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| 1919–27 |
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Sait 's task was to reform the government-general, and he selected well-trained men to help carry out this job. Some of the anti-Korean discriminatory laws were altered, and Sait formed an advisory council of Koreans which, although it had no real power, attempted to have some measure of input. Because he eased restrictions in the areas of education, the press, publication, religion, and the like, his reforms were known as the Cultural Policy. These included economic plans as well. It was a far more flexible era that the decade preceding it. | 1 |
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| 1920 |
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The two Korean-language newspapers, Chos n ilbo (Korea Daily News) and Tong-A ilbo (East Asia Daily News), were allowed to publish in Korean. In addition, the number of vernacular language publications mushroomed, with 409 permits given in 1920, as compared with fewer than 40 for the entire 1910–19 period. | 2 |
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| April |
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| The Company Law was abolished. Corporations no longer required the government-general's approval; they merely had to register. | 3 |
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| June |
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| The Korean Youth League was founded when some 600 smaller groups coalesced. | 4 |
| The number of police stations, meanwhile, increased from 151 in 1919 to 251 by late 1920 (substations rose from 686 to 2,495). The institution of a High Police for intelligence and control over the press was also founded. | 5 |
| Among the many thousands of Koreans living in Manchuria, the Korean Independence Army under Hong Pm-do (1868–1943) linked up with the troops of the Military Directorate under the command of Ch'oe Tong-jin and attacked Japanese forces in several border towns; 160 Japanese were killed and 300 were wounded. In another encounter, over 1,000 Japanese troops were killed. Retaliation came swiftly and was harsh. | 6 |
| The first Korean Communist Party (Kory Kongsandang) was founded by Yi Tong-hwi in Shanghai. Yi had organized a Korean Socialist Party in Khabarovsk in 1918, which he moved to Shanghai in 1921 when the Communist Party was created; in 1920 (some say 1919) a Korean section of the Bolshevik Party was organized in Irkutsk, which also joined the Korean Communist Party. The Shanghai and Irkutsk groups soon splintered into warring factions. | 7 |
| Numerous magazines, often with mass circulation and frequently dealing with hot social or political themes, began publication. | 8 |
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