WEBZINE NORTHEAST ASIAN HISTORY FOUNDATION

Historical oblivion is more frightening than the historical conflict! There was a case that the National Museum of China deleted Goguryeo and Balhae from the timeline of Korean history posted on the special exhibition held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and China. It also switched ‘BC 2333’ that the Korean counterparty proposed as the founding year of Gojoseon to ‘?’, instead. Since then, the media outlet and experts suggested various opinions on the meanings of such act and measures to prevent it from reoccurring. Recently, it was found that no artifacts of Goguryeo and Balhae were included in the list of relics we provided for the exhibition through the recent parliamentary inspection and news report. Some argued that we intentionally excluded items that may have caused contentious with China. And, it was said that the Korean museum requested to ‘change’ or ‘entirely delete’ the items along with an apology when the issue of timeline went public. There was an argument that such stance served as a reason for the National Museum of China to entirely delete the timeline.

Park Sun-mi, Director of NAHF Research Institute for Korean Ancient and Medieval History

New History of China and Its New History Project New China rewrites its history The major topic of Chinese academia in 2022 is to how to achieve the modernization in Chinese style and great emergence of Chinese as a nation. The Chinese historian community continues to argue about the new history of China since Xi Jinping became the Prime Minister and rebuilt its history and the world history from the framework of socialism. Specifically, the Chinese socialistic perspectives on history, and the theory of Chinese ethnic groups as a unity, East-West comparative study, establishment of the three systems, and constant development of historic theories represent the current address of Chinese history in 2022. The three systems refer to the department system, academic system, discourse system all emphasizing the Chinese characteristics. Therefore, the Chinese socialistic history is the basic doctrine of new history of China and the theory of ‘Chinese ethnic groups as a unity’ is the goal of the new history of China.

Lee Jung-il, research fellow at NAHF Research Institute for Korean Ancient and Medieval History

Chinese Ethnic Groups Seen Through Archaeological Record Emergence of the concept of ethnic Chinese The term of ‘Ethnic Chinese group’ seems quite familiar but strange to us. The country name ‘China’ as we know it, is an abbreviation of the People’s Republic of China’. The term ‘Chinese nation’ appears from the official title of China. What does the ‘Chinese nation’ mean? ‘Chinese nation’ is a combined word of ‘China’ and ‘Huaxia’. According to the ancient literature, ‘China’ refers to Jungwon region and it has a geological meaning of being the center of the world. It also means a superior being in area of politics and culture compared to the barbarians nearby. ‘Huaxia’ means ‘Huaxia clan’ that collectively calls multiple ethnic groups following ‘Hua’, the first kingdom of China, emerged after the era of five dynasties in Chinese ancient history. Later, the Huaxia race is replaced with the ‘the Hanrace.’ Thus, it can be said that ‘Chinese nation’ means the superior ‘Han race’ standing in the center of the world. However, the concept of ‘Chinese nation’ centering on the Han race began to change with the collapse of its order centering on China at the end of the Qing dynasty. The order of Sinocentrism was shaken from the Opium War (1840-1842) and collapsed along with the defeat in the Chino-Japanese War. This gave China the need to find new identity and perspective as a nation to go through the hard times. In 1902, Liang Qichao borrowed the concept of ethnicity from the West and presented a vision of ‘Chinese nation (Zhonghuaminzu)’ as a ‘collective body of ethnic groups’ to encompass multiple ethnic groups including the Han race. The Republic of China was founded in 1912 after the collapse of the Qing dynasty due to the Xinhai Revolution in 1911. Sun Wen, the Provisional President of the Republic of China, argued the Five Races Under One Union which says, “The Republic of China encompasses the five ethnic groups including the Han, the Manchu, the Mongol, the Hui, and the Tibetan and it was founded jointly by the heads of the 5 clans.” As the Sino-Japanese War broke out (1937-1945), a call for heightened unity to fight against the foreign force was required again. In 1939, Gu Jegang, a Chinese historian, said that it was meaningless to classify different ethnic groups by race and culture from the perspectives of Chinese who constitute a country called China and that they should be called as Zhonghuaminzu. Namely, Zhonghuaminzu only had a symbolic meaning or used to call a collective body of ‘Han race + minority groups’ or it was another name of Chinese regardless of ethnicity.

