*International Herald Tribune*
12 October 2006
Tussle over a vanished kingdom
By Choe Sang-Hun


Under a hailstorm of arrows and fireballs, ancient
Korean warriors clash with Chinese invaders, fighting
a battle that keeps millions of modern- day South
Koreans glued to their plasma television sets.

The fictionalized battle scenes set in Koguryo, a
kingdom of horseback warriors that vanished from the
map 13 centuries ago, are common on the serials
broadcast by the three main South Korean television
networks. But for many South Koreans, the need to
defend Koguryo has moved beyond television.

Now South Korea and China are tussling over who should
inherit the history of Koguryo, which straddled what
is today North Korea and Manchuria, China. Despite its
sometimes amusing manifestations, the struggle over
the long-gone state could have far- reaching
implications in the 21st century, including for a
future border between China and a unified Korea,
experts said.

When President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea meets his
Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in Beijing on Friday,
the history dispute is likely to surface in a summit
meeting that otherwise will be dominated by
consultations on how to respond to North Korea's
recent report that it tested a nuclear device.

The Koguryo dispute is a fresh reminder of how
nationalism looms large in Northeast Asia, a region
where politicians often stoke nationalist sentiments
for political gain and countries regularly lock horns
in historical disputes despite their close economic
ties.

South Korea and Japan are embroiled in a dispute over
a set of islets. China and the two Koreas, meanwhile,
accuse Japan of whitewashing atrocities committed by
its troops in the 20th century, especially during
World War II. The repeated visits by Junichiro Koizumi
when he was prime minister to the Yasukuni Shrine,
where Japanese war dead, including war criminals, are
enshrined, also stoked nationalist passions in China
and the two Koreas.

The latest dispute over Koguryo began flaring a month
ago when South Koreans discovered a set of papers
posted on the Web site of the Center of China's
Borderland History and Geography Research. There,
government- paid Chinese scholars described Koguryo as
a "provincial" vassal kingdom under the suzerainty of
China - not the fiercely independent Korean state that
fought and often repelled the Chinese, as generations
of Koreans have been taught in school.

To South Koreans, the Chinese argument, which echoes
Beijing's stance on Taiwan and Tibet, is as
preposterous as calling kimchi, the spicy, pickled
Korean cabbage, a Chinese dish.

Newspaper headlines screamed that Korean history had
been "shanghaied." Protesters marched, waving national
flags, while on the Internet, groups of "euibyong" -
named after the Korean guerrillas who fought Chinese
and Japanese invaders in ancient times - launched a
boycott of China as a tourist destination. A
nationalist demonstrator bit, chewed and spit out a
Chinese flag before the television cameras.

"Koreans trace their roots to Koguryo; the name Korea
stems from Koguryo," said Kim Woo Jun, a history
professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. "The Chinese
claim shakes the core of Koreans' national identity."

For its part, China has grown increasingly unhappy
with South Korea's nationalistic approach to the
history of Koguryo. Two-thirds of Koguryo's territory
lies within contemporary China, and Beijing wants to
forestall any future Korean claim over its
northeastern territory, which is home to large ethnic
Korean communities, experts said.

Many South Koreans are already demanding that a
unified Korea must reclaim a strip of land called
Kando, near the Chinese border with North Korea, which
they believe was illegally given to China by the
Japanese colonial authorities in the early 20th
century.

The controversial Chinese papers were written by
historians participating in China's Northeast Asia
Project. Testifying before the National Assembly in
Seoul, You Hong June, head of the Cultural Heritage
Administration of South Korea, said the project was
part of China's state-financed rewriting of the
history of its border regions to create a greater
sense of belonging among its potentially restless
ethnic minorities, including Korean-Chinese.

But South Koreans suspect a deeper, sinister Chinese
design. By accentuating its historical links with
Koguryo, China is preparing to make a territorial
claim, or install a puppet regime, in North Korea in
case the regime there collapses, they say.

This issue has become all the more critical following
North Korea's report of a nuclear test. The United
States is pushing at the United Nations Security
Council for harsh economic sanctions that some experts
say could push the North Korean regime to further
provocations or to the brink of instability -
especially if China refuses to bail out its old ally.

