Kim Hong-il (general)

The Right Honourable Kim Hong-il
Kim Hong-il in 1961
7th Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 21 May 1961 – 21 July 1961
President	Yun Posun
Preceded by	Chung Il-hyung [ko]
Succeeded by	Song Yo-chan
Personal details
Born	(1898-09-23)23 September 1898 Ryongchon County, North Pyongan Province, Empire of Korea
Died	8 August 1980(1980-08-08) (aged 81) Hyochang-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Spouse(s)	Min Gyeong-ran (민경란; 閔景蘭)
Children	Three sons
Military service
Allegiance	Republic of China  South Korea
Branch/service	National Revolutionary Army  Republic of Korea Army
Years of service	1920–1951
Rank	Lieutenant General Lieutenant General
Commands	Northeast Security Command [zh] Capital Division I Corps
Battles/wars	Russian Civil War Northern Expedition Second Sino-Japanese War Korean War First Battle of Seoul Battle of Pusan Perimeter
Korean name
Hangul	김홍일
Hanja	金弘壹
Revised Romanization	Gim Hong-il
McCune–Reischauer	Kim Hong'il

Kim Hong-il (Korean: 김홍일; 23 September 1898 – 8 August 1980) was a Korean independence activist and a general of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Korean War, who later became a diplomat and politician in South Korea. Born in North Pyongan, he did his early schooling in China and Korea, and had a brief career as a teacher before his connections with the nascent Korean independence movement led to his imprisonment. He fled into exile in China in 1918, and served in the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army from 1926 to 1948, following which he moved to the newly independent South Korea to join the Republic of Korea Army. He commanded South Korea's I Corps during the first year of the Korean War, and was then sent to Taipei as South Korea's ambassador to the Republic of China, which by then had retreated to Taiwan. His assignment there ultimately lasted nine years. He returned to South Korea in 1960 following the April Revolution which ended the rule of Syngman Rhee, and served briefly as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Park Chung Hee junta. He ran for the National Assembly, first unsuccessfully in 1960 and 1963, and was then elected in 1967 and became a major figure in the opposition New Democratic Party.

Being one of the most experienced and high-ranked among the officer corps that commanded the early Republic of Korea Army, he was nicknamed the "Five-star General".