Geopolitics and political terrain of the Northeast Asia - Understanding Korean Society and Politics[3/3]

 

      Introductory 

 In January 2025, the busiest tourist street in Shanghai, named Wukang Road, suddenly became the stage for the Supercar Parade by the volunteering wealthy youths from all over the country with their Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti and you name it. They were not from an association or a body of any kind, yet the parade was so well coordinated through SNS, making three sessions a day with the shared purpose of showing the wealth of China to Korean tourists.  According to the account on Chinese side, the phenomenon was first triggered by a SNS posting by a Chinese guy who claimed to have come across an online query by a Korean back from Shanghai tour, questioning whether Shanghai had any luxury cars, to which the most popular comment went, "We cannot let Koreans look down on us and leave with a sense of superiority." The voluntary supercar parade lasted for weeks under the support of the public as the police maintained the order for the patriotic display of the national pride by the rich youngsters.

 

Below you have the map of the Northeast Asia. When you see the map, you need to be reminded of the fact that the three countries there, China, Korea and Japan, have lived as neighbors, and foes, for two millennia, including the pre-Japan period, and for more than three millennia between Korea and China, though the borders were not unchanging. So, it is critical for one to have a basic knowledge of the history among the three countries to understand the collective mind of the people, say social psychology, towards each other to get an idea what can happen and what would not be attainable in your plan or vision for the future of the region. Yet it is not an easy task to have a balanced understanding of the history of the region. Because the history of the region as we know today is a reconstruction of the past based on the historical narratives written under the government projects of China and of Japan, which had to be more faithful to national pride and interest than truth.[]  Think about the possible way the above Shanghai happening could be recorded one thousand years later when it needs to be dealt with somehow under a government project, or how it could be just removed from the records. Or even, how the story can get reversed with places shuffled. That is just the way the truth has been concealed and distorted here and there and fossilized by repetition over the time of two millennia, mixed with the presentable true records craftily, that got delivered unfiltered by so-called Sinologues and Japanologists to form your idea of the region and of the three countries. Thus, the geopolitical interpretations or strategy made by those lacking in the ability to see the true history of the region and how the historical narratives have been manipulated and used by the regimes are prone to fall into the pit of fallacy and futility, which may lead to the waste of the precious political assets and, in very unfortunate cases, to the critical loss of the vested interests in the region.  

  

[] Shiji 史記 or “Records of the Grand Historian" 太史公書was published in early 1C BCE right after the fall of Gojoseon, the first ancient Korean state, in 108 BCE.  The Grand Historian太史公 was the title of the governmental office responsible for the history compilation.  Nihon Shoki  日本書紀  was published in 720 right after the launch of the Nara Japan by the scholar bureaucr, fifty  years after the fall of two ancient Korean states, Baekje and Koguryo.    

    

   

To understand why China couldn’t conquer Korea

Background history      Korea was at its lowest point in history in the late 19^th century when the country began to be known to the West. The names the earliest visitors dubbed the country, ‘Hermit Kingdom’ or ‘Land of Morning calm’, perhaps were the nicest way to call Korea of the time, a man as shrunk as he possibly could be, yet with some vestigial dignity to untainted observers. The state Korea was in at that time made it easy for its neighbors to disparage the country just as a peripheral state, concealing the cultural seminality of the country, for both immediate neighbors, in the ancient time. And that disparaged image of Korea is still persisting, carried over to the 21^st century as their ascension, hard and soft, is being dubbed as miracle, as if it came from the most unlikely place and for the first time.

The big migration in the Northeast Asia seems to have begun around 3C BC. As the struggle within the North China Plain was finalizing towards the first centralized power there, the ancient Koreans living in the northeast of the China Plain in the lower Manchuria and in the coastal areas began to move to further east and down to Korea Peninsula. The intermingling with the states and people who had lived in the Peninsula was more of coexistence and slow replacement. They had belonged to the larger Go-Joseon cultural sphere. There was an exit for diffusion of the inner pressure and conflicts, which was the archipelago to their east to be named Japan one millennium later.

The first Yayoi villages began to appear beginning with Kyushu and the western coast of Honshu around 3C BC while in China the short-lived first unified state Qin was replaced by Han and Go-Joseon, the ancient Korean state, located in the geographic Northeast China, began the process of collapse. The move of the main stage of the ancient Korean culture into the Peninsula was more a result of the migration than of the military showdown with the Chinese.[]  The cultural identity of the ancient Koreans was mixture of agricultural, nomadic and maritime. The Peninsula and Archipelago had coasts and enough precipitation for rice growing. For the ruling class of Go-Joseon, with the nomadic lineage, to fight with the land-ravenous Chinese was not an attractive option when they knew they had the sea-side lands with the peaceful rice-growers with trading routes by sea with many places and countries southwards down the eastern coast of China and to the archipelago to its east. Yet the move of the cultural center didn’t mean the move of the whole population. The people that used to live scattered in the Manchuria and Liao River Basin under the Ancient Korean polity, were to establish their own states there. The peripheral tribes under Go-Joseon included the predecessors of Koguryo and Baekje and the tribes named Xianbei and Khitan, who would be launching their own Dynasties in the mainland China later.

[] Han established the four commanderies in the old Go-Joseon territory in 107 BCE. The location of the commanderies would become the topic of dispute with a lot of political implications. The commanderies were recovered by the ancient Korean state Koguryo.  

Showdown between Koguryo and Sui and the fall of Sui Dynasty   The first big military confrontation between China and Korea, also well-documented, took place in 7C AD. Not long after the fall of Go-Joseon there sprang out three kingdoms: Koguryo, Baekje and Silla, in the Lower Manchuria and Peninsula.  They were the people who inherited the cultural lineage of Go-Joseon intact, who spoke Transeurasian language with the respect for elders, habit of deep bowing to others, late-autumn harvest festivity dedicated to Heaven, and liberal relationship between young men and women with distinctive display of love for music and dance. Among them Koguryo (37BC-668AD) was the strongest for most of its existence, from whom the country name Korea came from.  

When China got unified again under Sui Dynasty (581-618AD) after centuries of division and inner struggle since the demise of Han in 220AD, they found Koguryo to their northeast unbearable eyesore. The founders of the Sui were originally from Xianbei tribe, who had been so named to mean “peripheral of Go-Joseon” by the very Chinese they had conquered. Without subjugating Koguryo, who seemed to have been always there in the old land of Go-Joseon, their new dynasty would be never complete as legitimate Son of Heaven as Han Dynasty had been. []

[] The word-for-word translation of the tribe name Xianbei 鮮卑 would be the lowly people of Go-Joseon. The Xianbei people thought themselves as the descendants of Go-Joseon. They stood out from the early years of the struggle within China with their military ability.  They are said to have been much Sinicized by the time of Sui and early Tang, but their cultural background affected the Chinese culture much too, in the clothing for example. The Chinese clothing forms came to carry much of the Northern elements 胡服- meaning “barbarian clothes” in word-for-word translation, and became more glamorous, catching  up with its neighbors  to their north and east in style through the Tang period.        

