. So it is the blessed bond of
deepest mutual sympathy that unites us with the great Republic of China as "the relation of lips are to teeth.'
For the sake of maintaining the close friendship between the two nations, such incidents like the Wanfusan and
Pyeng Yang massacres should not be entertained in the hearts of Chinese people for these massacres were instigated by our common enemy the Japanese.
Victor Cousin has said, "Tell me the geography of a country and I will tell you its future." In defense of
the vital interests and welfare of the Chinese Republic as well as of Korea, in securing the sacred cause of peace
in the Orient, Korea, as a close neighbour of China, is today of far more vital importance than ever before. China
and Korea have fallen into the grips of Japan's Imperialism. After the Russo-Japanese war (1905) Japan held
military possessions and forced its sovereignty upon Korea without her consent, in violation of the terms of her
treaty of alliance with Korea, and in direct conflict with her treaties that were made by her at different times with
other nations. This military possession and enforced sovereignty without consent was perhaps due to the fact that
China failed to use her good offices as was provided in the treaty. Following this assumed sovereignty under the
military coercion, there has been much oppression. The Korean people are taxed without representation and have
absolutely no voice in their government. They are oppressed economically and have no redress. Their courts
are presided over by Japanese Judges and Clerks. Japanese teachers installed in their schools compel their children to learn the Japanese language. Intellectually, they are being strangled and are being reduced to a position of
"ignorant serfs and slaves.   The people and the country are being exploited for the sole benefit of Japan.
Here the external history of Korea ended, but the national consciousness of the Korean people has kept
constantly alive the hope of regaining her just position among the nations. Although having lost international
recognition, the Korean leaders, regardless of Japanese subjugation are striving constantly to maintain their national activities.   In the Summer of 1913 the Japanese Consulate-General in San Francisco presented to the State