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SPEAKING FREELY
Sino-Korean relations:
Lessons in antiquity
By Yu Shiyu
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you
are interested in contributing.
An
archeological dispute, between China on one side and the
two Koreas on the other, regarding the ownership of the
Goguryeo (also spelled Kogurys) tomb murals unearthed in
China's Jilin province has recently been reported (Northeast Asia's intra-mural mural
wars, Asian Times, December 23, 2003). This
controversy has raised the concern about the prospect of
future territorial disputes between China and Korea, in
addition to other sensitive issues regarding Korean
cultural legacy and identity, despite the traditional
realpolitik of Northeast Asia, let alone its
history.
In the meantime, the hitherto low-key
government reactions from both Seoul and Pyongyang on
this controversy lead to the unavoidable contrast to the
often acrimonious territorial and other historical
disputes that Korea has with Japan.
Of course,
this is certainly not the first time Koreans' often
diametrically different attitudes toward their two
Northeast Asian neighbors China and Japan have been
noted. Western observers generally find this sharp
disparity both puzzling and frustrating. The
International Herald Tribune published, on May 30, 2002,
a commentary properly titled "Time for South Korea and
Japan to make up", which loudly complained, among other
things, "South Korea has double standards. If Japan can
do no right in Korean eyes, China can do no wrong."
Perhaps more alarming to many, the same
exasperating "double standards" have lately started to
undermine not only Japanese but also US interests, as
Andrew Ward keenly observed in the Financial Times in a
report fittingly titled "South Korea's deepening
relations with China underline the threat posed by
Beijing to US influence" (February 19, 2002),
particularly when China is about to overtake the United
States as South Korea's No 1 trading partner.
Therefore, the Goguryeo tomb-mural controversy
may provide a rare case in which China finally does
something wrong in Korean eyes, with all its
geopolitical consequences, of which territorial disputes
may turn out only minor ones in comparison.
Prior to tackling the thorny historical
background of this controversy, there seems some
question regarding whether the Chinese archeology
project (Northeast Progress) that has uncovered the tomb
murals is part and parcel of China's much publicized
Northeast Asian Project, to which Beijing has reportedly
devoted more than US$2 billion. This question would
decide the magnitude of resources the two countries (or
rather the three state governments) have committed or
are willing to commit on the tomb-mural controversy.
I must admit my ignorance on the exact
relationship between these two projects. I would,
however, venture two comments. First, the "Northeast
Asian Project" for the revitalization of the moribund
heavy industries in northeastern China may turn out as
more political sloganeering than actual
central-government funding. In fact, Xinhua has just reported from a
recent forum held in the city of Changchun that the
project has serious funding shortfalls.
Second,
it is well known in Chinese academe that not only
archeology but also all humanity disciplines not
directly related to money-making suffer nowadays from a
perennial lack of government funding. The only bright
money story in the past decade in Chinese archeology was
the much-politicized Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project
reportedly directly supported by the former president
Jiang Zemin. As such, the project's results were
criticized by, inter alia, the New York Times and
the Far Eastern Economic Review. It would certainly be
refreshing to hear about another such well-funded
Chinese archeology project in the offing, geopolitical
motivations notwithstanding.
Before one gets too
excited on the prospect of future territorial disputes
between China and Korea related to the ancient kingdom
of Goguryeo, and the subsequent (welcome in many Western
eyes) change of the Koreans' "double standards"
regarding China and Japan, a few brief history notes may
help broaden one's perspective on this subject.
Nobody would deny the historical link between
Goguryeo and modern Korea, but neither can one ignore
the important roles Goguryeo played in the history of
northeastern China as well as in China proper. To
complicate the story even more, during much of its
existence, the kingdom of Goguryeo dealt with a China
dominated not by ethnic Chinese but by various tribe
peoples mostly speaking Altaic languages, not unlike the
situation when the Yi Dynasty of Korea had to deal with
the Manchu.
The historical fact is that Goguryeo
and many of its individuals actively participated in the
political, cultural and religious life of contemporary
northern China. As an example, according to the late
professor Tan Qixiang of Fudan University, the
editor-in-chief of the voluminous Historical Atlas of
China, the very founder Gao Huan of the Northern Qi
dynasty (AD 550-577) may "highly likely" be a Goguryeo
person. [1] If this was the case, then every single Tang
Dynasty emperor from the third one on down had Goguryeo
blood, given the fact that the mother of Empress
Zhangsun, the chief consort of the most famous Tang
Emperor Li Shimin, was from the Northern Qi royal clan.