The two countries would fight in seven massive-scale wars for the period of seven decades starting from 598 AD, that would remain in the memory of the two countries for one and half millennia to form the undercurrent of the collective psychology people have towards each other in the measure of the military strength and security hazards.

The first war between Koguryo and Sui of China broke out in 598 with the massive force of three hundred thousand troops mobilized on the Chinese side. There remain no detail records on the war, but that the Chinese retreated with only one fifth of their force due to the disease and logistical failure from the heavy rain, according to the Chinese record. The scale of this first war, the biggest up to that time, is not often mentioned overshadowed by the second one in 611 AD that was to remain the biggest military movement in the world history in terms of the number of people mobilized before the World War One.  

According to the Korean record, the number of soldiers mobilized by Sui was 1.14 million soldiers, not counting about that many for logistic support.  Four big battles were fought and the military showdown ended in the huge devastation to the Sui force. In the last battle only three thousand troops returned out of the three hundred thousand that had left for the expedition. After the series of defeats with Koguryo the Sui Dynasty went into the deadly path of collapse and was replaced six years later by another Xianbei Dynasty Tang in 618.

All-out war between Koguryo and Tang       The population of Sui is estimated to have been about fifty million while Koguryo is approximated to have had three million. It was wars of attrition for both. On top of the insurmountable shortage in population size, Koguryo had the challenges from the newly rising Silla and the long-time foe Baekje to its south while China, from the years of Sui, had eliminated the threats from its bordering enemies one by one, such as Vietnam, Tibet and other combative tribes in the north, including the Turk. Yet the great leader Taizong of Tang (r 626-649) couldn’t realize his dream to subjugate Koguryo in his life time. After the failure in the first expedition in 641, he led the second in 645 himself, but he had to choose retreat after experiencing the strength of Koguryo himself.  The struggle with Tang was led by General Yon 淵蓋蘇文, who had been the actual ruler since the removal of the king in 631.  The fall of Baekje in 663 by the joint attack from Silla and Tang meant to Koguryo the loss of the deterrent against Silla in the defense of its southern border. To make matters worse, on the death of General Yon in 665 the inner struggle for power among his sons divided and weakened the national leadership. Koguryo finally fell under the joint attack from Silla and Tang in 668.

Seven-Year War between Silla and Tang      It was no sooner Tang had seen the collapse of Koguryo that the Chinese showed their territorial greed attempting to establish the commanderies in the Peninsular, even at Gyeongju, the capital of Silla. Silla responded in an all-out war with the Chinese, in the joint force with Baekje and Koguryo refugees. The war lasted for seven years until the Chinese gave up after consecutive losses in two massive battles near Seoul.  For the Chinese, the only gain from the eighty-year war with the ancient Korean states was the removal of Koguryo, the biggest rival and threat for hundreds of years to their Northwest, which was not a small compensation for them by itself. The old Koguryo territory in Manchuria to the east of Liao River now went to Balhae, or Bohai in Chinese pronunciation,[] who claimed to be the inheritor of Koguryo lineage while the whole Peninsula went to the Unified Silla, which would last until 918 to be replaced by Koryo, who would claim to be legitimate inheritor of Koguryo. Tang’s golden age would last some eight decades after the fall of Koguryo until they would enter the curve of decline with the An Lushan Rebellion in 755.

[]  Bohai Bay to the north of the Yellow Sea was so named after this ancient Korean state that claimed to be the legitimate successor of Koguryo.

Repercussions of the 7C wars between Korea and China         The war with Koguryo was by far the biggest war the unified Chinese regimes have ever fought in its whole history up to now. It had costed one strong unified dynasty and exposed the limit of the power of Tang Dynasty, which is often regarded to have been the greatest dynasty in the history of China. [] The memory of Koguryo has served as a psychological weight for more than a millennium for Chinese when they had to deal with Korean states.  A lot of romance novels were written on the war to embellish the Chinese heroes depicting the Korean counterparts, notably General Yon, as devilish figure.  

When there was a territorial dispute between China and Koryo in 1387 right after the start of the Ming Dynasty, the founder Zhu Yuanahang enumerated the eight wars between the two countries, starting with the one between Old Joseon 古朝鮮 and Han, followed by four wars Koguryo fought with four different Chinese dynasties including Sui and Tang. Notable here is the Chinese recognition of Koryo as inheritor of Old Joseon 古朝鮮 and Koguryo 高句驪.[]

[] Starting with the Northeast History project (2002-2007), CCP began to define Koguryo as the local government of China for the first time in the whole Chinese history.

In 1488 when a Korean bureaucrat of Joseon Dynasty met a Chinese local official on his way back to his country from a shipwreck landing in China, the first question from the Chinese local bureaucrat was about how Koguryo had been able to defeat China big way  twice in the wars fought more than eight hundred years prior.[]  When the Imjin War broke out with the invasion from Japan, the Chinese envoy to Seoul lamented how the descendants of Koguryo could come to be so militarily vulnerable. The devilish spirit of General Yon reappeared in Chinese society as recently as in 19C as a character in the theater works of Beijing Opera.[]

[] 漂海錄, A Record of Drifting Across the Sea, by 崔溥,Choe Bu (1454-1504)  was published 1490 in the Joseon period. While the episode of conversing with the Chinese local official reveals the awe Chinese still held about the Koguryo state 800 years after its demise, it also shows that Chinese of the time thought Joseon as natural inheritor of Koguryo.                                              

[] The titles of Beijing Opera where the General Yon Character appeared: 獨木關 dumuguan , 淤泥河 Yunihe

For Koreans, for the first time since the fall of Go-Joseon in 2C BC, the country came under one national identity, now mainly in the Peninsula. Since then, the country would stay as one nation until the division in the modern time after World War II. The lesson they learned from the ancient Korea-China war still remains in the collective mind of Korean society. They know Koguryo was stronger pound for pound than Sui and Tang, but they also understand the size of population and land could matter in the all-out prolonged war. []  The victories in the major battles are taught in the school and the heroes from the war are remembered as name of important street and of the two naval destroyers.

[] The popular modern Korean expression,” Tang force” or “당나라 부대”,  is  used to refer to the ragtag group of people, undisciplined and unorganized.

[left] the road sign of Eulji-ro named after the legendary general Eulji who led the final war with Sui to the victory.  [right] the cruiser Yang Man-chun of ROK Navy, one of the two cruisers after the generals who fought wars with Sui and Tang 

And Japan was born   The biggest consequence of the 7C Korea-China war, from the perspective of our time, would be the launch of the new state Japan in the Archipelago. They used the new name Japan to Silla for the first time in the diplomatic correspondence in 670, seven years after the fall of Baekje and two years after that of Koguryo.[] The capital moved to Nara in 710, putting an end to the Asuka Period. Nihon Shoki 日本書紀, the first official history compilation in Japan, was published in 720. It was when the grandchildren of the refugees from Baekje and Koguryo were in their prime, now established as the movers and shakers in the Japan society, that the monumental edifice of Todai-Ji Temple opened with its grand opening ceremony in 753. []

[]”倭國更號日本, 自言近日所出以爲名”  Translated "The country 倭 Wae changed their name to Nihon, They say they so named themselves because they are located near where the Sun rises."

