That the United States continue efforts for the early establishment of a Provisional Korean Government in consonance with the Moscow Agreement and meanwhile provide necessary support of the political, economic and military position of South Korea. APPENDIX E TO PART III—KOREA POLITICAL _Resumé of United States Policy Toward Korea_ The first treaty between the United States and Korea, signed in 1882, provided that if other powers dealt unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other would exert its good offices to bring about an “amicable agreement.” During the early period of United States-Korean relations the United States considered Korea as an independent state for the purposes of fulfilling treaty obligations, although that nation was actually under Chinese suzerainty. Prior to the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, when efforts were made to gain the support of the United States to avert war, the United States took the position that, while it stood for peace, it would do nothing which might cause it to assume responsibility for settlement of the dispute. Under the treaty ending the war, China relinquished suzerainty over Korea, which was in turn assumed by Japan. Therefore, the United States continued its policy of non-interference in Korean internal affairs and in 1899 denied a Korean request for American initiative in obtaining from the powers an agreement guaranteeing Korea’s integrity. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, President Theodore Roosevelt stated that the United States could not intervene to preserve Korea’s integrity since the Koreans were unable “to strike one blow in their own defense.” When Japan forced the Korean Emperor to agree to Japanese control of the administration of Korean affairs, the Emperor appealed to the United States, under the good offices clause of the United States-Korean Treaty of 1882, but his appeal was denied. Nor did the United States protest Japanese formal annexation of Korea in 1910. Thus, with little or no effort on the part of the United States to oppose such a development, Korea passed from the suzerainty of China to that of Japan and thence to the status of a Japanese colony. Efforts of Korean exiles to introduce Korea’s case at the Paris Peace Conference and at the Washington Conference of 1921-22 were rebuffed, but these exiles continued their efforts to further the cause of Korean independence, some of them in the United States. With the outbreak of World War II, the question of Korean independence was revived and Korean exiles in the United States and China began to agitate for Korean independence and official recognition. At the Cairo Conference in 1943, agreement was reached by the participating powers, later adhered to by the Soviet Union, that Korea would become independent “in due course.” This phrase caused great resentment among the Koreans who felt that