some more information on the discussions on koguryo/goguryeo (old/new korean transkription) 高句麗, one of the three kingdonms in korean history

***************
discussion
***************

discussion on Google NEWSGROUP soc - culture - china (80+ entries):
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=bctSb.167966%244F2.19527729%40twister.nyc.rr.com&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dsoc.culture.china
(one single link above)

discussion on Google NEWSGROUP soc - culture - korean (90+ entries):
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=GSISb.18242%24Dg.7428%40newssvr27.news.prodigy.com&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dsoc.culture.korean
(one single link above)

***************
websites
***************

more information on Goguryeo/Koguryo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goguryeo (wikipedia)
http://www.mct.go.kr/english/K_arts/sculpture_02.html (Ministry Of Culture & Tourism Republic of Korea - Goguryeo Period (37 B.C.~A.D. 668)Tong-hyung)
http://www.nfm.go.kr/english/hall_1/three_1.html (Hall of Korean Life History - The National Folk Museum of Korea)
http://www.koreainfogate.com/beautykorea/cultural/cultural.asp?src=Koguryo&title=Koguryo (Korea Infogate - Koguryo Culture)
http://concise.britannica.com/search?query=korea+koguryo (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia)

or search google for koguryo
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=koguryo

or -if you read korean- have a look at http://www.koguryo.org (Institute of Koguryo Studies(IKS), Seoul)

***************
articles
***************

pacific forum csis: comparative connections - A Quarterly Electronic Journal on East Asian Bilateral Relations
4th Q u a r t e r 2003: C h i n a - K o r e a R e l a t i o n s
No Shows, Economic Growth, and People Problems

by Scott Snyder *
Korea Representative, The Asia Foundation

With APEC and ASEAN Plus Three holding their annual meetings in October or November, the last quarter of the year has become a period when one can expect more intensive high-level exchanges than usual across the region. Add a boost in diplomatic business surrounding planning for six-party talks, a post-SARS bump, and a 40 percent rise in bilateral ROK-PRC trade and 2003 becomes a banner year for China-ROK high-level exchanges and trade relations. Booming economic growth in the PRC has driven and in some cases overtaken the Korean economy, benefiting South Korean exports in the short run. As a result, China has become the de facto regional hub for Northeast Asian and Korean trade despite Korea's aspirations to play that role.

The quarter also saw the emergence of a number of areas in which individuals or groups got caught on the wrong side - or the dark side - of the burgeoning trade relationship, or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many of these incidents raise questions about whether the bureaucrats of the two countries are capable of managing diplomatic hot potatoes and protecting the vulnerable or disadvantaged while going after cheaters and swindlers. Even history became contested as Beijing began to rewrite history in a bid to challenge Korean historical claims.

Six-Party No Shows and the Difficulties of Collecting Payment in Advance

As the second North Korean nuclear crisis celebrates its first anniversary, the six-party drama has taken on characteristics of a Dickens penny novel - if only the stakes weren't so high and the situation real. This diplomatic potboiler left-off last quarter with North Korea rejecting a visit by the PRC and a parliamentary Chairman Wu Bangguo, ostensibly due to press leaks in the South Korean media. However, the visit for early September made its way back onto Chairman Wu's schedule for the end of October. The Wu visit was deemed important because it was sufficiently high-level to assure an audience with Kim Jong-il during the trip. President Bush had stated at APEC in mid-October that he would support a multilateral security guarantee for North Korea, although there was no change in the administration's position that the prerequisite for such an assurance was the "complete, irreversible, verifiable" dismantling of the North Korean nuclear program. During Wu's visit, the PRC followed up with DPRK counterparts on the Bush statement, suggesting an exchange of nonaggression assurances for a North Korean pledge to give up its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program as part of the diplomatic strategy to convince the Dear Leader to send DPRK representatives to a second round of six-party talks. Following a series of meetings that included discussions with Kim Jong-il, Chairman Wu's delegation ostensibly secured a DPRK pledge to participate in a new round of talks widely expected to take place by year's end.

Having been assured that the North Koreans would actually participate in the meeting, the Chinese turned to the task of trying to ensure a substantive outcome for the talks. The challenge for the PRC was to avoid the establishment of an empty process along the lines of four-party talks from the late 1990s, a diplomatic stalemate, or failed diplomacy à la Iraq, especially since the logical result of a failure in negotiations would be to refer the matter for consideration to the UN Security Council.

Recognizing that there would likely be little progress at the formal sessions and with the failure to get a joint statement from the August round of talks fresh in their minds, the PRC attempted to pre-negotiate an agreed statement among the six parties primarily focused on an exchange of assurances between the DPRK and the United States. This exchange of drafts occurred during the first two weeks of December, at which point it became clear that it would be impossible to close the gap in wording in the DPRK and U.S. positions in time for a year-end round of negotiations anticipated for Dec. 17-18. Much of the gap was in whether to describe the process of moving forward as a "coordinated" or "simultaneous" process. Although there was disappointment in many quarters that the talks were unable to take place by the end of the year, soon after Christmas, the PRC vice foreign minister was back in Pyongyang for consultations with DPRK diplomats, and New Year's Eve heralded news reports of round of track-two diplomacy involving American private citizens and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Stay tuned for the next installment of Beijing's shuttle diplomacy and the latest in the second North Korean nuclear crisis!

Paydirt in Economic Relations

The China-ROK bilateral trade relationship averaged about 40 percent growth throughout 2003, allowing China to pass the U.S. as South Korea's number one trade partner and investment destination. China is reported to have been the destination of over three-quarters of South Korea's foreign direct investment in 2003. China's enormous economic expansion continues to have both an upside and a downside for Korea. Chinese economic growth has been a wonderful driver for Korean exports buying Korean cars, semiconductors, automobiles, telecommunications equipment, and many other products. For instance, expanded production in China has paid off for Hyundai and Kia, making possible record production plans for 2004. (Estimates are that Korean exports to China will continue to grow at around 25 percent next year.)

But China's advantages as a global manufacturing hub are hollowing out Korean industries, many of which are moving to China. For instance, Korean heavy machinery manufacturers are actively transferring operations to the PRC. Chinese companies are producing exports in sectors such as kitchen appliances that are increasingly competitive in Korean markets, challenging Korea's market share in head-to-head competition in third-country markets. An expansion of China's steel production facilities may affect Korean steel makers in the mid- to long-term, but is not perceived to pose an immediate threat. Shanghai and Shenzhen ports have grown at double digits surpassing Pusan as the third and fourth busiest ports in the world. Korean textile exports dropped to a 13-year low in 2003 of $15.2 billion as a result of increased international competition from China, according to industry sources.

A new trend exemplifies China's challenge and possible economic dominance in the future: Chinese firms seeking Korean technology and experience are beginning to invest in Korea in strategic industrial sectors. In December, the Nanxing Group, a Chinese national chemical company, beat out more established potential buyers in the automobile sector to sign a memorandum of understanding to acquire Ssangyong Motor Corporation. In 2002, China's BOE Technology bought a division of Hynix Semiconductor that makes flat panel displays, and several Chinese companies are seeking to acquire Orion PDP, a maker of plasma display panels. While Korea benefits from in foreign investment and a first-rate performance in niche markets, China's acquisitions are feeding fears that the PRC will close the technological gap with Korea within the next few years by acquiring the strategic jewels that are likely to determine Korea's future economic growth prospects and further undermine Korea's competitiveness in global markets.

