*Asia Times*
16 September 2006
The legacy of long-gone states
By Andrei Lankov

When South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met with
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last Sunday, what did they
talk about? The likelihood of a North Korean nuclear
test that might trigger a nuclear-arms race in East
Asia? Or perhaps the tremendous growth of bilateral
trade that has made China the most important trade
partner of Seoul?

Logical assumptions, but wrong. As the official press
release revealed, the two leaders spent a large part
of their meeting
talking about ancient history, in the most literal
sense of the word. President Roh expressed his
dissatisfaction about some
conclusions of Chinese archeological teams and
publications of a provincial research center dealing
with events 2,000 years old.

This interest in bygone eras is understandable, since
a new round of the "history war" between Korea and
China erupted early this month. Its participants are
deadly serious and very emotional, but for an outsider
this struggle appears bizarre. After all, the major
objects of the rivalry are the long-extinct kingdoms
of Koguryo and Parhae, which existed in the 1st
millennium AD in what are now China's northeast and
North Korea.

One should not be too surprised about such an
excessively political approach to the events of the
ancient history. Since times immemorial, East Asian
history has never ceased to be interpreted, rewritten
and distorted to serve better the agendas of the day.
In more recent times, the intense state-centered
nationalism so dominant in both China and Korea made
history even more important politically.

Well, and what is Koguryo (these days also frequently
spelled Goguryo), after all? In the first centuries AD
several rival kingdoms fought for domination on the
Korean Peninsula and adjacent parts of China: Koguryo,
Silla and Paekje were the most powerful among
contenders. The kingdom of Silla eventually won,
unifying the southern and central parts of the Korean
Peninsula under its rule in the late 7th century.

Koguryo lost and ceased to exist. However, another
kingdom called Parhae (Bohai or Balhae) rose to
dominate a large part of the former Koguryo area. The
Parhae population included a number of former Koguryo
subjects. This kingdom also collapsed in the 10th
century, with its southern parts being incorporated
into Korea, by that time ruled by a new Koryo dynasty.


In North Korea, the scholar-officials went one step
further, since they cannot stand the fact that Korea
was once unified by a southern kingdom. They extol
virtues of Koguryo in all possible ways, of course,
and also insist that Silla's unification of the 7th
century was not a real one, since the new state did
not control all of Korea. Hence the real unity was
established only in the 10th century, largely thanks
to the proud descendants of the great Koguryo.

The rationale behind this interpretation is easy to
understand, since the borders of Silla are roughly
similar to those of present-day South Korea, while
Koguryo controlled what is now the realm of the Kim
dynasty. This is a retro-projection of the present-day
struggle between the North and South, with each
participant being firmly associated with some
long-extinct state.

However, the entire dispute represents the same case
of retro-projection of modern identities. The
real-life Korguryoans would be seriously surprised or
even offended had they learned that in future they
would be perceived as members of the same community as
their bitter enemies from Silla. Describing Koguryo as
"Chinese" or "Korean" is as misleading as, say,
describing medieval Brittany as "French" or "English"
or "Irish" (even though all three modern nations have
something to do with the long-extinct Celtic duchy in
what is now France).

Europeans loved such things before World War I, in the
days when the textbooks told about "our ancestors the
Gauls". In East Asia, such historical nationalism is
still a powerful instrument of politics and a source
of deep and explosive emotions.

An additional twist is added by the little-known fact
that the few surviving Koguryo words seemingly
demonstrate that its inhabitants did not speak a
language ancestral to modern Korean. The language of
Silla was proto-Korean indeed, but the known Koguryo
words have close analogues in early Japanese, of all
languages. It is not incidental that the only research
book on the Koguryo language is called Koguryo: The
Language of Japan's Continental Relatives (by
Christopher I Beckwith, published in 2004). Not all
linguists would agree with this opinion, but it is
shared by the majority and still never mentioned by
participants of the discussion.

The first round of the confrontation began in 2002
when the Chinese government initiated a generously
funded Northeast History Project, ostensibly aimed at
restoring the cultural and historic heritage of
China's northeast (obviously, with the additional
benefit of strengthening the association between China
proper and this region, which until the 17th century
experienced Chinese control only occasionally). Soon
afterward, in 2004, the Koreans discovered that both
Koguryo and its quasi-successor state of Parhae are
presented in the new Chinese-language books as parts
of China, as "minority states" that existed within the
supposedly single Chinese nation. Statements to this
effect even appeared on the Chinese Foreign Ministry
website.

