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China Laying Claim to Korean History

Posted September. 06, 2006 07:01,   

한국어

Affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the Center of China’s Borderland History and Geography Research published theses which distort the ancient history of Korea as their own. It is the first time that the CASS, which reflects the official standpoint of the Chinese government, produced official research publications that claim the entire Korean ancient history as a part of China’s.

This is a violation of the verbal agreement of 2004 between the two countries, established in order to avoid conflicts regarding historical matters. As a result, it is predictable that historical controversy between Korea and China might recur. It is reported that the CASS will publish the theses uploaded September last year on the website of its subsidiary borderland research center into hard-copy issues within this year. Materials uploaded on the website are known to be the abstracts of 18 dissertations of the 27 complete researches.

All of the researches claim that the history from the ancient Gojoseon up to Balhae is one of China’s local regimes’ instead of a consistent one of the Korean nation. Regarding Balhae, especially, they asserted that it was just a county governed by the Tang Dynasty.

Researcher Zhang Bi Po argued in his thesis “Ji Zi and Ji Zi Chao Xian” that “Ji Zi is recognizable from the inscriptions on tortoise carapaces of the Yin Dynasty and the records of the Qin era. He established the first local government on the Korean peninsula.” The Korean academic world does not even recognize the existence of Ji Zi (or Gija, according to Korean pronunciation).

Jiao Run Ming, also a researcher, claimed in his dissertation “International Law and the Controversy Regarding the Borderline between China and North Korea” that “Chinese territory once extended down as far to the grounds north to the Han River, but it was lost due to the pillage of Shilla and Baekje.”

Another research worker Wei Guo Chong, who wrote ‘The History of the State Balhae’ asserted that “the forces who took initiative in the establishment of Balhae were not the folks of Goguryeo, but Mohe (or Malgal as termed in Korean), and the founder of Balhae, Dae Jo-yeong, officially named the country Mohe (Malgal) in the early stage.”

“None of the contents in the theses are new from the days when they first launched the Northeast Asia Project,” said the president of the Institute of Goguryeo Studies, Seo Gil-su (Professor in Seokyeong University). “However, we should be aware that the Chinese government publicized them as an official research production of the CASS.”



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