The Wrong Person at the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Ethnic Korean Chinese temporary workers without legal work permits - representing over half of the approximately 200,000 illegal foreign workers resident in Korea - have been part of an ongoing saga over ROK government attempts to introduce a new work system for foreign laborers in Korea, especially those who have illegally stayed in South Korea to work and earn a living. Many of those individuals risk being abused by Korean employers who might abuse illegal workers who have no recourse or might face deportation under Korean law if they are caught. The situation is especially complex for ethnic Koreans from China, who have been at the center of a constitutional debate over a law that that had promised special rights for ethnic Koreans who returned from overseas to the Republic of Korea. Since that law excluded ethnic Koreans who had left Korea prior to the establishment of the ROK in 1948, thus indirectly discriminating against ethnic Koreans who had emigrated to the PRC or Russia, it was declared unconstitutional several years ago. However, despite opposition from the PRC government, several ROK lawmakers have continued to seek ways to extend these special rights to Koreans in the PRC and Russia. This issue has become entangled with the ROK government's attempts to overhaul its law governing illegal foreign workers by revising a permit system and giving special amnesty to illegal workers who voluntarily depart Korea prior to the initiation of a crackdown and new regulations this year. Ethnic Korean Chinese have protested these and other issues in recent months. They have received continuous support from South Korean NGOs who focus on supporting the rights and welfare of ethnic Koreans from China.

Several South Koreans found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time in China, with their returns delayed for months if not years. One is Jeon Yong-il - former ROK prisoner of war who remained along with 40,000 South Korean POWs in North Korea - who escaped North Korea and sought asylum at the South Korean embassy unsuccessfully on several occasions. Since Jeon was listed by the MND as dead rather than as a prisoner of war, those attempts to seek asylum were rejected. He was detained in mid-November by Chinese authorities for trying to use a fake South Korean passport to seek asylum in South Korea and sent to Tumen in preparation for return to North Korea. But media attention due to pleas from human rights activists finally motivated the South Korean Foreign Ministry to take action on his behalf, and the Chinese authorities pragmatically allowed Mr. Jeon to return to Seoul on Christmas Eve to reunite with his family, who had given him up for dead. Following Jeon's return, it was revealed that there may be several other former South Korean POWs in China who have been seeking to return to South Korea.

Seok Jae-hyun, a freelance photographer for The New York Times who accompanied North Korean refugees in China who attempted to smuggle themselves out to South Korea, lost his appeal of a two-year prison sentence for helping the refugees, and remains in a Chinese prison. Separately, Rev. Choi Bong-il was reported to have been sentenced to nine years in prison for helping North Korean refugees in Yanji, Jilin Province. These cases renew serious questions about the competency of the South Korean government to protect and advocate for its own nationals. And there is plenty of reason for South Korean citizens to be outraged on the latter point: yet another visa-selling scandal was revealed in which a South Korean consular official was arrested for selling 265 South Korean visas to Chinese citizens who had already been determined ineligible to enter South Korea, in collaboration with two South Korean brokers. A separate investigation involves a high-ranking Ministry of Justice official responsible for immigration affairs who is also alleged to have assisted illegal brokers.

Battle over the Sinicization of Korean History

Koreans historians and diplomats have begun to react to news that the Chinese Academy of Social Science is conducting a five-year "Northeast Asia Project" that is reputedly aimed at strengthening the PRC's historical claims to the region by integrating into Chinese historical narrative the history of the Goguryeo Dynasty (37 B.C. to A.D. 668), which occupied the northern part of Korea and Manchuria during the period known in Korean historiography as the Three Kingdoms period. Chinese scholars have argued that the Goguryeo Dynasty was a peripheral state founded by ethnic minorities in ancient China, long before the consciousness of the concept of the nation-state ever existed in Asia. The issue has also been catalyzed by China's challenge to a bid by the DPRK to have Goguryeo tomb murals placed on the UN World Heritage List at the International Council of Monuments and Sites, a UNESCO subcommittee. This move has drawn the attention of South Korean civic groups, including the Korean Ancient Historical Association and the Korean Archaeological Society, which wants the South Korean government to support the North Korean bid. The Korean response may well be drawn from China's active attempts in past years to "sinicize" Tibetan history and to occupy ethnic autonomous territories with a majority of Han Chinese settlers. The implementation of this policy in recent years has apparently been underway not only in Tibet, but also in the Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture of China that is home to most of China's Korean minority.

The initiation of the CASS history project, which essentially seeks to appropriate the history of the Goguryeo dynasty as part of China's own history, may be a Chinese reaction to perceived concerns that a unified Korea would lead to irredentist territorial claims stretching into China's northeastern provinces. A few nationalist Koreans have from time to time attempted to claim large parts of Manchuria as rightfully Korean territory and Ministry of National Defense educational curricula emphasize Goguryeo's historical dynastic territory, possibly as justification for a future Korean territorial claim in China. This issue could become a serious test of China-Korean relations at a later date. Beyond the nuclear crisis, six party talks, or a booming trade relationship, the task of settling "history" between Korea and China may go a long way toward shaping the future of the China-Korean relationship.

http://www.csis.org/pacfor/cc/0304Qchina_skorea.html

********************************

the washington post - letter to the editor

Chinese View Omitted In Goguryeo Recounting
Friday, January 30, 2004; Page A20

The Jan. 22 news story about the controversy concerning the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo ["Kicking Up the Dust of History"] deserved credit for highlighting the issue of rising Korean nationalism, but it told only one side of the controversy.

No interview with any Chinese scholar was included. The story contained only Korean allegations.

Ancient "inter-state" relations in East Asia were markedly different from the sovereign-state paradigm that existed in Europe at the time. It was a China-centric hierarchical structure.

Which kingdoms at what period could be considered part of "China" is debatable.

Using modern international law to "redefine" the relations may make for good propaganda but is not helpful.

NING LU
Washington
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61943-2004Jan29.html

********************************

The Korea Herald - Friday, January 30, 2004
Koreas to tackle Goguryeo issue

South Korea will resolutely deal with the Chinese assertion that Korea's ancient Goguryeo Dynasty was part of its legacy, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said yesterday.

Mindful of the ongoing academic debate between the two countries developing into any diplomatic conflicts, Ban stressed the government would keep a "cool and calm" stance on the sensitive issue.

Public uproar has skyrocketed since the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Science launched "Northeast Asia Project," in which it claimed the Manchuria-based kingdom belonged to the Chinese legacy, while denying any continuity between the dynasty and the Korean Peninsula.

"The government will handle the issue based on the unwavering fact that Goguryeo is inseparable part of our national history," Ban said during a weekly news briefing.

Considering the friendly relations between Seoul and Beijing, the government may push for a joint study on the issue among academics rather than make it a political or diplomatic issue, he added.