A major diplomatic outburst followed, and the South
Korean diplomats demanded explanations. The official
Chinese line was that the position of the Northeast
History Project had nothing to do with state policy -
a statement that would bring smiles to all people with
even passing knowledge of how Chinese history is
written. Finally, in August 2004, the sides reached an
agreement: the bureaucracies promised to refrain from
waging "history wars", leaving arguments to the
historians.

For the next couple of years things appeared quite
calm. However, the issue was not forgotten: the
Chinese began to promote tourism to the Koguryo sites
and also included Paektusan, or Baekdu Mountain
(Chinese: Changbaishan), considered a sacred symbol by
the Korean nationalists, on the list of the "famous
mountains of China", a simple gesture that greatly
boosted Chinese tourism in the disputed areas. Now it
is applying to the United Nations to register the
mountain, which is divided in half by the border, as a
"historic site".

Koreans answered with the array of projects aimed at
presenting Koguryo as a glorious and inseparable part
of Korean history and appropriating it once and for
all. A special foundation was created to disseminate
money among those domestic and foreign scholars who
would promote "historically correct" views of the
ancient kingdom (it is needless to say which views
should be seen as "historically correct"). A number of
television history dramas were shot to bring the
heroes of Koguryo into every Korean's living room. The
Chinese retaliated by preventing the Seoul producers
from shooting these serials in China, thus depriving
them of cheap sets and props.

However, the truce did not hold, and the past few
weeks have been marked by new battles of the "history
war". This time, the crisis began when the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, in essence a government
agency, issued a collection of 18 research papers
dealing with the various issues of regional history.
Some of the claims they make are probably well founded
(even though they are not necessarily to the liking of
the Korean nationalist historians) while many others
are clearly new attempts at manipulating the distant
past to serve some current political interests of the
Chinese state.

Among the latter one should mention that the collapse
of Koguryo in AD 668 under the joint attack of the
Chinese Tang and Silla forces is described in the new
Chinese publications as "a unification war in which
Tang conquered Koguryo". The early kingdom of Choson
was again presented as "the beginning of China's
northeast history on the Korean Peninsula". There were
also claims about the borders of many Chinese states
that allegedly went into Korean territory.

General outrage followed. Noisy demonstrations
gathered in front of the Chinese Embassy and some
ultra-nationalists even bit, chewed and then burned a
Chinese flag in front of the cameras. President Roh
decided he'd rather talk ancient history than North
Korean nukes during the recent summit with the Chinese
chief executive, and Korean newspapers of all
persuasions ran very critical articles on the Chinese
positions.

And what are the reasons behind such persistence of
Chinese historians (or rather officials whose
instructions scholars follow)? Of course, one
dimension is easy to see: after all, Chinese
historians write abut Koguryo in exactly the same way
they write about all other states that once existed in
what is now the People's Republic of China. Their
basic principle is simple: irrespective of race,
culture and ethnicity, all states that ever existed
within the current PRC borders are parts of China,
period.

According to the official line, China has always been
one nation. Even though China might have included a
number of the non-Chinese ethnic groups, these
"minorities" were nonetheless happy participants of
one great Chinese commonwealth. These statements have
nothing to do with real history, but in China history
has long been the handmaiden of politics. This line is
clearly directed against the ever-present threat of
local nationalism, separatism and irredentism.

However, one cannot help but ask why the claims in
regard to Koguryo came to be advanced only in the past
few years. There is no doubt that both the earlier
"history war" and its current round were results of
deliberate Chinese provocation. What prompted such a
policy now, in the early 21st century? After all, such
statements were bound to provoke outrage in Seoul, and
this move is especially strange when the general
perception of the Chinese in South Korea is quite
benign. Unlike the increasingly unpopular Americans,
the Chinese are not seen as a threat and irritant -
unless there is a clash over ancient history, that is.
The Chinese seem to have shot themselves in to the
foot without any apparent reason.

The most likely explanation is that China is
considering some action in North Korea. The Koguryo
southern border roughly matched the present-day
boundary between the prosperous South and impoverished
North. Over the past few years the Chinese have done
much to increase their economic presence in North
Korea. It seems that the collapse of North Korea is
not something the Chinese would be happy about. The
growing likelihood of an emergence of a unified and
democratic, perhaps pro-US Korea just across the
border from China is not particularly good news for
Beijing strategists.