Throughout its 705-year existence, Koguryo, which
ruled the largest territory ever controlled by a state
sprung from the peninsula, was constantly at war with
both China and peninsula- bound Korean kingdoms until
it fell under joint attack from the Tang Dynasty in
China and the rival Korean kingdom of Shilla in 668.

Today, remnants of Koguryo's glory can be found
scattered in China and North Korea, in tomb murals
depicting mounted archers chasing tigers. Old
documents say the Koguryo people liked to drink, sing
and dance, traits some South Koreans proudly say they
inherited.

As emotions heated up in South Korea, the Chinese
ambassador in Seoul told local politicians that the
views in the controversial papers were those of the
researchers only. But when Roh met Prime Minister Wen
Jiabao of China in Finland last month, he warned of
"negative repercussions on bilateral relations."

China's growing influence - and the fraying of the
South Korean alliance with Washington - also unsettles
South Koreans, who are keenly aware of the history of
Chinese invasions.

Such uneasiness spiked recently as news arrived that
China was developing Mount Baekdu - or Mount Changbai
in Chinese - as a tourist zone and possible Chinese
candidate for the Winter Olympic Games in 2018.

Koreans consider the mountain the sacred birthplace of
their nation.

For its part, North Korea has kept quiet in the
Koguryo dispute. The regime cannot afford a quarrel
with Beijing when it needs Chinese support for its
economy.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=3134615


*Korea Times*
11 October 2006
‘China Distorts History to Prepare for North’s
Collapse'
By Lee Jin-woo

A Russian-born expert on Korean affairs said yesterday
that China's recent moves to distort ancient Korean
history is aimed at politically intervening in North
Korea.

``The most likely explanation is that China is
considering political intervention in the North,'' Dr.
Andrei Lankov said at a lecture in Seoul organized by
the Kwanghwamun Culture Forum, a fraternity of
intellectuals. The 44-year-old scholar currently
teaches East Asian and Korean history at Kookmin
University.

China has stirred up controversy by publishing a
series of articles claiming that the Koguryo (37
B.C.-668) and Palhae (698-926) kingdoms, which
occupied the northern part of today's Korean Peninsula
and the northeastern region of China, were part of
ancient China.

Preparations for the collapse of North Korea have been
deemed necessary and an advance into the North would
require both psychological and cultural justification,
at least within China itself, he said.

Lankov claimed presenting what is now North Korea as
an ancient and integral part of China might create the
political and psychological environment conducive to
such plans.

He noted that China's first history offensive began
around 2003 when Chinese activity in North Korea
sharply increased.

The professor backed his idea with some statistics
showing the amount of trade between the two countries
tripled from $488 million in 2000 to $1,581 million in
2005.

``The strategic goals of China are influenced by its
rivalry with the United States,'' he said.

He predicted that the ``Chinese solution,'' which
could include installation of a pro-Chinese puppet
regime in Pyongyang, might be welcome by the North
Korean elite, who are well aware of its own embattled
situation.

Unlike the rulers of the former Soviet Union or China,
the North's authorities have been unable to reinvent
themselves as successful capitalist entrepreneurs.

``If the North Korean system collapses, the new Korea
will be built by resident managers from South Korean
conglomerates such as Samsung and LG, not by
born-again communist bureaucrats,'' he said.

As for North Korea's proclaimed nuclear test on Monday
and possible sanctions against the North's
provocations, Lankov said there are very few good
options available for the United States and other
nations, who have vowed not to tolerate the North's
possession of nuclear weapons.

In an article contributed to Tuesday's edition of the
Wall Street Journal, Lankov said the options for
dealing with North Korea's newly proclaimed nuclear
power remain as unattractive as ever.

He said an Iraq-style invasion would not work as most
South Koreans would prefer to live with the remote
possibility of a North Korean nuclear strike than risk
starting a war. He also said a naval blockage would
not work as the majority of Pyongyang's imports and
exports pass through its land borders with China and
Russia.

He pointed out that the fundamental problem with using
sanctions against Pyongyang is the extremely low
possibility of encouraging North Korean people to
agitate for change.

``A regime that sacrificed at least half a million of
its citizens during the famine in the 1990s is hardly
likely to care if their plight is now further worsened
by sanctions. Agitators and dissenters quickly face
the firing squad in the North,'' he said.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200610/kt2006101117424753460.htm