The government has avoided direct intervention in the ongoing arguments, which have further been triggered when North Korea's bid to put Goguryeo's mural paintings on the U.N. World Heritage List was blocked by China.

Touching on the issue of the North Korean nuclear tension, Ban expressed hope the next six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear threat will take place in February. He urged stronger commitment by its neighbor to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

"I think the prospect for holding a second round of the talks in February is not gloomy," Ban said.

Japanese Kyodo News Agency reported yesterday that Seoul, Washington and Tokyo are discussing the plan to reconvene the talks about Feb. 5 or Feb. 20.

But the minister said the participants have yet to decide on schedules for their talks that will follow their first gathering in August in Beijing. The talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

"North Korea needs to express firmer willingness to dismantle its nuclear programs completely, verifiable and irrevocable" because its proposal for a nuclear freeze in return for U.S. concessions as a first step falls short of what the United States, South Korea and Japan are seeking, he said.

He said the next talks should deal with North Korea's nuclear program using highly enriched uranium, which has triggered the current tension between Pyongyang and Washington in October 2002.

By Seo Hyun-jin
(shj@heraldm.com)

2004.01.29
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/01/30/200401300005.asp

************************

Story last updated at 7:55 a.m. Friday, January 23, 2004
Ancient kingdom sparks dispute
The Washington Post

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA--The kingdom of Goguryeo ruled a broad swath of the Korean peninsula and Manchuria for almost 700 years, spreading Buddhism to new Asian peoples and flourishing into what Koreans still consider to be one of their grandest ancestral civilizations. Crushed in a vise between more powerful dynasties in southern Korea and northeastern China, Goguryeo fell into the dust of history in 668 A.D.

Today, however, it is suddenly emerging as far more than a historical footnote.

Chinese academics taking part in a government-run project recently shocked scholars from both South and North Korea by releasing documents that claim Goguryeo as an ethnic kingdom of ancient China.

The result has been a heated dispute. More is at stake than bragging rights to the extraordinary bronze and clay Buddhas and frescoed murals of a long-dead civilization. Goguryeo encompassed a vast area from central Manchuria to south of Seoul. Korean academics and politicians accuse China of attempting to lay claim to the kingdom out of fear that its 870-mile-long border with North Korea will rupture with a flood of refugees if the government in Pyongyang collapses.

The Chinese may be laying the groundwork to dispute the current border with North Korea and, if they find it to be in their interest, claim more territory, scholars say. They also argue that China is trying to head off any attempt by pockets of Korean speakers on the Chinese side of the border to eventually become part of a unified Korea.

"The Chinese are trying to use a novel claim on history as an insurance policy for the future of its border with Korea," said Yeo Ho-kyu, a historian at Seoul's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. "This is not the first time the Chinese have tried to do this. They did the same thing before they claimed Tibet. Now, they are trying to use history as a weapon to wield influence in an area that is historically Korean."

Two years ago, the government-run Chinese Institute of Social Sciences launched the Northeast Asia Project, a five-year initiative, reportedly costing $2.5 billion, to study and revitalize the section of the former kingdom that now lies within Chinese territory. Among other assertions, Chinese scholars now argue that the citizens of ancient Goguryeo may have descended from the Han ethnic group, China's largest. Last year, the Guangming Ribao, a daily scholarly journal of the Chinese Communist Party, stated directly that "Goguryeo is part of China."

Korean scholars say China lobbied to block Goguryeo-era tomb murals near Pyongyang from winning a prized designation from UNESCO as a World Heritage Site last year. At the same time, the Chinese are pressing for Goguryeo ruins now being tidily restored on their side of the border to win the same designation in June. Authorities at Beijing's embassy in Seoul repeatedly hung up on a reporter calling to seek comment.

Seoul has also announced plans to build a multimillion-dollar Goguryeo research institute.

In the name of Korean history, the outcry has linked the voices of some South Koreans with those of the communist North and has underscored a growing feeling of Korean nationalism.

http://www.charleston.net/stories/012304/wor_23gogu.shtml

**********************
Chosun Ilbo - Updated Jan.15,2004 12:10 KST
Govt to Establish Research Center on Goguryeo Studies

Steps are being taken by the Korean government to rebut China's "Northeast Asian Project" which is aimed at incorporating the ancient Korean Dynasty of Goguryeo into early Chinese history.
[IMAGE] Members from the Korea Writers Association hold a demonstration on Wednesday afternoon to protest China’s attempt to distort the history of Goguryeo on the streets of Myeongdong, in downtown Seoul.

Amid rising controversy, Seoul officials on Wednesday announced plans to set up a research center, solely for studies on the ancient Goguryeo kingdom, which from 37 B.C. to 668 A.D was a part of Korean territory.
This was decided in a government policy coordination meeting on Wednesday presided over by Prime Minister Goh Kun. During the gathering, government officials saw eye-to-eye on the need to fully support private research centers conducting academic studies to counter China's expected claim of historical sovereignty over the kingdom which at its height spanned all the way up to Manchuria. Some 50 experts will join the research center to be funded with W10 billion (US$8.5 million) annually from state coffers.

Seoul is also moving to support Pyeongyang to list relics from the Goguryeo period found in North Korea among UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage. Before June when the 28th Session of the World Heritage Committee convenes in China, Seoul will seek to hold academic seminars with Pyeongyang and also to discuss the issue next month during the upcoming inter-Korean ministerial meeting.

Arirang TV
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200401/200401150003.html

************************

Chosun Ilbo - Updated Jan.8,2004 19:36 KST
Smugglers of Goguryeo Artifacts Executed in China
by Choi Heup (pot@chosun.com)

TOKYO - The Sankei Shimbun reported on Thursday, quoting a source in Seoul, that two ethnic Korean-Chinese persons were executed by firing squad and other two ethnic Korean-Chinese persons were sentenced to 25 years in prison. The four people attempted to smuggle artifacts from the Goguryeo Kingdom from China to North Korea in summer last year and were discovered by the Chinese authorities.
The artifacts were uncovered in the No. 4 and No. 5 tombs in Jian, Jilin Province. The remains of the Goguryeo Period are concentrated in the region. According to the Sankei Shinbun, the people insisted that they had tried to take out the artifacts to North Korea because China distorts the history of Goguryoe and ruins the relics from the kingdom.

The Chinese government, after the attempted smuggling, redesignated the area of the tombs as a “history preservation zone,” and has prevented people from entering, a sign of how important China considers the Goguryeo issue, the newspaper reported.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200401/200401080016.html

***********************

Washington Post - Thursday, January 22, 2004

Kicking Up the Dust of History
China Makes Novel Claim to Ancient Kingdom, and Both Koreas Balk
By Anthony Faiola - Washington Post Foreign Service - Thursday, January 22, 2004; Page A15

SEOUL -- The kingdom of Goguryeo ruled a broad swath of the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria for almost 700 years, spreading Buddhism to new Asian peoples and flourishing into what Koreans still consider to be one of their grandest ancestral civilizations. Crushed in a vise between more powerful dynasties in southern Korea and northeastern China, Goguryeo fell into the dust of history in 668 A.D.

Today, however, it is suddenly emerging as far more than a historical footnote.