[] See the article “Tang’s Influence, true or false, why it matters” [3/3] in this blog to know more on the involvement and contributions the new arrivals from Korea made in the Japanese society and to understand how the history distortions had been made consistently by the Japanese to erase and disparage the Korean derivation of their ethnic and cultural constitution.

 

America to average Koreans

The first encounters with Americans date back to late 19th century. Apart from the propagation of their faith, the early Protestant missionaries from US contributed so much to the modernization of the Korea, then under the Joseon Dynasty, by way of opening schools and hospitals of Western medicine, incomparable to any from any other countries. Some of them were from the renowned family in their homeland, thus capable of raising the considerable fund for their projects in Korea. Those included high scholars such as Percival Lawrence Lowell, the mathematician and astronomer before his worldly fame, Horace Underwood and Homer B. Hulbert.

Homer H. Hulbert, the graduate of the Dartmouth University his great-grandfather had founded, was a man whose unusual span of intelligence was dedicated to the shaping of the modern Korea. He wrote the first modern textbook on the world geography solely in Hangul when it was only a marginal script for the elite class in Korea. His support for the daily newspaper The Independent 독립신문 through the Merthodist mission press he was in charge of was critical for the success of the first newspaper ever published in Hangul. He not only trailblazed the way for the nationwide acceptance of Hangul as main script for popular communication, but contributed greatly to refining the Hangul system into the modern form by way of introducing spacing and marks through the press he was in charge of. He was also the first one to record the traditional Korean folk song Arirang in the Western musical notation.

He was one of the foreign fighters who stood for the independence of Korea through the contributions in the Western press and his voluntary service as advisory and secret envoy for the Joseon court.  The records and observations he left of the late Joseon society in his publications would remain the invaluable information for the study of the Korean traditional culture. His deep understanding on the Korean history and culture led to his confidence in the future of the country as well described in the dedication of his “Passing of Korea”:

                                                                                  TO THE KOREAN PEOPLE

Who are now witnessing the passing of old Korea

To give place to a new, when the spirit of the nation,

quickened by the touch of fire, shall have proved that

though “sleep is the image of death” it is not death itself.

 

Before the trip to Korea upon the invitation from South Korean government in 1949, he said to the reporters questioning his health weakened by age, “I would rather be buried in Korea than in Westminster Abbey.” He ran short of participating in the ceremonial event to remember his dedication for the independance of Korea.  His funeral was held in Seoul as national event and a crowd of ten thousand followed his final procession. He is now buried on a cemetery in Seoul for foreign missionaries on a hill overlooking Han River. He was a true Korean nationalist, who believed in the potentials of Koreans and contributed so much to the shaping of the modern Korea in a way only a Korean who loved his country and people deeply but unbound by their custom and way of life could do.

Gyeongcheonsa Pagoda 

The Pagoda was built in 1348 near the end of Koryo Dynasty. The Pagoda was dismantled and brought to Japan by Japanese in 1907. Homer Hulbert, along with the British journalist Earnest Thomas Bedell, investigated the illicit overseas relocation of the national treasure and made the campaign of protest for the return of the pagoda through the contributions to press, in and out the country, and finally succeeded to get the international attentions on the matter. The national treasure was returned to Korea in 1918. The Pagoda now sits on the first floor of the National Museum of Korea. 

Army-Base Stew and the Ironclad alliance     They say the first dish the US soldiers stationed in Humphreys Camp take the newly assigned recruits out for is Budae-Jjigae or Army-base stew, to orient them of the US-Korea alliance with the symbolic food. It was just natural the first restaurants that invented the dish were from Eui-Jung-Bu, a small city north of Seoul, where there were US army bases clustered after the War. The Spam was one of the most popular staples in the black market from the PX, whose strong meaty flavor went so well with Kimchi while the can packaging guaranteed the food safety enabling the prolonged circulation in the market.

When the dish first came to be known in 1980s, South Korea was on the rise past the Park Jeong-hee era, yet on the list of developing countries. During the four decades since then many things happened with South Korea.  By 2025 some of the world-renowned news media began to list South Korea as the sixth powerful nation after UK and Germany followed by France and Japan. The rankings usually include the soft power in their criteria of assessment. The launch of the Korean BBQ-flavored Spam in 2023 US market by Hormel Foods seemed to say that the growth of the global influence of South Korea was not just a rhetoric or play of numbers.

Actually, United States was not only the provider of the market for the growth of the Korean economy, but also served as one of the biggest sources of knowledge and inspiration to foster the country’s growth in both hard and soft. The US army bases provided the well-equipped stage space and income source for the music artists in 1950s, 60s and to 70s, that sustained the creativity and proficiency of the musical talents out of piles of debris from the War. Without the musical legacies that could survive the long tunnel of obscurity, there would have been germinated no musical ecology of 1970s and 80s that soiled the birth of the K-pop sensation with the start of the Internet age. Samsung could make the decision to charge into the semiconductor industry only because there were the doctor-degree engineers who had studied and worked in the field in the United States. [] 

From linchpin to Ironclad alliance   The US military and government used to call South Korea as “linchpin” of the US strategy in the Northeast Asian region while Japan was referred to as “cornerstone” of the Indo-Pacific. It would be not without reasons that the US officials use the expression “ironclad alliance” more often these days referring to the US-Korea alliance.  There would be not many Koreans who would not welcome the change in the way Americans call them. Actually, most South Koreans feel more secure with the expression for the firmer commitment to each other. But what was happening between the two countries in the recent years, more frankly by the US, often made Koreans feel rather betrayed and disheartened short of ironclad. 

From the years of the “linchpin”, many Koreans felt the US Democrat administration sided with the “Cornerstone” in the conflicts between the two allies of America. In 2015 the Biden Administration worked behind the curtain to twist the arm of Park Geun-hye, who was at bay from the domestic politics issues, to sign on the Comfort Women agreement which allowed Japan of Abe to get away with the war crime with some comfort money and with no words of apology.

The office of US Ambassador to South Korea was given to the half-Japanese former admiral at the last minute by the underboard play of Abe in 2018.  It was a very insensitive act at best for the US to do to the Korean society with its modern-time history with Japan well-known to everybody. Most South Koreans felt his designation unpleasant with a sense of being betrayed by the US, if not a slap in the face, while the ambassador defended himself by calling the general Korean sentiment “race baiting”. The dappled shadow of Japan in the relation with the US now came out in person.  His office was doomed from the start. Many Koreans familiar with international politics still remember the ambassador appeared working for Japan during his tenancy blocking any opportunities for conversation with North Korea, partying with the Korean politicians of the rightist block, faithful to the expectations of Abe, while it was not out of the line the US Democrats had drawn in the area.

