Jo So-ang

Jo So-ang (Korean: 조소앙; Hanja: 趙素昻; 30 April 1887 – 10 September 1958) was a Korean politician, educator, and Korean independence activist. He spent much of his career in exile in China, working in the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. After Korea gained its independence in 1945, he returned to Korea. He was a right-leaning politician who supported the Provisional Government over the various competing left-leaning organizations.

He participated in drawing up a draft of the proclamation of the independence of Korea in 1918 while he was studying in Japan, and after 1919, left for Shanghai to join the Provisional Government. He served various roles in the Government until 1945, including as Minister of Foreign Affairs and head of the Korean Independence Party. He also organized the society of policies on current affairs with Kim Ku and Yeo Unhyeong, contributing to establish the theories on diplomacy of the provisional government. In 1948, Jo and other politicians including Kim Ku, Kim Gyusik, and Kim Il Sung visited Pyongyang to attend a joint conference between left and right leaning politicians in an effort to keep the Korean peninsula unified.

He ran for a representative of the national assembly and was elected in 1950. In the same year when the Korean war broke out, he was abducted and taken to North Korea.