Chinese academics taking part in a government-run project recently shocked scholars from both South and North Korea by releasing documents that claim Goguryeo as an ethnic kingdom of ancient China.

The result has been a heated dispute. More is at stake than bragging rights to the extraordinary bronze and clay Buddhas and frescoed murals of a long-dead civilization. Goguryeo encompassed a vast area from central Manchuria to south of Seoul. Korean academics and politicians accuse China of attempting to lay claim to the kingdom out of fear that its 870-mile-long border with North Korea will rupture with a flood of refugees if the government in Pyongyang collapses.

The Chinese may be laying the groundwork to dispute the current border with North Korea and, if they find it to be in their interest, claim more territory, scholars say. They also argue that China is trying to head off any attempt by pockets of Korean speakers on the Chinese side of the border from eventually becoming part of a unified Korea.

"The Chinese are trying to use a novel claim on history as an insurance policy for the future of its border with Korea," said Yeo Ho Kyu, a historian at Seoul's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. "This is not the first time the Chinese have tried to do this. They did the same thing before they claimed Tibet. Now, they are trying to use history as a weapon to wield influence in an area that is historically Korean."

Two years ago, the government-run Chinese Institute of Social Sciences launched the Northeast Asia Project, a five-year initiative, reportedly costing $2.5 billion, to study and revitalize the section of the former kingdom that now lies within Chinese territory. Among other assertions, Chinese scholars now argue that the citizens of ancient Goguryeo may have descended from the Han ethnic group, China's largest. Last year, the Guangming Ribao, a daily scholarly journal of the Chinese Communist Party, stated directly that "Goguryeo is part of China."

Korean scholars say China lobbied to block Goguryeo-era tomb murals near Pyongyang from winning a prized designation from UNESCO as a World Heritage Site last year. At the same time, the Chinese are pressing for Goguryeo ruins now being tidily restored on their side of the border to win the same designation in June. Authorities at Beijing's embassy in Seoul repeatedly hung up on a reporter calling to seek comment.

Officials in Beijing argue that historical claims on Goguryeo are purely matters for academic debate. But under pressure from historians and hundreds of thousands of citizens, the South Korean government raised the issue with Chinese diplomats this month. Seoul has also announced plans to build a multimillion-dollar Goguryeo research institute.

In the name of Korean history, the outcry has linked the voices of some South Koreans with those of the communist North and has underscored a growing feeling of Korean nationalism.

"Beijing's theory that has Goguryeo merely as a subject state of China is a pathetic attempt to manipulate history for its own interests," Kang Se Kwon, a researcher from North Korea's Social Science Institute, wrote two months ago in a rare rebuke of China in the Rodong Shinmun, the official daily of the Korean Workers Party.

On other issues, too, South and North Korea have been acting like blood brothers whose fates are linked against their old enemies.

The South Koreans, for instance, were furious when the Japanese government officially protested a decision by the postal service here to issue stamps with the flora and fauna of the Tokdo islands -- occupied by South Korea since the 1950s but long claimed by Japan, which refers to the island group as Takeshima. South Koreans snapped up more than 2 million of the stamps in less a few hours this week, and North Korea's official news service called Japan's request "an ignominious statement by the Japanese whose marrow is full of ambition for territorial aggrandizement and hostility towards the Korean people."

Scholars from North and South Korea also held a rare joint meeting in Pyongyang last year to launch a project to change the English-language spelling of Korea to Corea, arguing that the Japanese forced the demeaning "K" on the peninsula when it was occupied by the Imperial Army in the early 20th century. Both Koreas insist Japan wanted to come first in English alphabetical order.

The two Koreas have also become partners in a global campaign to change the name of the Sea of Japan -- which separates the Korean Peninsula from the Japanese archipelago -- to the East Sea, as it is known here.

"There are a series of issues which have raised ethnic bonding between North Korea and South Korea," said Masao Okonogi, a Korea specialist at Tokyo's Keio University. "Popular sentiment on a variety of issues are uniting" the two nations.

Korean nationalism has tremendous ramifications for Washington. A survey this month by the Research & Research polling firm in Seoul indicated that 39 percent of South Koreans now rate the United States as their biggest national security threat; about 33 percent of respondents listed North Korea as their biggest threat.

South Koreans -- especially the young -- are warming to the idea of a unified Korea as never before. Most no longer view North Korea as an enemy state as their parents did; rather, they view it as a kindred nation linked by a common past and, they hope, a common future. South Korea's previous administration and its current one, led by President Roh Moo Hyun, have emphasized a new policy in which Seoul should carve a more independent path from the United States, which has traditionally been a close ally and helped it resist an invasion from the North during the Korean War. At the same time, South Korea's new leaders are advocating increasingly warmer relations with Pyongyang through economic investment, sporting events and other means.

But lately, no issue has whipped up the nationalist furor more than Goguryeo.

South Korean outrage has boiled over into a nationwide campaign to protest China's claim. University scholars, historians and civic activists have collected more than 1 million signatures nationwide to bolster their cause. China's claims have sparked front-page headlines, become a constant topic on TV and radio shows and ignited a series of demonstrations by university groups and Korean cultural associations.

"The Spirit of Goguryeo is in the hearts of 80 million Koreans," read a wide banner hung across a park fence in downtown Seoul last week. It referred to the populations of both the South and the North, as well as Koreans living abroad.

"Throughout our history, both China and Japan have been constantly trying to sway us, control us, dominate us or push us around," said Kim Pil Seok, 26, a student who wore a headband proclaiming Goguryeo is Korean. "Now, China has gone even further, literally trying to steal our history. No matter if you live in the South or the North, you are still Korean, and all Koreans must be outraged by this." He was among hundreds of protesters who had turned out in sub-zero weather at the park to dance to folk songs and condemn China's claim to Goguryeo.

The Chosen Ilbo, a conservative Seoul newspaper and long the bane of Pyongyang, said this in a rare defense of the North:

"If North Korea's application [to UNESCO] is again left unaccepted and only China's site receives this recognition, then we might have an absurd situation in which Goguryeo becomes officially recognized as part of Chinese history. One can deduce that this is part of a highly advanced strategy, that China wants to reassert its claims over its northeastern region and take a swipe at a historical justification for reaching into the area that is North Korea."

Special correspondent Joohee Cho contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36733-2004Jan21.html?nav=hptoc_w

**********************

Asia Times online - SPEAKING FREELY - Jan 6, 2004

Sino-Korean relations: Lessons in antiquity
By Yu Shiyu

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

An archeological dispute, between China on one side and the two Koreas on the other, regarding the ownership of the Goguryeo (also spelled Kogurys) tomb murals unearthed in China's Jilin province has recently been reported (Northeast Asia's intra-mural mural wars, Asian Times, December 23, 2003). This controversy has raised the concern about the prospect of future territorial disputes between China and Korea, in addition to other sensitive issues regarding Korean cultural legacy and identity, despite the traditional realpolitik of Northeast Asia, let alone its history.

In the meantime, the hitherto low-key government reactions from both Seoul and Pyongyang on this controversy lead to the unavoidable contrast to the often acrimonious territorial and other historical disputes that Korea has with Japan.