Trump’s openness, in his first term, with North Korea has been largely welcomed in South Korea, leaving those anti-unification rightists, not yet fully out of the hangover, embarrassed by the sudden change of mood towards North Korea from nowhere else but the White House. His lifting of the missile restrictions for South Korea in 2021 uncapped the technologies and production ability for missiles South Koreans had accumulated for decades, that soon led to the drastic increase of the fire power of the free world camp. By 2023 the first delivery of the Chunmoo rocket launcher was made to Poland.

Many Koreans felt things were moving in Washington DC towards the big-picture solution with the advent of Trump, wherein the unification of Korean Peninsula would take an important place of the picture, if not the centerpiece. That was the reason why many Koreans wished for his comeback in the 2024 US Presidential election despite his repeated coarse comments about the “free ride” of South Korea on the US military protection.[]  He didn’t do that only for South Korea anyway, and it was still better than seeing the sage being played about North Korea only to perpetuate the division, by those  highlander moms who seemed to have no idea whose interest they were serving.

[] South Korea had built the Camp Humphreys, the biggest overseas camp of US Army in terms of the capacity, and gave it almost as present to US. The United States is using the land and facilities free.

The rise of Korea’s ammunition industry and its implications

When there took place an exchange of artillery fires in the Kashmir border area between India and Pakistan in 2019, it was also a confrontation between the two self-propelled howitzer systems from South Korea and China, 10 to 36 guns respectively. In 2021 India ordered 100 more units of K9 system from South Korea to deploy them in Ladakh region, the border area with China, where the bare-fist clash between India and China had occurred in 2020.

In 2019 South Korean government transferred to Philippines the corvette-class naval ship armed with the radar and electronic warfare capability and missiles. The vessel was named Conrad-Yap after the name of the Philippines officer who had died in action in Korea. That transfer was followed by the purchase by Philippines of two frigates in 2021.  Philippines had had a lot of conflicts with China in the wrongly-named South China Sea, where the grey zone tactics Chinese way posed the serious threat to the sovereignty and security of Philippines. Since 2021 Philippines has been responding to the Chinese aggressions with the war vessels and FA50 fighter jets from South Korea.

In 2025 Vietnam signed the agreement for the purchase of twenty K9 systems from Hanhwa of Korea.  It was Vietnam’s first import of the ammunition from the free world camp since 1945, other than from Russia and China, which had been the only sources Vietnam relied on.

In 2022, the K9 User Club was organized among the European countries including Poland, Estonia, Finland, Norway to share technical experiences and enhance operating abilities on the self-propelled gun system. A joint drill was conducted between Poland and Estonia to synchronize the K9 operations in the field in 2024.

The news of Norway choosing Chunmoo rocket launcher system of Korea in February 2026 surprised the military circle twice when it was known the missiles would be supplied from the Polish manufacturing base to be established in joint venture with the Korean supplier. In the same month the ground-breaking ceremony was held in Romania for the factory to build the K9 systems.

Unbeknownst to many, South Korea is changing the military landscape of the world. Korea’s arms industry is just one of those ammunition exporters, but the provider of the whole industrial capability for some regions to secure the ‘security of supply’. South Korea has become a security partner to many countries and regions with no treaty of alliance. They will become more and more important because they have the most  strong foundation and ecology for the ammunition system development. 

The picture of the motley civilian force who fought against the Japanese army. The photo was taken by the Canadian journalist Frederick Arthur MacKenzie in 1907. This rare image of the “Righteous Army” has been one of the sources of inspiration and passion for the ammunition system engineers of South Korea, who took it as a personal honor to be able to work for the development of the military abilities for their country.  

The rise of South Korea in the ammunition industry is the result of the leading positions South Korea has secured in technology and production capability in extensive fields of industry.  The ground of the global power contest would have titled in favor of China already if it had not been for the performance of South Korea in the fields of general technology and industry.

Things do not happen always within the boundary of the human calculation, but any brave projection on the simplest algebra would be better than leaving it to the realm of obscurity. China would be building more than 75% of the ships, smart phones, TVs, batteries and 5G mobile network system of the world by now if South Korean industries had not flowered the way it did. China would have become the cultural leader in the Southeast Asia, South America and Middle East removing the barrier for their economic and military advance there if not for the cultural predominance of South Korea in those regions.  In short, the world could have been under China by now. In almost every field soft and hard, South Korea of slightly over fifty million people has been ahead of China or competing, providing a strong, often superior, alternative in the world market and politics. The de-coupling and then the de-risking would have been an unavailable option for the free world if not for the existence of South Korea.

Japan factor seen from the Korean perspective

The widespread rumor about the success of K-Culture is that it was made possible by the subsidy of the Korean government, as if it was like foul play comparable to that of CCP subsidization to the chip industry.

The truth is that no entertainment houses known today like SM, YG or Big Hit had ever got the blessing of one single dollar from the tax money. And the K-Dramas in the early years, such as Dae Jang Keum, were made by the broadcasting companies with no help of tax money until Netflix joined in the production later. The Japanese governmental campaign named Cool Japan, the Abe administration’s endeavor to globalize the Japanese music and screen industry, fizzled out so quickly only to prove the area was not the field for the government engagement.

It was true that the leadership of the Korean society had always been interested in the subject of the culture in the broad sense.  Back in the time of Koryo Dynasty, the condition the Koreans put forth for the peace treaty with the Mongols in 1270 was “no change in the Korean custom” at a time when the Chinese had been forced to cut their hair in Mongol style or cut in half. So, you see Hanbok worn by foreign visitors to the palaces in Seoul today. In the modern time after the liberation from Japan, the national leader Kim Gu believed in the power of culture and saw the high culture of Korea as an asset of mankind to realize the world peace. President Kim Dae-jung foresaw the gravity of the “Soft Power” to come in the internet environment and prepared the soil for the blossoming of the soft industry with the legislations that strongly protected the creativity of the artists. 

But, of all the sources that worked behind behind the rise of the Korean soft power is the sense of security Koreans cherish and bath in, being aware they are being exposed to the people of the world directly. It may sound strange some get the sense of security at the moments of exposure. But being exposed to the others “directly” can be a bliss for those who have been known only through the mouths of their neighbors for centuries, especially by those who had many reasons to conceal the truths. We only hear of  such nightmare neighbors in the Netflix horror series in the personal level, but not in a country level. When Homer B. Herbert said “calumny” in the dedication of his book ‘Passing of Korea’, he referred to the Japanese:

                                                                    TO HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

as a token of high esteem and a pledge of unwavering allegiance,

at a time when calumny has done its worst

and justice has suffered an eclipse

 

Korea has been the source of the rich for Japan always. In the ancient time, another name for Korea, 韓國 or Kara-kuni, was “rich Country”, 豊國 or Toyo-kuni in Japan.[]  The fall of Baekje and Koguryo in 7C was followed immediately by the start of Nara Japan. The invasion from Mongols left the Japanese society with the fantasy of its race in a special tie with the God. [] The biggest beneficiary of the Imjin War they themselves raised was the Japanese society. It was like a campaign of free conscription of human resources and talents in a massive scale, which had nourished the Edo culture as we know today. [] And Korea War was the blessing from the heaven for the Japanese as they were barely gaining the strength to stand up from the devastation from the World War II.

