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BEIJING -- The major press organs of China like Xinhua News Agency and the People's Daily reported that North Korean and Chinese Goguryeo artifacts are to be added to UNESCO's World Heritage list, but emphasizing that "Goguryeo was a regional government of China."
Friday's Xinhua News Agency piece contained parts saying that the 28th Session of the World Heritage Committee agreed to inscribe the ancient Koguryo Kingdom of China onto the World Heritage list, and insisted that, "Goguryeo had been subordinated to Chinese royal families and was a regional administration that received its authority from Chinese dynasties."
In addition, the agency introduced detailed explanations about Goguryeo, Goguryeo's wall paintings and the monument to King Gwanggaeto the Great as background.
According to the reference, "Goguryeo was strongly affected by Chinese dynasties politically, culturally and other ways."
It then explained that "It is true that Goguryeo created a unique culture but that culture was later deeply influenced by Chinese culture." Also, it added that "hard mountain fortress walls, tombs in great scale and splendid wall paintings are the important compositional parts of Chinese culture."
The state-run People's Daily also noted that Goguryeo was "an ancient Chinese ethnic minority."
The government controlled press has great influence in China and set the standard for other Chinese press agencies when reporting on Goguryeo artifacts being listed with UNESCO. In other words, the press is trying to spread the idea that "Goguryeo is Chinese history" among Chinese.
On the other hand, the representative group of Korea is on a visit to WHC and distributed a booklet to each nation's key participants of the conference on Friday, emphasizing that "Goguryeo developed an independent culture"
The booklet was published by ICOMOS-KOREA and called "The wall painting of Koguryo's tombs." It highlighted that, "The wall painting of Koguryo's tombs are a valuable culture heritage and evidence of the fact that Goguryeo developed her independent culture."
It seems that the term "independent culture" was used with Chinese claims to Goguryeo's history and its Northeast Asia project in mind.
The book prescribed that the wall painting of Koguryo's tombs, which started to appear at the end of the 3rd century,could be seen as on-the-ground historical reports that clearly show the cultural results of Goguryeo's attempts to create an "independent world" with itself as the center and the kingdom regarded itself as the master of Northeast Asia.
(Cho Jung-sik, jscho@chosun.com )
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