Of course, this is certainly not the first time Koreans' often diametrically different attitudes toward their two Northeast Asian neighbors China and Japan have been noted. Western observers generally find this sharp disparity both puzzling and frustrating. The International Herald Tribune published, on May 30, 2002, a commentary properly titled "Time for South Korea and Japan to make up", which loudly complained, among other things, "South Korea has double standards. If Japan can do no right in Korean eyes, China can do no wrong."

Perhaps more alarming to many, the same exasperating "double standards" have lately started to undermine not only Japanese but also US interests, as Andrew Ward keenly observed in the Financial Times in a report fittingly titled "South Korea's deepening relations with China underline the threat posed by Beijing to US influence" (February 19, 2002), particularly when China is about to overtake the United States as South Korea's No 1 trading partner.

Therefore, the Goguryeo tomb-mural controversy may provide a rare case in which China finally does something wrong in Korean eyes, with all its geopolitical consequences, of which territorial disputes may turn out only minor ones in comparison.

Prior to tackling the thorny historical background of this controversy, there seems some question regarding whether the Chinese archeology project (Northeast Progress) that has uncovered the tomb murals is part and parcel of China's much publicized Northeast Asian Project, to which Beijing has reportedly devoted more than US$2 billion. This question would decide the magnitude of resources the two countries (or rather the three state governments) have committed or are willing to commit on the tomb-mural controversy.

I must admit my ignorance on the exact relationship between these two projects. I would, however, venture two comments. First, the "Northeast Asian Project" for the revitalization of the moribund heavy industries in northeastern China may turn out as more political sloganeering than actual central-government funding. In fact, Xinhua has just reported from a recent forum held in the city of Changchun that the project has serious funding shortfalls.

Second, it is well known in Chinese academe that not only archeology but also all humanity disciplines not directly related to money-making suffer nowadays from a perennial lack of government funding. The only bright money story in the past decade in Chinese archeology was the much-politicized Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project reportedly directly supported by the former president Jiang Zemin. As such, the project's results were criticized by, inter alia, the New York Times and the Far Eastern Economic Review. It would certainly be refreshing to hear about another such well-funded Chinese archeology project in the offing, geopolitical motivations notwithstanding.

Before one gets too excited on the prospect of future territorial disputes between China and Korea related to the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo, and the subsequent (welcome in many Western eyes) change of the Koreans' "double standards" regarding China and Japan, a few brief history notes may help broaden one's perspective on this subject.

Nobody would deny the historical link between Goguryeo and modern Korea, but neither can one ignore the important roles Goguryeo played in the history of northeastern China as well as in China proper. To complicate the story even more, during much of its existence, the kingdom of Goguryeo dealt with a China dominated not by ethnic Chinese but by various tribe peoples mostly speaking Altaic languages, not unlike the situation when the Yi Dynasty of Korea had to deal with the Manchu.

The historical fact is that Goguryeo and many of its individuals actively participated in the political, cultural and religious life of contemporary northern China. As an example, according to the late professor Tan Qixiang of Fudan University, the editor-in-chief of the voluminous Historical Atlas of China, the very founder Gao Huan of the Northern Qi dynasty (AD 550-577) may "highly likely" be a Goguryeo person. [1] If this was the case, then every single Tang Dynasty emperor from the third one on down had Goguryeo blood, given the fact that the mother of Empress Zhangsun, the chief consort of the most famous Tang Emperor Li Shimin, was from the Northern Qi royal clan.

Much more solid cases of the role of Goguryeo people in China abound. For example, General Gao Xianzhi of the Tang Dynasty was of authentic Goguryeo origin. In the historical Battle of Talas in AD 751 between Arab and Tang forces in Central Asia, Gao Xianzhi was the commander-in-chief on the Tang side. According to the famous Russian authority W Barthold, the result of this battle decided the fate of Central Asia ever since: Had the battle been won by the Tang troops, much of Central Asia would have stayed or become Buddhist-Confucian, not unlike modern Korea. [2] A Goguryeo individual thus became directly responsible for such a critical event in not only Chinese history, but also the history of the entire Asian continent.

Moving beyond Goguryeo, one finds even more ethnic Koreans playing similarly important roles in Chinese history. For example, one of the four most important Buddhist bodhisattvas worshiped today by millions of Chinese may have been a Silla prince. [3] However, there is little prospect that this well-publicized story may lead to a territorial dispute concerning the traditional Buddhist holy mountain where the said bodhisattva is believed to be based - Mount Jiuhua in China's Anhui province.

One should be even less concerned about the prospect that China's claim regarding the kingdom of Goguryeo may further extend to Korea's southwestern kingdom of Paekche, which according to early legends was founded by someone related to the family that had earlier founded Goguryeo.

This is because, had Beijing the real intention to challenge Korea's sovereignty over the Korean Peninsula, it could have a much better pretext than the legendary link between the founders of Paekche and Goguryeo: the same legends on the early history of Korea stated unmistakably that Silla, who later unified the Korean Peninsula for the first time in history (and "with the support of China", according to Encyclopaedia Britannica [4]), had been founded primarily by ethnic Chinese migrants, [5] much less the fact that a large chunk of northern Korea was under Chinese administration during the two Han dynasties (202 BC - AD 220).

Moreover, one may also wonder about the fate of the kingdom of Bohai (Parhae) established in modern northeastern China and Russia's far east by the surviving Goguryeo people after their old kingdom was overrun by Silla (with the support of China). In the unexciting words of Encyclopaedia Britannica: "After Parhae's demise its territory fell under the control of the northern nomadic peoples and has not since been a part of Korean history."

Many Westerners' either dreadful or wishful concerns about Sino-Korean relations are, in my humble opinion, partly due to their failure to recognize the fact that in the long history of peaceful coexistence of the two countries, many ethnic Koreans have become Chinese and perhaps an equal number of ethnic Chinese have become Koreans. The best example of the latter is the highly successful Korean branch of the descendants of Confucius, which includes a recent foreign minister of South Korea. In addition, a large number of ancient nomadic tribe people originally speaking Altaic tongues have become ethnic Chinese or Koreans. These migrations either occurred naturally or were necessitated by such events as the devastating invasion of Korea (1592-98) by the Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Neither China nor Korea has had a bone to pick in this process, unlike what third- and fourth-generation ethnic Koreans are facing in Japan.

Future Sino-Korean relations would certainly be far from smooth sailing, especially regarding the difficult task of handling the obnoxious yet dangerous North Korean regime. Nonetheless, there are plenty of historical reasons why the two countries have coexisted largely peacefully and amicably for more than a millennium. It is in fact unnecessary to go back very far in history to elucidate Koreans' "double standards" vis-a-vis China and Japan. One may for instance wonder why the address 304 Madang Road is clearly marked on the latest city map of Shanghai [8], which may help explain why the two Koreas have had such low-key reactions to the Goguryeo tomb-murals controversy.