[] “Toyo” in the motor company Toyota 豊田 uses the same character.

[] The word Kamikaze 神風 means God’s Wind, which refers to the god-sent storm that swept the enemy vessels away overnight during the Mongol invasion. 

[] Toyotomi Hideyoshi specified the field of the artisans to bring to Japan each time he issued the order of expedition. He was interested in the porcelain,caligraphy and clothing artisans in the beginning.  Later he became interested to get the cooking specialists.  

The cost of the Divinity        The ‘calumny’ Homer Hulbert mentioned in the dedication of his book "The Passing of Korea" is still at work actively in the field of the historical study. The conclusions of all the scientific approaches on the origin of the Japanese people as ethnic group point to the shared ancestry with Koreans. Yet Japanese society under the grip of the extreme rightists hasn’t spared efforts to defend the originality of their ethnic lineage. To this day the Korean and the Japanese are classified as two independent languages despite the consistent scientific findings for the common derivation of the two languages, Japanese effort for their independent identity scoring another victory.

[] ”They want to believe that their distinctive language and culture required uniquely complex developmental processes. To acknowledge a relationship of the Japanese language to any other language seems to constitute a surrender of cultural identity.”-excerpt from In search of the Japanese roots by Jared Diamond, May 31, 1998. 

Such attitude of the Japanese regarding their ethnic origin has been just something embarrassing to Koreans. They feel like a poor little boy who has to deal with her rich cousin girl in the same class, who does everything to conceal their familial relation.  So, Koreans usually opt to refrain from mentioning the ethnic and cultural commonality with Japanese. That is okay, but the real serious problem of the Japanese playing their cultural originality is that, in doing so, they have been trying proactively to erase the antecedence of, and to narrow the sphere of, the ancient Korean civilization. And the resulting vacuums in the historical narratives have been taken up by the CCP China. They began to expand their territorial claim taking on the vacuums the Japanese have created. 

One such example is the disputes over the location of the Han commanderies that West Han (206 BCE–25 CE) that is said to have been established in the old territory of Go-Joseon at the fall of the ancient Korean state. All the maps and literature published in China at the time indicate the locations of the commanderies were in the area surrounding Bohai Sea, which corresponds with all the records on the location of Go-Joseon. Yet during the period of the Japanese rule of Korea the Japanese began to argue the location of the commanderies was in the Peninsula, Pyong Yang being the location for the Lelang 樂浪 commandery that lasted the longest time until 313CE when Koguryo destroyed the said commandery. 

However, many of the artifacts Japanese had claimed to have unearthed as evidence for the argument were later decided forgery.  was enough to deprive the Japanese argument of any credibility by itself, while  The number of the artifacts, the clay seals of the commanderies, that they claimed to have excavated in hundreds is just unreal, considering the perishability of the material. Nowhere in all over China such density of the Han-period clay seals hasn't been found, while no single such relic was unearthed by the North Korean scholars after Japanese cleared out of the area.  While the fact that a significant portion of the artifacts Japanese claimed to have excavated turned out fake seems enough to discredit their argument, Japanese academy, including even some Korean historians under their influence, maintained their postion arguing that the wholeness of their assertion should not be affected because of some forgeries found.

A clay seal was unearthed in 1997 by a Chinese paseant in the exact location that the Han maps indicated to be the place for one of the commanderies.[]

[] The clay seal 臨屯太守章封泥was found by a Chinese farmer in 1997 in the coastal area of Bohai Sea, the place where the Go-Joseon capital was known to have been. (as shown in the map as Commandery 2)

Whichever is right, the CCP Chinese changed their position recently based on the Japanese argument on the location of the Han commanderies, and began to produce new photoshop maps with the eastern tip of the Great Wall deep into the Korean Peninsula. It is a big change of position within CCP China on the border with the ancient China.

 [] See Zhou Enlai’s speech in 1963 on the border of the countries and Chinese distortion of the ancient history to know the change of the CCP position on the historical issues between the two countries. Go to the end of this article to see the relevant part of his speech and English translation.

[left] The locations of the Four Han Commanderies  shown in the 西漢郡國圖 or West Han Prefecture Map. The grey circle at the top center shows the four commanderies were located to the north of Shandong Peninsula in the coastal area by the Liao River, away from the Peninsula. The map does not even show the Korea Peninsula. The location in the map corresponds with the descriptions in the Chinese literature published near the time of the commandries’ existence. 太康地理志云 ｢樂浪遂城縣有碣石山，長城所起｣    [right] The reconstructed locations of the Four Han Commanderies based on the Chinese literature and maps of the time, showing the alleged locations of the commanderies based on the Chinese maps and literature of the time.

[left] The photoshop map posted in the Japanese Wikipedia reflecting the argument of the Japanese historians. The realm of the Chinese commanderies they argue for is drawn in light green. According to the Japanese historians, the most of Peninsula were occupied by the commanderies until Koguryo put an end to the last one in 4C. The reason why the southern part is left is because that was the area, according to Japanese rightist assertions, under the influence of Japanese. The map has now been removed from the site. [right]  The first map of the Great Wall, that had its eastern tentacle deep into North Korea, posted in Baidu. It is probable that Xi Jin-Ping showed the photoshop map in  2017 meeting in Florida to Trump, who said that Korea used to be part of China, coming out of the closed-door meeting with Xi.

President Trump said in a nullification of his 2017 “used to be part of China” comment that Korea was a strong nation who fought 51 wars with Chinese, in his 2025 meeting with the South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.

They don’t care their such posture on the ethnic and cultural phylogeny led to the new Chinese claim for the Liao civilization, the cradle for the Transeurasian culture and languages, including Korean and Japanese, that actually precedented and influenced all the Chinese cultures that came later. Japanese know Chinese has been the beneficiary of their history distortion and concealment on the ancient Korean civilization, but it seems they don’t care as long as it was of help for them to deny the common cultural and ethnic derivation with Koreans.[]  To the extreme rightists in Japan, agreeing to the common ancestry with Koreans means the abandonment of the divinity of Tenno and sacredness of Japan as a special country above her neighbors.

