Centuries ago Kwanggaet’o the Great ruled over a mighty empire stretching from south of Seoul deep into Manchuria in China’s northeast, but his Koguryo dynasty is now at the center of a historical tug-of-war.
He is revered as a Korean national hero on both sides of the divided peninsula, while Chinese attempts to claim Koguryo as its own have provoked fury among its neighbors.
One of Koguryo’s capitals, now the modern Chinese city of Jian, stands on the Yalu River on the frontier between China and Kim Jong-un’s North Korea. It hosts a treasure trove of historical sites and cultural relics, including royal mausoleums designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites and decorated with murals depicting traditional wrestling and tiger-hunting. A towering stone stele more than 6m tall illustrates the dispute, with Kwanggaet’o’s name carved into the granite — in the classical Chinese characters used for writing in northeast Asia at the time.
“Koguryo is in fact part of Korean history, not Chinese history,” South Korean visitor Hwang Seon-goo said.
“We think that China insists on having its own way,” Hwang added.
Soon afterwards Zhang Ming, who identified himself as a Chinese tourist, expressed keen interest in knowing what the South Korean visitor had said.
In response, he pointed to the language of the inscription as evidence of its Chineseness, asking “how it could be Korean” if it was written in Chinese.
The general Chinese view can be seen in a description in a Jian museum devoted to the dynasty.
“Koguryo was engaged in wars with ancient central China and surrounding nations and tribes,” reads one label.
“However, they finally accepted the authority of ancient central China dynasties and had a main historical trend of tributary kingdom,” it adds.
The sensitivity of the issue is such that a reporter visiting the museum was briefly detained by public security officials, before being ordered to leave Jian and followed out of town.
Koreans on both sides of the divided peninsula claim Koguryo as an inherent part of their history, and it is a popular theme in South Korea for novels and television dramas, such as this year’s The Blade and Petal, a tale of romance and political infighting toward the dynasty’s close.
Koguryo lasted from at least 37 BC until 668 AD, when it was brought down by an alliance between the Chinese Tang Dynasty and Silla, a rival Korean kingdom.
However, the areas governed by the empire, spelled “Goguryeo” in South Korea and “Gaogouli” in China, lie in what today are four modern sovereign states: the two Koreas, China and Russia.
Tensions began rising about a decade ago when China launched what it called the Northeast Project, which was a re-examination of the history of the country’s border areas in the region.
Reaction was particularly negative in South Korea where the move was seen as an attempt to hijack Korean history, and even a possible prelude to Chinese designs on its ally North Korea, were the ruling regime to collapse.
South Korea’s foreign ministry devotes a section of its Web site to the topic, putting it on a par with the row with Japan over the islets in the Sea of Japan (known as the “East Sea” in South Korea), called Dokdo by Seoul and Takeshima by Tokyo.
“The Korean government considers issues concerning the history of Goguryeo to be a matter of national identity, and thus places such issues among its highest priorities,” the Web site says.
In 2006, South Korea’s then-president Roh Moo-hyun reportedly raised the research personally with Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), China’s premier at the time.
Tensions may have eased since, but South Korea still keeps a close eye on “new cases of historical distortion,” according to the foreign ministry.
Adam Cathcart, a lecturer in Chinese history at Britain’s University of Leeds said: “When you look at North Korean relations with China, when you look at South Korean relations with China, it’s an impediment, it’s an irritant, it’s something that all sides are watching.”
Kwanggaet’o, who reigned from 391 to 413 and whose name is often translated as “broad expander of territory,” is known in China as “Haotaiwang.” South Korea spells his name “Gwanggaeto” — and uses it for a class of its warships.
For its part, North Korea — whose government proclaims a “military first” principle — also has numerous sites related to Koguryo and sometimes invokes the dynasty in its propaganda.
“Koguryo martial valor is something that is seen as very desirable from an historical exemplary point of view... for the North Korean leaders,” said Cathcart, an expert in relations between Beijing and Pyongyang.
North Korea’s young leader — who recently had his uncle executed — would undoubtedly want to visit the ancient tombs in Jian, he added.
“That’s a photo op to die for, for Kim Jong-un,” he said.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
RSS