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An academic will publish this week a complete translation of an official Chinese study that co-opts the early Korean Shilla and Bakje kingdoms for Chinese history. The offending paper was published by a research center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which is under the jurisdiction of the Chinese State Council and includes the Baekje (18 B.C.-660 A.D.) and Shilla (57 B.C.-935 A.D.) kingdoms in addition to Koguryo, where claims have already been documented. The research center is in charge of the so-called Northeast Project.
So Gil-su, a former president of the Institute of Koguryo Studies and professor at Seokyeong University in Seoul, on Sunday said he is publishing a complete translation of "An Introduction to the History of Ancient Chinese Koguryo", originally from 2001, this week.
"Just like Koguryo, a group of people from the Buyeo tribe, an ethnic minority in an ancient Chinese borderland area, established Baekje,¡± the book says. ¡°As its people were of the same lineage as the Koguryo people, Baekje was a provincial kingdom founded by a Chinese ethnic minority. Baekje maintained a closer vassal relationship with China than Koguryo because its kings were recognized by Chinese emperors. Before 660, the year when it fell, Baekje was ruled as a kind of autonomous region by the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.)." As for Shilla, the books argues, it ¡°was established by exiles from the Chinese Qin Dynasty (221?207 B.C.). It also maintained a vassal relationship with China as an autonomous region."
This book was compiled by three Chinese experts in borderland history -- Ma Dazheng, Yang Baolong, and Li Dalong -- immediately before the center embarked on the Northeast Project in earnest in 2002. Alongside "General Views on the History of Ancient Chinese Koguryo" (2003), the book sets out the basic direction for the Northeast Project. So said the argument that Baekje and Shilla were autonomous regions in vassal relationships with China ¡°is a politically far-fetched interpretation of history that Chinese academia has never mentioned before. I am very concerned that this might serve as the basis for China to deprive us of all ancient history of Korea, including Koguryo, Ancient Chosun, Buyeo and Barhae, whose history China has already started to snatch from us."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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