In the field of history, the two groups, the Japanese rightists and CCP China, have been working as taciturn collaborators to disparage and conceal the ancient Korean civilization.They didn't need a secret meeting. Since it was just a tradition from the Shiji years two millennia ago. Nihon Shoki was a child of Shiji in its posture to the history as a creation of new truth. The Northeast (History) Project 東北工程 by CCP, whereby China claims the ancient Korean states, such as Koguryo and Balhae, were the Chinese local governments, was one recent fruit of their such silent alliance in the field. 

One of the most serious historical distortions by Japanese rightist views is the exaggeration of the Tang’s influence on the early Japanese civilization, which was tenuous at best, when juxtaposed with the almost exclusive influence of the ancient Korean states. Japanese rightist historians are eager to exaggerate the Tang’s influence to conceal their cultural derivation from the ancient Korean states, Kaya, Baekje, Silla and Koguryo, and they don’t care that their such distortion has helped the formation of the Sinocentric interpretation of the Northeast Asian history as long as they can stick to the storyline of their historical narratives designed to uphold the divinity of the Tenno and, thus, their country. China can have a bite in their feast over the history if it helps to wash off the cultural and ethnic derivation from the ancient Korea. 

[] See the articles in this blog for the subject: “Tang’s Influence” – True or false, why it matters [1] [2] [3]

The Comfort Women Debacle 

The history distortion is still underway in our time. The Comfort Women happening is only a recent example of the "calumny" Homer Hulbert mentioned. The unchanging truth is that the Japanese government was wholely responsible for the wartime sexual abuse. I am not here to say they should be responsible ultimately because they are the one who raised the war. No war-raiser did what the Japanese did during the war. 

The brothel edifice was built by the Japanese army in the premise of the military camp. The comfort women were grouped in two by the army to take officers and ordinary soldiers separately. Soldiers did not pay out of their pocket. The army gave them the tickets for the brothel visit at the time slot allocated by the army. When they moved, they took the girls with them, under the lead of the medical officer. 

Abe’s assertion was that there was no record of the Japanese government’s engagement in the recruit of the comfort women, in other word, that they were commercial prostitutes. US Democrat Administration’s intervention in the matter was not only inappropriate by itself, but they obviously crossed the line in the course of doing so. They even attempted to interrogate the victims themselves.

First of all, it was not the critical point whether the Japanese government engaged in the recruit directly or through the civilian agents. The point is that the Japanese government was the source of the demand for the human trafficking whether they did it themselves or hired the civilian recruiters. It was not critical whether it was true that the Japanese policemen took the victims off the street or not. Such case could have happened when the civilian recruit agents used the corrupt police for their business. Or it may have happened in many a different ways. The anecdotal cases should not be summoned to assess the whole situation. Families of the victims were usually poor and often bound in the private debt. Human trafficking was the dark practice that had existed in the Japanese society for hundreds of years.[] Often the girls were under 15 and Abe was saying they volunteered for the sex business for profit. There was reported a case of a Japanese teacher in Korea working with the recruit agent over a girl from a poor family in his class. Also, the Japanese army did the recruiting activities themselves when and where they found it manageable. []  

[] See the short story “Shansho the Bailiff” 山椒大夫 by Ogai Mori森鴎外, where the practice of the human trafficking in 11C in the Japanese society is well depicted.

 [] Nakasone Yoshihiro, Prime Minister of Japan in 1980s, boasted his popularity as he made the speech to the audience of the Taiwanese high-school girls to encourage the application for the troop of women-dedicated-for-war, 挺身隊, in Taiwan as a young officer, in his autobiography “ the making of the new Japan.” In Taiwan, the jobs of the feminine war volunteers were not separated by sexual and non-sexual. 

The US Democrat Administration’s engagement in the issue only helped Abe to get away with the Japanese government’s responsibility for the wartime crime, but left a deep feeling of being sidelined and betrayed in the Korean mind, reminding them of the Katsura-Taft Agreement of 1905. The success the Japanese government scored with the assistance of the US government seems to have spoiled the Japanese rightists further.  They brazenly disregarded the condition they had promised the UNESCO at the designation in 2015 of the Hashima (Battleship) Island as World Heritage to set up a note acknowledging the use of the forced labor of Koreans for the visitors to see.    

The policymakers need to have an objective measure of the nature and hazards of the Japanese rightist leadership. They are not Japan. Only Japanese society is in their control. Their historical view in denial of the scientific findings to protect the divinity of Tenno they impose over the Japanese society and the world of academy would continue to help foster the Sinocentric interpretations on the Northeast Asian history and culture and encourage the CCP China to expand the Chinese territorial claim over the Peninsula. So far, they appear entertaining the consequence of their such history distortion. They would rather see China bite off a piece than to see the complete reunification of the Peninsula. First actions they do to achieve their hidden priority has been to please you. Not in the sushi bar nor in Geisha house. But by demonstrating their eagerness to fight for you, which of course is not free. 

The opportunity cost       One way to fathom what impact and bondage the stance of the Japanese rightist regime in the areas of history and foreign policy has been presenting, is to think about what options could have been available as big-picture strategies for the region if the Japanese society, released from the rightists' claw, had gotten out of the divinity complex and had been just as normal and open as to accept the scientific findings about their ethnic lineage and cultural derivation and teach their children accordingly. South Korea and Japan might be talking by now about a stronger form of alliance or a kind of confederation voluntarily against their common regional and historical threat, if not for a union. 

Policymakers need to get reminded of the constant agenda Japanese rightist regime has been throwing on the table. They ask US to join their endless demonization of North Korea over the decades-old abduction issue, despite the cooperations and acknowledgement from North Korea, watching out for smallest infractions of the sanctions, and, of Russia over the territorial dispute, demanding stronger sanctions for the Ukraine war, while going against any expansion of the South Korean role in the region and in global stage. If their acts are the only criteria to judge them by, preventing the reunification of Korea seems to be the top priority in their underboard concerns, which, if it’s true, obviously is not in line with the interests of the United States and the free world camp. The Japanese rightists would not mind China becoming a beneficiary, or the champion, in the course if it helps to stop the full Korean reunification, like the posture they have been displaying in the field of the history. Japanese rightists have made China the cultural champion of the region already at the expense of the truth of the "cultural seminality" of the ancient Koreans. In that sense the preemption of the Korean reunification looks like  another concern going under the reticent collaboration between China and Japan. And some turbulence of any kind in the Peninsula would remain at the top of her secret wish list. 

Japanese electronics industry has been through the path of steep decline for the last two decades. Somehow, of the three consumer brands so far sold, two went to the Chinese companies and one to the Taiwanese Foxconn known for the founder’s pro-China posture.[] The situation makes one wonder whether those decisions had been made purely by business interests. Now, Hitachi consumer part is on the market while the last of the five once-big-names in Japan, Panasonic, has begun to talk about the sale of its consumer electronics.  

[] Sharp went to Midea of China with its TV part to earn the keep under Hisense. Sony will be the minor partner of TCL for its TV business from 2027.   

