(Mis)-Interpretations of the 1943 Cairo Conference: The Cairo Communiqué and Its Legacy among Koreans During and After World War II

In December of 1943, three leaders of the Allied forces gathered in Cairo, Egypt to discuss wartime and postwar issues. The Communiqué that they completed in the last of the four-days of meetings, however, reflected issues related to the postwar fate of the Japanese empire, rather than the wartime issues that had dominated their discussions. The rather obtuse phrase, “in due course,” inserted to qualify the leaders’ promise to deliver Korea its independence would gather significant importance only after the conference. It served as a cornerstone for Allied occupation policy planning and execution for future gatherings, while Koreans used it as a rallying point around which they protested Allied trusteeship policy both during and after the Pacific War. This disagreement contributed to the failure that the U.S. and Soviet experienced in their efforts to reunite the peninsula during their three-year occupations of southern and northern Korea. The legacy of this phrase continues in the divided peninsula to this day.