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The year of 2018 marks the centennial of the end of World War One on November 11, 1918. Europe was at war a century ago until the United States stepped in as of April 2, 1917. Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) had secured his re-election as president the previous year by maintaining the United States' neutrality, but he ultimately turned into a president of war instead of peace when he decided to engage in "the war to end all wars."

This decision to go to war meant that the United States was abandoning its 124-year long tradition of neutrality established when its first president George Washington made the Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793 toward the conflict between Revolutionary France and Great Britain. Wilson's decision led to the sacrifice of 116,516 American soldiers among the 9 million or so victims of World War One. And it was Wilson's doctrine to promote peace and security that determined the United States' foreign policies for the next one hundred years and extends into the Trump administration's policy toward North Korea today.

Wilson's doctrine was infused in the fourteen points he stated through his speech to the U. S. congress on January 8, 1918. The fourteen points had been derived from reports prepared for Wilson by an unofficial team of advisors called the "Inquiry." These points, including the fifth point about national self-determination, later served as a guide for the United States government in handling negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference.

The Inquiry's suggestion of national self-determination was a principle necessary for ending World War One and establishing a new post-war order. Austria and Turkey were multinational countries that had been allies to Germany. The principle of national self-determination could have signaled the rupture and dissolution of empires by prompting ethnic minorities under colonial rule to carry out independence movements. It also implied that national self-determination would be limited to colonies of the vanquished, which is most likely why "Colonel" Edward M. House, a friend of President Wilson leading the Inquiry, had his aide Stephen Bonsal personally meet Kim Gyu-sik (1881-1950) to inform that "Korea was not an issue that can be discussed at the peace conference." In other words, the issue of Korea had not been part of President Wilson's plans on post-war settlement.

What, then, was the Inquiry all about? Five months after deciding to enter the war, President Wilson sought to form an advisory group to devise policies on post-war settlement and the establishment of a new international order. By early September 1917, an unofficial group of scholars was created outside of the State Department, mostly because having served as president for a university, Wilson had more confidence in scholars than bureaucrats.

Prior to World War One, American universities had practically no academic interest in areas beyond the United States and Europe. Few historians and experts specialized in the Slavic region, Asia, or Africa and their level of expertise was not very extensive. The Inquiry consisted of 126 members divided into 16 different divisions. The division of the Far East came to be headed from August 1918 by a 34-year-old political science professor at the University of Wisconsin named Stanley Hornbeck, but Hornbeck's knowledge of the Far East had been insufficient. So, in terms of East Asian affairs, the Inquiry failed to provide President Wilson with a proper blueprint for realizing his post-war plans.

This is precisely why President Wilson caused confusion at the Paris Peace Conference over affairs involving China, especially on whether to return Germany's concessions and lease on the Shandong peninsula to China or Japan. Wilson eventually compromised with Japan at the conference. By threatening to walk away from the League of Nations, the Japanese government was able to make the Big Four accept Japan's demands regarding the Shandong problem at a meeting held between the head of the United States, Britain, France, and Italy. Wilson must have figured that it would be worse to have Japan back out of the League of Nations for it would then allow Japan to have its own way in the Far East.

News out of Paris in April 1919 that the United States and Japan had reached an agreement on the Shandong problem caused the world to withdraw its expectations toward Wilson. And on April 14, 1919, the U. S. state department gave the American ambassador to Japan the following guideline on how to deal with the issue of Korea. "The Consulate should be extremely careful not to encourage any belief that the United States will assist the Korean nationalists in carrying out their plans and it should not do anything which may cause Japanese authorities to suspect the American Government sympathizes with the Korean nationalist movement."

Nevertheless, as representative of the association Sinhan cheongnyeondan and foreign affairs minister for the Korean Provisional Government, Kim Gyu-sik refused to give up hope for Korea's independence. He left Paris to arrive in the United States on August 21, 1919 with plans to stay there for two months to publicize the legitimacy behind liberating Korea from Japanese rule and reestablishing Korea as an independent country. Furthermore, he intended to testify on the veracity of accounts American missionaries included in their reports about the atrocities Japan committed during the March First Movement. Kim Gyu-sik was able to forge such plans because he had previously spent six years studying in the United States at Roanoke College from receiving a government scholarship in 1897 thanks to his father Kim Yong-won. Kim Yong-won had once traveled to Primorye, Russia as King Gojong's emissary in early February 1885. However, after a coup d'etat in 1884, King Gojong's approach toward Russia came to clash with Li Hongzhang's policy aimed at turning Korea into a tributary state. And for having traveled to Russia, Kim Yong-won ended up being wrongfully sent into exile for three years between 1885 and 1888. Sending his son Kim Gyu-sik to study in the United States had therefore been an indemnification of sorts for what Kim Yong-won had suffered. While abroad, Kim Gyu-sik was able to study with and befriend Yi Gang, also known as Prince Uichin, as well as Yi Gi-jong, the eldest son of the patriot Yi Beom-jin. Such friends later proved to be great assets to Kim Gyu-sik in carrying out anti-Japanese campaigns abroad for Korea's independence.

In its August 23, 1919 edition, the New York Times reported news of Kim Gyu-sik's arrival in the United States along with an introduction about Japan's policy toward mainland China, which had been noted in the petition for independence Korea had submitted at the Paris Peace Conference. "Japan's continental policy aims, first, at the seizure of the hegemony of Asia through the domination and control of the man power and natural resources of China―possible only by the Japanese possession of the continental point d'appui of Korea―and, next, at the mastery of the Pacific Ocean as the sole means of forcing an entrance for Japanese emigrants into the rich lands of the Australias and the Pacific seaboard of the United States."

Nevertheless, it still took quite some time for the United States government to heed Kim Gyu-sik's insightful argument that Korea's independence was relevant to the United States' security because the Korean peninsula is likely to be the starting point where tragedy in the Pacific will occur for the United States.