Notes
[1] Miu, Yue, Shanju cungao (Cumulated Writings at a Mountain Residence) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1963), pp 93-94, where Professor Tan cited many other important Goguryeo personalities in northern China.
[2] W Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 3rd ed (London: Luzac, 1968), p 196.
[3] Fojiao wenhua cidian (A Dictionary of Buddhist Cultures), (Hangzhou: Zhejian guji chubanshe, 1991), pp 379-80.
[4] Encyclopaedia Britannica citations are from its 2003 CD-ROM edition.
[5] Liang shu (History of the Liang Dynasty), chapter 54, Bei shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), chapter 94, etc.
[6] Shanghai City Tourist Map (Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2001). The address is, of course, that of the very first provisional government of the Republic of Korea.

Yu Shiyu is a North America-based columnist of United Morning News (Lianhe Zaobao) of Singapore. His articles of historical research have appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (published by the University of Cambridge Press, London) and other publications.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FA06Ad01.html

******************************

World Press Review online - JoongAng Daily

Lost Kingdom, Modern Spat. Antiquities spark Korea-China row of historical proportions
Choi Jie-ho, JoongAng Daily (independent), Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 12, 2004

[IMAGE] A hunting scene from a 6th-century wall Goguryeo tomb (Photo: Korea Military Museum).
“History is a fable agreed upon,” Napoleon Bonaparte said, but even with an agreement on the basics of what happened in ancient times, claims to ownership of that history can be vexing.

In front of the Hong-ik bookstore near the Sinchon intersection west of City Hall in Seoul, eight activists from a group called History World are chanting into bullhorns, “Participate in this signature campaign. You can help stop China from taking away our history.”

Passers-by and onlookers take one glance at the banner that reads, “One-million-signature campaign to protest China’s distortion of Goguryeo history,” and many quickly jot down their names and other identification. Jeon Jae-su, 18, a student who signed the petition with a friend, says, “I don’t know the details of the fuss, but from what I understand, China claims Goguryeo as part of their history and that is just wrong. For thousands of years, we have always known it to be ours.”

Lee Jong-ok, in his 50s, is a member of the civic group organizing the campaign. He has been urging passers-by to sign. “We must do what we can to protect our history,” he says. “If we forget our history, we are forgetting our roots.”

The center of the controversy is an ancient kingdom that occupied territory spanning North Korea and large parts of Manchuria. It was one of three kingdoms of ethnic Koreans from 37 B.C. to 668 A.D, when the Silla kingdom to the south unified the peninsula.

Because most of the ancient nation of Goguryeo was in areas now within China’s borders, scholars in China have claimed it as belonging to China’s history. Although these assertions had been made by some groups of scholars since the early 1990s, the controversy became more open with the launching in China of the “Northeast Asia Project,” a five-year, US$2.5-billion research project headed by the government-run Chinese Institute of Social Sciences.

The project, which began in 2002, is intended to collect data and conduct research on ancient Chinese territory and societies, mostly in Manchuria. It includes studies of the Gojoseon, Goguryeo, and Balhae, kingdoms that were made up of ethnic Koreans living in areas of northeastern China. As part of their “unified multination theory,” the Chinese academics conducting the project claim that Goguryeo and Balhae, a kingdom that succeeded to Goguryeo after the three kingdoms were unified in the 7th century, were small nation-states and a part of Chinese history.

Although the controversy might seem akin to medieval disputations about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, there are some practical consequences, and motives on both sides are not altogether clear.

In Korea, the claim to including Goguryeo as a part of Chinese history has led to a mounting tide of criticism of China by academics and laymen, who claim that both the scholars and the Chinese government are conducting a systematic and comprehensive effort to distort the ancient history of northeast Asia.

“There’s a clear difference between individual, regional, and governmental claims,” said Choe Kwang-shik, director of the Korea University Museum and chairman of the Action Committee Against Distortion of Goguryeo History. “If the claims made in the past were at an individual, academic level, this time the worry is that China’s efforts to rewrite history are made at a government level.”

Korean scholars argue that the historical identity of the ancient kingdom is far more important than current territorial rights to the region. Beijing has a strong interest in stressing a pan-national Chinese identity not only among Chinese but also among the plethora of other ethnic groups living within its borders.

When it comes to protecting its national identity, Korea is perhaps one of the fiercest nations, because it is highly homogenous and because it has been divided for a half-century. And Koreans’ attachment to days gone by is also strong, spanning all ages and social groups. Once the issue of China’s alleged distortion of ancient history became an issue, the Society for Korean Ancient History immediately issued a statement condemning China’s actions. Rallies have been held outside the Chinese embassy in Seoul. Scores of Web sites dedicated to the study of Goguryeo have sprung up. One nongovernmental umbrella organization has started a “Project for the Rehabilitation of Goguryeo” on the Internet.

On Dec. 9, the Action Committee called for an end to China’s “distortion of the ancient history of northeast Asia” and for the Korean government to respond actively to China’s research initiative. The group demanded that China end its distortion of ancient history immediately and asked the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs to register its strongest protests with the Chinese government. The group also called on the Ministry of Education to pursue the establishment of a Goguryeo research center and asked the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to have the Goguryeo murals in North Korea registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Editorials and news reports called for action by the government to stop China from further “distortions.”

Responding to that domestic pressure, Seoul has brought the issue to the attention of the Chinese government ever since it began to sizzle last fall. But the administration is reluctant to allow the issue to become a full-fledged diplomatic dispute with China for several reasons. Park Heung-shin, the director general of the cultural affairs bureau at the Foreign Ministry, said, “It is our understanding that in undertaking the project, it was not the Chinese government’s intention to systematically distort the ancient history of northeast Asia. Chinese officials have conveyed their worry that this issue could have a negative impact on our bilateral relations.” In diplomatic-speak, that could be a warning from Beijing not to push the issue too strongly.

Park added, “It is our view that the project...is a civil, academic endeavor and not something that should be put on a par with government initiatives.” Lee Chang-dong, the minister of culture and tourism, said on Jan. 7, “The controversy must be resolved through extensive academic discussions between scholars of the two countries.”

Chinese Embassy officials here were not available for comment; Foreign Ministry officials have said Beijing has called any government intervention in the matter “improper.”

One reason for the diplomatic sensitivity is that cultural and historical claims can be the basis for territorial claims. Some of the commentary in Korea comes close to asserting such a claim or contending that the Chinese have territorial ambitions in North Korea—or both.

“There are three main reasons behind China’s efforts to incorporate Goguryeo into their history,” Choe said. “First is the issue of the identity of the Chinese-Koreans presently residing in Manchuria. Second is preventing talk of territorial gains by Korea once the two Koreas become unified. Third, the rising number of North Korean refugees in China near the northern border of North Korea may give rise to territorial disputes.”

The Chosun Ilbo, a conservative-leaning Seoul newspaper, recently said in an editorial, “One can deduce that this is part of a highly advanced [Chinese] strategy, that China wants to reassert its claims over its northeastern region, where ethnic Koreans reside, and, based on this, to take a swipe at a historical justification for reaching into the area that is North Korea.”