Russia as pivot of the hegemony contest in the Northeast Asia

New to many would be that South Korea is one of the most favored nations by the Russians. In the modern history before the Japan-Russia War, Russians left a relatively good impression to the Koreans then undergoing their time of tribulation. When Russia had the economic crisis in 1998 of the Moratorium, Samsung chose to remain in the country, accepting the delays in payment from the dealers, when all the other international brands went back to their countries. It was a sincerity hard to find in the modern world at the time of hardship. Hyundai motors had had the biggest market share as foreign brand in Russia when they had to withdraw at the sanctions to be imposed for the Ukraine War. 

Russia enabled South Korea to make a big leap forward in the ammunition technology through the provision of many of their systems under the Project Brown Bear, that went from 1995 to 2007.[] No one knew yet whether it was a sheer mistake or a staged one when the fully equipped rocket engine system of the most advanced version was delivered to South Korea in 2009 instead of the empty replica that was to be supplied under the contract, which served a huge breakthrough in the rocket engine design and manufacturing to the Korean researchers who were beginning to lose the confidence, stalled in the middle of the their project not knowing what to do next to get out of the mire. The Russian general manager responsible for the mistake was fired without punishment.

[] The Project Brown Bear 불곰사업was the program under which the Russian government was to pay back the loan they had received in the form of the ammunition systems instead of the international currency, that went from 1995 to 2007.   

Koreans feel two countries have many things to do in the region located at the end of the Eurasian Continent. Russia will obviously be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Korean reunification, which will produce a lot of new opportunities in their eastern-end territory. Russia would have an economic partner much safer than China. The train from Vladivostok will reach Busan through the Peninsula. It will certainly help diffuse its tension with the European countries by becoming more of a Pacific country. 

One particular thing about Russia is the good relationship it has with both of the two Koreas. South Korea has maintained their position not to supply the ammunitions to the Ukraine side. South Koreans don’t see the NK-Russia alliance as a threat to them necessarily since they have no plan to invade North Korea or Russia anyway. Rather, they feel Russia can do more for the peace in the Peninsula, now with North Korea as its ally, with the United States on the other side for South Korea.

The biggest beneficiary of the Hyundai withdrawal from Russian market was Chinese automakers. The economic sanction was a strategic failure for the free world. It was a mindless, habitual and emotional action, rather than a rational, purpose-oriented and mature one, that has made China the beneficiary at the expense of the free world interests in the Russian economy. It didn’t do anything to debilitate Russia in their ability to sustain the war, but to push it over to China and make allies, passive in nature yet, out of the two, whose relations had not been that cordial before. It obviously did not serve the interests of US either strategically while it may have pleased certain country or countries in its block. 

The free world needs to know if Russia develop their relation one step further with China, the game for the global hegemony could be irreversibly over.  The clock’s ticking in that direction. While the war in Europe drags on, China and Russia are talking about the China’s access to the East Sea (the sea between Korea and Japan) first through Vladivostok and then through the Tomen River between North Korea and Russia, where China has been blocked from the access to the sea only by 15 kilometers under treaty made in the mid-19^th century and by a low-laying bridge Russia had built across the river. The European NATO members are actually helping China by just prolonging the war with no purpose in sight, perhaps because the Pacific situation is much less a concern to them. Now Russia is much less likely to make the agression westwards in Europe than years partly because of what South Koreans have done with the countries bordering with Russia.

The North Korea factor

Despite all the negative things Kim dynasty of North Korea should be held responsible for, one thing that South Koreans, and perhaps US, should appreciate about the Kims is their hold-down of the Chinese economic advance into North Korea despite the multiple economic devastations they had been through due partly to the sanctions from the West. Rumor is that in the will of Kim Jung-il to his son Kim Jong-un was included not to trust China, which had been “Korean enemy of a millennium”, while Japan was “the foe of a century”. True or not, the actions Kim Jong-un has shown towards China seems to have been in line with his father’s yet-unproven will. The execution of his uncle Jang Sung-taek in 2013 was partly a measure to stop the Chinese economic advance into North Korea. Glass grows high in the industrial park Jang had been building for the Chinese to this day. 

South Korea’s military budget exceeds the total annual product of North Korea. Time is rife for a big breakthrough of the situation. North Koreans are Korean anyway. It has a huge potential not just out of the human resources, but of the natural ones that the South didn’t have, including the rare earth. It would be a crime if someone agrees to push them over to the Chinese side, even knowing their reluctance to get closer to China.

Given the status of South Korea and the position of North Korea in their league, the reunification of Korea will be a monumental event to open a new era for the world. If it happens, it is likely to happen as a huge addition to the free camp.

 

Closing Remark

- Some would wonder why this article keeps talking about the history in the part for the geopolitics. But often, no, actually in most cases, the geopolitical interpretations and strategies devoid of deep and unbiased understanding of the history end up futile, in yet luckier cases, or in the loss of your political assets and in the eventual devastation to your global endeavor.

- The Shanghai luxury-car parade symbolizes the dynamics of the collective psychology among the peoples with aquaintance of two millennia as unavoidable neighbors. Alarming for Chinese can be that they earned near-lowest favorability from South Korea and Japan alike, the title of the most hated. Yet the worst was that the age group in Korea showing the lowest favor for China was the youth group in their 20s while the young generations of Japan and South Korea are getting closer. The young Japanese in their 20s and 30s grew up under “Winter Sonata” mom and grandma.[] The number of marriages between Korea-Japan couples is seeing an exponential growth.

[] “Winter Sonata” was the Korean TV series that is said to have brought the first Korean Wave in the Japanese society when broadcasted by NHK in 2003. It soon formed the maniac fans in the populace of women in their 40s to 60s, whose children and grandchildren who witnessed the social craze through their mother and grandmother are now in their 20s and 30s.

[left] The two characters in the Netflix series “Kimbap and Onikiri” are having the home meal together at the Korean girl’s in Tokyo, sitting on the floor at the half-height table, the common home culture only Koreans and Japanese share. [left] Two top men, of Toyota and Hyundai Motors respectively, demonstrate their brotherhood. 

-The recent bromance between Toyota Akio of Toyota and Jeong Eui-seon of Hyundai Motors is a good example for what the Japan -Korea relationship should be if both countries can depose and stand true to their cultural and ethnic affinity. Somehow it hasn’t happened in the field of politics. Rather, the Japanese rightists seem afraid of that to happen. 

-The rise of Korea should be taken in the context of the history. It is not a miracle as it was not two millennia ago when Koguryo defeated Chinese Dynasties one after another. The population ratio of Korea to China today, when the north and south combined, is not much different from that at the time of the 7C clash. Struggling to stand up in the modern time the Korean society returned to the Koguryo ego than to Joseon identity in its social dynamics and outlook.  

-Yet the difference in the geopolitical standing of each country due to their geographic position should be recognized. You can afford to appear brave when you are standing away from a bear. But your bravity could jeopardize the life of those closer to the bear. Some can take advantage of the distance to put others in danger or to distinction. The semiconductor facility of Samsung producing 40% of the world's demand for memory chips is located only 5 kilometers from Camp Humphreys. 