Much more solid cases of the role of Goguryeo
people in China abound. For example, General Gao Xianzhi
of the Tang Dynasty was of authentic Goguryeo origin. In
the historical Battle of Talas in AD 751 between Arab
and Tang forces in Central Asia, Gao Xianzhi was the
commander-in-chief on the Tang side. According to the
famous Russian authority W Barthold, the result of this
battle decided the fate of Central Asia ever since: Had
the battle been won by the Tang troops, much of Central
Asia would have stayed or become Buddhist-Confucian, not
unlike modern Korea. [2] A Goguryeo individual thus
became directly responsible for such a critical event in
not only Chinese history, but also the history of the
entire Asian continent.
Moving beyond Goguryeo,
one finds even more ethnic Koreans playing similarly
important roles in Chinese history. For example, one of
the four most important Buddhist bodhisattvas
worshiped today by millions of Chinese may have been a
Silla prince. [3] However, there is little prospect that
this well-publicized story may lead to a territorial
dispute concerning the traditional Buddhist holy
mountain where the said bodhisattva is believed
to be based - Mount Jiuhua in China's Anhui province.
One should be even less concerned about the
prospect that China's claim regarding the kingdom of
Goguryeo may further extend to Korea's southwestern
kingdom of Paekche, which according to early legends was
founded by someone related to the family that had
earlier founded Goguryeo.
This is because, had
Beijing the real intention to challenge Korea's
sovereignty over the Korean Peninsula, it could have a
much better pretext than the legendary link between the
founders of Paekche and Goguryeo: the same legends on
the early history of Korea stated unmistakably that
Silla, who later unified the Korean Peninsula for the
first time in history (and "with the support of China",
according to Encyclopaedia Britannica [4]), had
been founded primarily by ethnic Chinese migrants, [5]
much less the fact that a large chunk of northern Korea
was under Chinese administration during the two Han
dynasties (202 BC - AD 220).
Moreover, one may
also wonder about the fate of the kingdom of Bohai
(Parhae) established in modern northeastern China and
Russia's far east by the surviving Goguryeo people after
their old kingdom was overrun by Silla (with the support
of China). In the unexciting words of Encyclopaedia
Britannica: "After Parhae's demise its territory
fell under the control of the northern nomadic peoples
and has not since been a part of Korean history."
Many Westerners' either dreadful or wishful
concerns about Sino-Korean relations are, in my humble
opinion, partly due to their failure to recognize the
fact that in the long history of peaceful coexistence of
the two countries, many ethnic Koreans have become
Chinese and perhaps an equal number of ethnic Chinese
have become Koreans. The best example of the latter is
the highly successful Korean branch of the descendants
of Confucius, which includes a recent foreign minister
of South Korea. In addition, a large number of ancient
nomadic tribe people originally speaking Altaic tongues
have become ethnic Chinese or Koreans. These migrations
either occurred naturally or were necessitated by such
events as the devastating invasion of Korea (1592-98) by
the Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Neither China
nor Korea has had a bone to pick in this process, unlike
what third- and fourth-generation ethnic Koreans are
facing in Japan.
Future Sino-Korean relations
would certainly be far from smooth sailing, especially
regarding the difficult task of handling the obnoxious
yet dangerous North Korean regime. Nonetheless, there
are plenty of historical reasons why the two countries
have coexisted largely peacefully and amicably for more
than a millennium. It is in fact unnecessary to go back
very far in history to elucidate Koreans' "double
standards" vis-a-vis China and Japan. One may for
instance wonder why the address 304 Madang Road is
clearly marked on the latest city map of Shanghai [8],
which may help explain why the two Koreas have had such
low-key reactions to the Goguryeo tomb-murals
controversy.
Notes
[1]
Miu, Yue, Shanju cungao (Cumulated Writings at a
Mountain Residence) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian,
1963), pp 93-94, where Professor Tan cited many other
important Goguryeo personalities in northern China.
[2] W Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol
Invasion, 3rd ed (London: Luzac, 1968), p 196.
[3] Fojiao wenhua cidian (A Dictionary of
Buddhist Cultures), (Hangzhou: Zhejian guji
chubanshe, 1991), pp 379-80.
[4]
Encyclopaedia Britannica citations are from its
2003 CD-ROM edition.
[5] Liang shu (History
of the Liang Dynasty), chapter 54, Bei shi
(History of the Northern Dynasties), chapter 94,
etc.
[6] Shanghai City Tourist Map (Shanghai:
East China Normal University Press, 2001). The address
is, of course, that of the very first provisional
government of the Republic of Korea.
Yu
Shiyu is a North America-based columnist of United
Morning News (Lianhe Zaobao) of Singapore. His articles
of historical research have appeared in the Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society (published by the University
of Cambridge Press, London) and other publications.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you
are interested in contributing.
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