Prime Minister Goh Kun has talked of setting up a Goguryeo Research Institute, but no specific plans have been presented. For now, the government has begun work on gathering information about efforts by Chinese academics to incorporate Goguryeo into China’s history. It is also trying to foster more exchanges among academic, civil-society, and government parties interested in the matter. A Foreign Ministry official said, “What we can do is to gather data and information about Goguryeo so that we could come up with compelling evidence to counter claims made by the Chinese scholars.” The dilemma is that access to the Goguryeo area is restricted in North Korea and limited in China. When a group of scholars from the Goguryeo Research Society tried to visit the Goguryeo relics in Jilin and Liaoning provinces in northeastern China last month, they were reportedly denied access by Chinese authorities.

Next week, the civic group History World plans to deliver the signatures of 1 million Koreans to the Chinese Embassy in Seoul and once again urge China to stop attempts at what the group calls revisionist history. In March, the Korea Foundation will host an international academic conference on “The World of Goguryeo Tombs and Murals,” with scholars and historians from North and South Korea, Japan, China, the United States, and France in attendance.

In June, UNESCO will make a decision on whether to include Goguryeo relics, such as tomb murals found in both China and in North Korea, in its registry of world heritage sites. Koreans see that as a critical milestone. While the Foreign Ministry believes that the sites in both countries will be registered, enrolling sites in one nation and not the other could lead to more rounds of rhetoric and tension. Choe, of the Korea University Museum, said, “The decision will have an emotional impact on both nations.”

by Choi Jie-ho <jieho@joongang.co.kr> Joongang daily
2004.01.12

http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/1762.cfm

**************************

The Statesman, India - 10 Jan 2004

A ‘programme’ for Chinese expansionism
A Beijing-backed project on the past makes the Koreas’ future tense, writes LEE KYONG-HEE

Whatever its ultimate purpose, Pyongyang’s suspected nuclear project is keeping both Koreas trapped in tough diplomatic games with the big powers. The battles grow more embarrassing because they not only concern current and future geopolitics and security in the region, but also their remote past.
China’s five-year programme to study the history of its northeastern provinces is reportedly aimed at integrating a vital portion of Korea’s ancient past into its national history. The controversial “Northeast Asia Project” of the Chinese Institute of Social Sciences may involve not only a single dynastic period but also damage the origin of the Korean nation fatally.
A sad irony, however, is that neither Seoul nor Pyongyang seems to be in a position to lodge a strong objection to this political assault disguised as an academic endeavour. Both the North and South have a big stake in Beijing’s brokering role in the stuttering six-nation talks on how to resolve the nuclear crisis peacefully through dialogue.
Assuming that the decade-old nuclear dispute may be finally nearing a settlement, diplomatic or otherwise, China’s intention behind its expensive research project seems even more menacing. Imagine that Koguryo (or Goguryeo according to the new Romanisation system adopted by the South Korean government) is recognised as one of the peripheral vassal states founded by an ethnic minority group in ancient China. Korea will undoubtedly lose far more than a proud early chapter of its history.
One important reason is that the northern warrior state, founded in BC 37 in Manchuria by a band of archers from Puyo (or Buyeo), who were the ancestors of the present-day Koreans, moved its capital southward to Pyongyang in the fifth century. By successfully claiming Koguryo, China may hope to have a voice in the fate of the northern half of the peninsula following the possible collapse of the North.
This is why many Koreans sniff an eerie conspiracy in China’s about-face to insist on its historical sovereignty over what it had acknowledged as a Korean kingdom for centuries.
With its territory once covering much of today’s three northeastern Chinese provinces, where ethnic Koreans form large autonomous districts, Koguryo developed into a strong military state through continuous confrontation with China. Some 12,000 tombs and the remains of hundreds of mountain fortresses scattered around the region attest to the gallantry of Koguryo warriors who defeated the invading forces of the Sui and Tang, both powerful Chinese empires.
It is simply incredulous that the Chinese assert that the famous wars fought by Koguryo to expel the numerically overwhelming Chinese armies were internal conflicts that took place within their borders. Even more ridiculous is that China now contends that all the early Korean states based in its present territory, including Old Choson, the first kingdom established by the founding forefather of the Korean people, were part of China.
“The Chinese are apparently preparing for Korean unification that may follow the North’s implosion,” said So Gil-su, head of the Association of Koguryo Studies in Seoul. An economic historian at Seokyeong University, he has run the private entity for research in the history of the ancient kingdom for over a decade.
Toward the year-end, Prof. So led a group of South Korean historians on a tour to the fortresses and tombs dated to the Koguryo period around Jian, the second capital of the kingdom in southern Manchuria. The tour marked the 2,000th anniversary of the moving of the capital there by the early rulers of the kingdom. But the Chinese authorities denied them access to important historical monuments.
“We were not even allowed to enter the local museum,” So said. “That was not all. We were followed around and watched by Chinese security officers.”
Still, the Korean visitors could confirm that the Chinese government had been working hard to clean up the environment around the historical sites. No wonder, as Beijing has been preparing for a bout with the North Koreans in the 28th session of the World Heritage Commission, scheduled to be held in June in the southern Chinese city of Suzhou.
Both countries have applied to register scores of Koguryo tombs as Unesco World Heritage sites. North Korea submitted 63 tombs, including 16 with murals, in 2001. China hastily followed suit and applied for registration of 39 tombs, including 13 royal and 26 aristocratic burial sites, and two fortresses last year. In the meantime, Beijing strongly opposed placing the tombs in North Korea on the World Heritage List.
Coming on the heels of the bad news from China, reports about Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s surprise visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on New Year’s Day also sent a weird message. The Japanese leader’s repeated visits to the war shrine constitute psychological attacks on the Koreans, due to their historical implications. This time, his trip seemed like a more brutal offensive because it came right after Seoul lifted its last import bans on Japanese popular culture.
Koizumi apparently took advantage of the volatile situation here and of Japan’s role as a major partner in the nuclear talks. It is a pity that the divided peninsula faces a double aggression from the tragic spectre of history.

– The Korea Herald/Asia News Network.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=4&id=61407&usrsess=1

*****************************

The Chosun Ilbo - Updated Jan.9,2004 18:37 KST
Official Says Chinese Gov't is not Behind Historical Manipulations
by Lee Ha-won (may2@chosun.com)

Relating to the recent state-funded project by China to claim that the kingdom of Goguryeo was originally Chinese, the Chinese government said that it would not be advisable for China and Korea to get politically involved in the conflict, said Park Heung-sin, the chief of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Park said that he expressed concern to the Chinese ambassador to Korea that the push by Chinese scholars might result in a diplomatic conflict between the two nations.

Park also said that from what he has heard, Chinese historians started a project to reorganize Northeast Asian history, and that the Chinese government only approved of this project. Therefore, Park said, it is hard to believe that Chinese government intentionally tried to manipulate history.