-The history of the US policy for the region was that of fluctuation. The national interest of the United States certainly is not in pleasing a country or two there. If we get things happening in the region these days, we cannot really afford to let the time go by as China is laying the railways to the Central Asia destinations and is becoming more inextricable an economic partner of Russia day by day. The common interests of the United States and the free world in the region are not in making a specific form of alliance, but in containing the ultimate threat. 

-It is naive, even dangerously romantic, if some policymakers thought their direct engagement in removing the conflicts between the allies could make the combined allied force stronger. It is important to make your alliance stronger, but “Stronger against who?” should be the question to be asked first. 

- The real fortification of the alliance comes from the mutual trust and respect not afraid of addressing the issue of defining the common enemies first "together'. You should not force someone to join the alliance and notify the common foes later if you don't think of the "ally" as component and if you really want the alliance to be strong enough to win. Since the true strength of the alliance would result from mutual respect and trust, not from supporting the historical feud and interests of a particular member or removing certain conflicts between allies. 

-From the perspective of Koreans there seems to exist a double standard there. Some people in the alliance respect all the historical interests and feuds of a certain member, but not the historical experiences of another. This is not a fan club to spoil a girl in the class. Members, if it is to be a real alliance, should not allow the club to be aligned for the interests and hates of a specific member.

- It is not too late. China is not the first choice for most central Asian countries. Russians sure understand the danger of growing the Chinese presence in their eastern end. North Korea is waiting for a new exit other than China for their future. 

-You cannot afford to allow a specific member to tell you who will be your enemies. Not because you don’t care to please her. But because you know the scenario of her pursuit is bound to result in a tragedy for all in the region and for the free world, tilting the ground irreversibly in favor of the ultimate threat.  

-The clock can be ticking for different reasons to different allies of yours. Some worry about the ultimate threat absorbing the potential allies of yours. Some don’t make sleep at night over the nightmare of their historical enemies getting out of the loose tie with the ultimate threat and becoming lesser of enemy to the Free World. 

-Nothing would be more foolish and destructive of your future than to make your potential friend an enemy when you knew he wanted to make friends with you, to please someone who wanted his enemy to be your enemy too.  It would be only with the prism of the big picture that you will begin to tell the toxic from the healthy and learn to maneuver the situation to achieve the ultimate goal.

                                                                                                                                                  [END] 

< Attachment>

 

Zhou Enlai, the Great Man's Apology to Koreans for the Historical Distortion and Fabrication and his recognition of the border with Korea 

Followings are the excerpts from the speech made by the Zhou Enlai, the prime minister and founder of CCP, made in 1963 in his official meeting with the visiting North Korean delegate of scientists for the historical research project on the ancient Korean states in the Manchurian area. He discourses at length about the history of the two countries in the meeting. His views manifested in the speech was in line with that of Mao Zedong in his meeting with Kim Ilsung of North Korea in 1957. His comments made in the 1963 meeting was so clear and free of obfuscation, so it would need no more than word-for-word translation to get to his points. The English translation will be followed by the original Chinese record of the speech hereunder. 

 -from the Bulletin of Foreign Affairs, Issue 10, 1963

摘自《外事工作通报》1963年第十期 

Quote

“For certain periods of antiquity, some records of historians of the two countries are not true to the facts. It was mainly Chinese historians, many of whom wrote history from the viewpoint of great power and great power chauvinism. So many issues were written unfairly. First of all, the views of some Chinese historians in the past about the development of the two nations were not so correct and did not correspond with the real facts.” 

“这样一个历史年代，两国的历史学家有些记载是不甚真实的。这里面，主要是中国历史学家，许多人都是以大国主义、大国沙文主义观点来写历史。因此，许多问题写得不公道。首先对两国民族的发展，过去中国的一些历史学家的看法就不那么正确，不那么合乎实际”。

“Chinese historians must acknowledge this fact. Sometimes the ancient history is distorted and added to your head, saying that the Koreans are the "descendants of Ji zi", and insisting on finding a historical site in Pyongyang to prove it. This is distorting history; how can it be like this?”

“中国历史学家必须承认这个事实。有时候就把古代史歪曲了，硬加上你们头上，说什么朝鲜族是“箕子之后”，硬要到平壤找个古迹来证明。这是歪曲历史的，怎么能是这样的呢？” 

  In the same speech Zhou Enlai stressed the importance of the historical study based on scientific approach using the written records only as second material and mentioned that much of the North East China was the territory of ancient Koreans historically, proven by the ruins remaining and artifacts unearthed. Mao Zedong expressed the same stance on the historical and territorial issues between the two countries in multiple meetings with North Koreans, including the one with Kim Il Sung in 1957.

  While their such views on the historical issues can be said to have reflected the typical Communist posture against the feudalistic chauvinism, the trend of scientific approach that formed the mainstream of the historical studies since 1930s in China contributed to the new perspective on the traditional Chinese history narratives as were written by the ancient Chinese historians.  Just for the record, Zhou Enlai’s comment on the territorial issues went as following:

  “The Korean people have lived there for a long time since they came to the Korean Peninsula and the Northeast mainland ( China ). The Liaohe and Songhua River basins have the footprints of the Korean people. This can be proved from the cultural relics and inscriptions excavated in the Liaohe, Songhua River and Tumen River basins. Many have traces of the Korean script. It can be proven that Koreans have lived there for a long time. Near Jingbo Lake, there is a historic site of the Bohai Kingdom, as well as the capital. It is said that the local cultural relics prove that it is also a branch of the Korean nationality. This country has existed for a long period of time in its history. Therefore, it can be proved that there are Koreans not only on the Korean Peninsula, but also in the Liaohe and Songhua River basins for a long period of time. Historical records and unearthed cultural relics have proved it.”

“朝鲜民族自从到了朝鲜半岛和东北大陆以后，长时期在那里居住。辽河、松花江流域都有朝鲜  族的足迹。这可以从辽河、松花江流域、图们江流域发掘来的文物、碑文得到证明。许多都有朝鲜文的痕迹。可以证明很久以来，朝鲜族居住在那里。在镜泊湖附近，有一个渤海国的古迹，还有首都。据说出土文物证明，那也是朝鲜族的一个支派。这个国家在历史上存在了一个相当长的时期。所以，可以证明，不仅在朝鲜半岛上有朝鲜族，同时，在辽河、松花江流域，有很长一个时期也有朝鲜族在那里居住。至于朝鲜族是否在更古的时候，有一部分是从亚洲南部漂海过来的。这是另一个问题，但一定有一部分原来就居住在半岛上。居住在图们江、辽河、松花江流域的，这是肯定的。历史记载和出土文物都已证明了。

 

unquote

 Thank you for reading.

읽어 주셔서 감사합니다.