Hence Beijing seems to be preparing some contingency
plans for a major domestic crisis in North Korea.
These plans might include an installation of a
pro-Chinese puppet regime in Pyongyang and perhaps
will require involvement of Chinese civilian and even
military personnel (ostensibly on a humanitarian
mission, as distributors of aid and maintainers of
order, actually as supporters of a future post-Kim
regime). Such actions will require psychological and
cultural justifications, not least within China
itself. Thus presenting what is now North Korea as an
"ancient" and "integral" part of China might serve
such interests very well.

It is not incidental that the current "history
offensive" began around 2003, more or less
simultaneously with the sudden increase in the Chinese
activity in North Korea.

Another issue that might have prompted Beijing
scholar-officials to revisit issues nearly 15
centuries old is the territorial claims of the South
Koreans. Since long ago, the more radical Korean
nationalist historians have paid much attention to the
"Manchurian question", insisting that the vast lands
of China's northeast, which once were realms of the
Koguryo rulers, should be returned to the "lawful
owner" - that is, to the present-day Korean state.

The Manchurian claims are strictly non-official, but
this cannot be said about the claims for Kando.

Kando is a large part of what is now known as Yanbian
Korean autonomous prefecture, near the point where the
borders of Russia, China and North Korea meet. This
area has a large population of ethnic Koreans, who
overwhelmingly are Chinese citizens and descendants of
the settlers who moved to the area in relatively
recent times, after the 1880s. In the early 1900s, the
somewhat uncertain legal standing of Kando made it
into the object of a low-profile territorial dispute
between China and Korea (though in those days, both
governments had more urgent things to worry about than
the fate of a small piece of real estate somewhere in
the distant corners of their domains). In 1909, the
Japanese, acting "on behalf" of the Koreans, agreed to
complete Chinese sovereignty over the area.

In recent years it became clear that a large number of
Koreans were demanding the revision of the 1909
treaty. Unlike the claims about Korean sovereignty
over all of Manchuria, these Kando claims have some
official backing. In late 2004, when the first round
of the "history war" reached its height, a group of 59
South Korean lawmakers even introduced a bill that
declared the 1909 Sino-Japanese treaty "null and void"
and demanded recognition of Korean territorial rights
over Kando. In all probability this was done to
counter the Chinese claims over Korguryo, but true to
the normal logic of an "argument" between the
nationalists, the Chinese might be inclined to answer
this bold (and quasi-official) statement with even an
bolder one.

It does not help that the claimed territory already
has a large Korean presence, with ethnic Koreans
constituting about a third of all Kando residents. At
this stage it seems that their loyalties
overwhelmingly remain with Beijing, but the Korean
activity in the area is unnerving for Chinese policy
planners. Hence preemptive claims might be seen as a
way to confirm Chinese supremacy in the area as well
as to remind the local Koreans about the alleged
"eternal multiculturalism" of the Chinese state.

However, this policy might backfire, and Beijing
planners probably know it. Over the past 15 years the
periodic outbursts of nationalist wrath in South Korea
were aimed at either the Japanese or the Americans,
while a surprising amount of goodwill (not to say
naivety) existed toward China. If Koreans were talking
about "aggressive designs", these were invariably
designs of Washington and Tokyo. The recent events
attract attention to the gradual Chinese encroachment
and will damage the present rosy perception of China.
Anyway, by some accounts the decision-makers in
Beijing have decided that these risks are worth
taking.

In a recent commentary, the influential South Korean
daily Donga Ilbo wrote: "The [South Korean] academic
circle is urging the government to respond more
aggressively, saying that the best defense is a good
offense. That means Korea should work on not just
defending its history of the Kingdoms of Gojoseon,
Buyeo, Goguryeo and Balhae but expanding its historic
spectrum to include the history of Yelu, Khitan and
Mongol tribes."

It sounds interesting; "the best defense if offense"
and "expanding" Korean history to include Mongolia. It
seems that for quite a long time impartial observers
will be treated to increasingly improbable claims by
both sides. These attempts to appropriate long-gone
states and tribes might appear weirdly amusing, but
the passions behind these claims are, alas, only too
real and potentially dangerous for all participants.


Dr Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of Asian
Studies, China and Korea Center, Australian National
University. He graduated from Leningrad State
University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and
China, with emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused
on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has published
books and articles on Korea and North Asia. He is
currently on leave, teaching at Kookmin University,
Seoul.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HI16Dg01.html
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