Bae Hyun-jun, research fellow at NAHF Korea-China Relations History Research Institute

Visit to the Chinggis Khaan Museum in Mongolia Chinggis Khaan Museum Recently Opens its Doors The opening ceremony of the Chinggis Khaan Museum was held on October 11 in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The President U. Khürelsükh of Mongolia attended the event accompanied by the national guard of honour. The decision to build the museum was made in July 2019 when the President U. Khürelsükh served as the Prime Minister. At that time, the Mongolian government decided to establish the museum to promote the meaning of Chinggis Khaan and the Mongol Empire to the world history. The Chinggis Khaan Museum with the size of 20,500 m2 was unveiled after 3 years and 3 months. This 9 story building has a modern style and the exhibition halls are located on total of 6 floors from the 3rd to the 8th floor. Golden eagles are decorated at the rooftop and horse footprints are stamped on the front wall, representing a grand history of Mongolia.

Park Jang-bae, research fellow at NAHF Korea-China Relations History Research Institute

Wartime Mobilization and Material Control by the End of Japanese Colonial Rule Does the colony and war always lead to the ‘exploitation and suffering’? I began to study the history of social economy during the period of the Japanese colonial rule to find the origin of ‘distorted’ modern history of Korea, and decided to select the ‘delivery of rice to the government’ known as a symbol of exploitation under the Japanese rule. At first, I wondered ‘whether I was able to prepare a thesis under this topic’ as the conscription and offering of rice to the government were already known as a way to represent the exploitation and suffering of the colonial rule. Many researches were done on the invasion of Japanese imperialism and its wartime regime over the past 30 years. Through this book, I intended to depict and show the reality of war aggression caused by Japanese imperialism and its wartime mobilization that took place like the ‘pouring water in a broken jar’ that agonized and tormented Korean people who had to struggle for survival. No matter what, the exploitation and suffering that destroy the lives of people cannot be condoned. We have to clearly define the cause and responsibility to prevent the error of recurrence.

Lee Song-soon, research professor at Research Institute of Korean Studies, Korea University

An Attempt to Globalize the Independent Movement Many Koreans gathered around Shanghai in China in the 1910s for the independence of Korea. Shanghai was one of a major global city at that time. Koreans wanted to utilize such characteristics of the city to let the world know about the independence of Korea. There was a heightened mood for the independence of Korea both at home and abroad as the Paris Peace Conference was held after the first World War and the March 1st movement took place in 1919. Based on the strong will for the independence of state, provisional governments of the Republic of Korea were installed in several places including Shanghai. During that time, the Korean fighters for independence focused on using the international situation to engage the war of independence against Japan.

Shin Hyo-seung, research fellow at NAHF Korea-Japan Historical Issues Research Institute

The envoy to hague Lee Wi-jong: a refugee or migrant diaspora How I met Lee Wi-jong It was a coincidence. A professor I admired gave me a bunch of papers while I was preparing for my doctoral dissertation about 10 years ago. The document was about Koreans kept in the national historical archive in Khabarovsk, Russia, and he visited there to collect the documents himself. If you are a historian, you will very know well how difficult it is to give the materials he/she collected to somebody else. But he gladly gave them to me without expecting anything in return. The total pages were almost 1,000 copies of paper mostly written in Russian, although I was able to find some written in Korean. Some of them were hard to read due to poor handwriting. Overall, these documents contained the information barely known to historians in Korea.

Yoon Sang-won, professor at History Department, Jeonbuk National University

Summary of the International Conference on “China’s Great Power, East Asia and Nationalism” Nationalism has emerged as an element of conflict in East Asia The foundation held an international conference on October 14 under the theme of “China’s Great Power, East Asia and Nationalism” both online and offline. The conference was largely divided into two parts and discussed about ‘China in the era of Xi Jinping’ from the perspectives of Indo-Pacific region and Europe, and from the regional perspectives of East Asia, respectively. In his welcoming address, Lee Young-ho, president of the foundation, mentioned that they are gathered today to discuss about China as a world power of the 21st century, not the one of new China in 1949 or the one in the period of reform and opening during the 1980s. Likewise, East Asia is not the same from the cold war period that occurred in 70 years ago or the period of détente in 40 years ago. Today, China and the U.S. are heading towards a fierce conflict. Thus, we hope that the participants of today’s conference can share the perception and awareness of the international society on China to join hands for ‘cooperation’ in the future.” Both the U.S. and China urges neighboring countries to ‘take their sides’ by citing the so-called the ‘Indo-Pacific region’ and the ‘one belt and one road’ initiative. Joseph Nye mentioned nationalism as the reason behind the current contentious relations between the U.S. and China, instead of socialism and capitalism. He took an example of 1914, not 1945, as a metaphor for history. He argued that the First World War broke out due to the nationalism that shook the entire Europe, instead of socialism and capitalism. Intellectuals of East Asia also commented on ‘nationalism’ as the origin of regional conflict of today.

Cha Jae-bok, research fellow at NAHF Korea-China Relations History Research Institute

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