Chinese History Version Unchallenged

It was confirmed yesterday that the Korean government was unaware that a Chinese research institute released scores of theses that wrongly incorporated ancient Korean history spanning from the Gojoseon dynasty to the Balhae period into Chinese history.

It was also reported that the government hardly protested politically or diplomatically against China for its breach of a 2004 oral agreement where the two neighbors promised not to politicize the issue of the ancient history.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination (OGPC) submitted a statement to opposition lawmaker Kim Yang-soo on the National Assembly Policy Committee at the end of August right before the news release of Beijing’s additional efforts for its Northeast Asia Project. It said that the Chinese central government as of August 2006 did not seem to have been rewriting history to its advantage on its state media and party levels.

On the contrary, the government office highlighted that Beijing has honored the oral agreement by addressing problematic issues.

This clearly suggests that Seoul did not grasp the smallest idea at all while Beijing was thoroughly preparing to distort ancient history.

Lack of Proper Response by the Government-

Worse yet, the government response to the Chinese move to distort history has been nearly non-existent since the signing of the agreement.

The OGPC said that the government had formed a pan governmental body dedicated to countering Chinese efforts to add the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo to its history in September 2004 and also established a “diplomatic strategy task force” engaging related ministries including the Foreign Ministry. However, the task force held only two meetings to review the adherence of the oral agreement each in January and August, and failed to come up with substantial results.

The Korean chief consul in Shenyang reported on August 7 to the Foreign Ministry that Beijing put up a sign at an ancient Goguryeo fortress, which said Goguryeo was an ethnic minority body of a Chinese province. The ministry brushed it aside and never requested a correction.

The only thing it did was to reiterate its basic position that it would monitor the situation and take action if necessary.

Suspicions over Government Cover-up–

Lawmaker Kim took issue with the lack of knowledge of the government, but also raised doubts if the government, in the know of the situation, intentionally feigned ignorance of the problem to avoid a possible conflict with China.

He called for the ongoing speculation to be cleared up that the government obtained the theses in question in September last year.

Kim also said the OGPC’s response documents show that it knew the Chinese research institute’s leading role in the Northeast Asia Project. The government might have been holding back the fact by reporting that it is out in the dark about the theses published last year.

mhpark@donga.com