Meanwhile, because North Korea has made up for the shortcomings in their previous proposal to have Goguryeo artifacts in North Korea listed as UNESCO world heritage site, the tombs are likely to be recognized for their significance by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200401/200401090014.html

********************************

JoongAng Daily
Rally, petition cite ‘distorted' history

A civic organization that said it was trying to preserve Korea's heritage attempted to deliver a petition and boxes that it said contained 1 million signatures to the Chinese Embassy yesterday.
The group was protesting a Chinese research study that it said was trying to claim the history of Goguryeo, a kingdom of two millennia ago, as its own. The kingdom occupied most of the Korean Peninsula and large portions of southern Manchuria.
It was eventually conquered by the Silla kingdom to the south, which unified the entire peninsula.
Police blocked the group from reaching the embassy. One member of the group was allowed to proceed to the embassy gate, where he handed over the petition but not the boxes of signatures.
The civic group rallied in Tapgol Park before marching through the Gwanghwamun area and then north to the Chinese Embassy, near the Blue House.
An official of the civic group said other lobbying efforts were also under way.
"From Jan. 16 to 18," he said, "the International Council of Monuments and Sites will hold a conference in Paris to review the issue of listing Goguryeo murals as a World Heritage site. We will send e-mail to the council to protest against China's distortion of ancient history and urge them to consider listing Goguryeo murals."

by Choi Jie-ho <jieho@joongang.co.kr>
2004.01.14

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200401/14/200401140055258509900090409041.html

*******************************

KOREA: Culture minister warns against Goguryeo frenzy

Culture Minister Lee Chang-dong criticized the heated media coverage of the debate between South Korean and Chinese academics over the historical ancestry of the Goguryeo Dynasty (37 B.C.-A.D. 668), cautioning against allowing the issue to develop into a political matter

The Korea Herald - Thursday, January 8, 2004
By Kim Tong-hyung

Culture Minister Lee Chang-dong criticized the heated media coverage of the debate between South Korean and Chinese academics over the historical ancestry of the Goguryeo Dynasty (37 B.C.-A.D. 668), cautioning against allowing the issue to develop into a political matter.

In a news conference held at the ministry headquarters in downtown Seoul yesterday, Lee confirmed the ministry's stance of avoiding direct intervention and expressed skepticism about the logic used by numerous media outlets in calling for the government to make an official statement against Beijing.

"The Chinese have long regarded the histories of all ethnic groups within their current border as part of their national history and that should be respected as a fact," he said, claiming that the current controversy should be resolved through extensive academic discussions between the neighboring countries and not through political debates.

"China's recent movements claiming Goguryeo as part of their national legacy are, to a large extent, politically motivated and self-defensive. The government would be wise not to politicize the issue in reaction, considering China's sensitivity over its ethnic diversity and the 2 million ethnic Koreans living in their northeastern provinces."

Lee's comments come in sharp contrast with public sentiment. Since a group of 17 historical societies across the nation declared joint action against their Chinese counterparts in December last year, the issue has been a rallying point for politicians and civic activists alike, calling for the government to respond boldly to China's supposed attempts at "distorting history."

Many have called for the government support of the North Korean efforts to put its Goguryeo mural paintings on the U.N. World Heritage List at UNESCO's general meeting scheduled for June in Suzhou, southern China. The bid was put on hold indefinitely last year, when Chinese authorities reportedly opposed the move at the International Council of Monuments and Sites, a UNESCO subcommittee. China has been pushing its own bid for World Heritage designation on the Goguryeo murals in Jian, northeastern China.

Lee countered that the Goguryeo controversy and Pyongyang's bid should not be considered as related and that the government has limited options on the matter.

"The objective of the World Heritage List is to protect cultural heritage for mankind as a whole and we can't deny China's rights to bid for designation, regardless of Goguryeo's national legacy," he said.

"We are ready to support North Korea's efforts to have its Goguryeo mural paintings listed. However, with the North showing a careful approach in consideration of their relationship with Beijing, there aren't many ways to help them."

The current standoff between South Korean and Chinese academics over the national ancestry of Goguryeo - which extended from the northern part of the Korean Peninsula to the greater part of Manchuria in its prime - was triggered in February 2002, when China launched the "Northeast Asian Project," a five-year government program on the regional studies of Northeast Asia.

South Korean academics have been criticizing the NAP for distorting historical facts after the program released several papers last year asserting Goguryeo as part of Chinese legacy and denying continuity between the Manchuria-based kingdom and the current Korean Peninsula.

Date Posted: 1/8/2004
still available at: http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=6099

********************************

The Korea Times - 31.12.2003
Voices Getting Stronger Against China's Distortion of Koguryo History

By Kim Rahn
Suppose people all over the world thought Korean history began with the establishment of the Silla Kingdom’s unification of the three kingdoms in the 7th century without recognizing Koguryo, which existed more than 2,000 years ago.

Korea’s ancient history has been threatened by Chinese scholars’ revisionist attempts and Korea’s indifference to it.

Koguryo (BC 37-AD 668) is the oldest among three ancient kingdoms that dominated the Korean peninsula and its neighboring areas. The kingdom flourished in Manchuria and the northern part of the Korean peninsula, all the while fighting Chinese domination.

The stone stele of King Kwanggaeto, who expanded the territory to its largest during his reign in 5th century, in Jian, China, is evidence of Koguryo’s great influence in northeastern Asia.

Regardless of this, Chinese historians have been insisting since 1993 that Koguryo was China’s regional kingdom, and many foreign websites are following that interpretation.

``China has long been planning to revise the history of Koguryo as its own, and now the attempt is becoming operative,’’ said Park Gi-tae, the planning director of Voluntary Agency Network Korea, an on-line NGO carrying out A Project for Rehabilitation of Koguryo.

Chinese scholars finally focused on an official project in 2002 named ``Tongbukgongjong,’’ a study of the history of the area northeast of ancient China. It is a government-driven project with a 20-billion-yuan (3 trillion won) budget, designed to collect data of the area and systematically create its own theory, Park explained.

``China intends to strengthen its political influence in Northeast Asia and to prepare historical support by unifying its minority races. Koguryo and ethnic Korean-Chinese living in that area is, so to speak, a model case,’’ he added.

China’s work obstructed a North Korean effort to put Koguryo tombs on the list of UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage in July last year. China had already applied for registration of Koguryo ruins in its territory to the World Heritage Committee, of which China is member country. A decision to put them on the list is scheduled for June.

A project tentatively named ``Pan-Korean Civic Solidarity for Protecting History of Koguryo’’ to stop and correct China’s distortion of ancient Korean history, was launched Dec. 29 last year. It includes more than 20 civic groups.

``While China has restructured history, the Korean government has remained silent, and only a few scholars and civic groups have raised questions. We barely have ancient history studies or an official channel to protest China’s distortion,’’ said Yoon Jeung-hyun, an official of Youth Korean Academy, part of the Korean civic movement.

The solidarity group plans to rally civic organizations to intensify protest activities, including a petition with 10 million signatures. It will also urge the government to economically and systematically support academia and to strongly protest the Chinese government.

``Losing our history means denying ourselves. If we miss the chance to recover our history this time, Koguryo may not remain in people’s memory 50 years later,’’ Yoon stressed.

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr
12-31-2003 16:10
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200312/kt2003123116092112020.htm

____________________

Matthias Arnold M.A.
Digital Resources
Institute of Chinese Studies
University of Heidelberg
Akademiestr. 4-8
69117 Heidelberg
Germany

Phone: ++ 49 - (0) 62 21 - 54 76 75
Fax: ++ 49 - (0) 62 21 - 54 76 39

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de

www.fluktor.de
www.zhaomo.de.vu