U.S. to publish report on Chinese ‘distortion’ of Korean history
By Korea HeraldPublished : Dec. 23, 2012 - 19:34
WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― A United States congressional institute will soon publish a report that might give the wrong impression to the international community of China’s “distortion” of history involving its Northeast Asian neighbor, South Korea, diplomatic sources said Sunday.
In the report that would serve as reference material in predicting Beijing’s role in case of a regime collapse in North Korea, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) will first introduce China’s claim that Korea’s ancient kingdoms of Koguryo (B.C. 37 to A.D. 668) and Balhae (A.D. 699-926) were provinces of China’s Tang Dynasty, according to the diplomatic sources.
The CRS, a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, provides policy and legal analysis to committees and members of both the House and Senate.
The report then carries South Korea’s explanations that the kingdoms were independent from China, they added.
Such a description fails to reflect Seoul’s demand that the report put the historical fact from the South Korean perspective first and then describe Beijing’s claim.
Accepting Seoul’s call for a revision to some of the contents after reviewing the draft report, the CRS put off the publication of the diplomatically sensitive report from late last month.
Seoul officials have raised concerns that the report may send a wrong signal to the U.S. public and the international community about the U.S. position on China’s historical distortion.
“I’ve learned that due to time constraints, the CRS just put the Chinese argument and South Korea’s explanation in parallel,”said an informed source. “But the institute said it will make it clear in its report that the paper aims to ring an alarm bell to China’s intention of making unreasonable claims.
Under its history research project, dubbed as ”the Northeast Project,“ China has made an attempt to incorporate into its own the Korean history of Koguryo and its successor Balhae, which ruled what is now most of northeastern China and some northern parts of the Korean Peninsula.
Seoul rejects the move as a political motivation to assert its own grandeur while seeking to emerge as an Asian and further global hegemon.
In the report that would serve as reference material in predicting Beijing’s role in case of a regime collapse in North Korea, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) will first introduce China’s claim that Korea’s ancient kingdoms of Koguryo (B.C. 37 to A.D. 668) and Balhae (A.D. 699-926) were provinces of China’s Tang Dynasty, according to the diplomatic sources.
The CRS, a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, provides policy and legal analysis to committees and members of both the House and Senate.
The report then carries South Korea’s explanations that the kingdoms were independent from China, they added.
Such a description fails to reflect Seoul’s demand that the report put the historical fact from the South Korean perspective first and then describe Beijing’s claim.
Accepting Seoul’s call for a revision to some of the contents after reviewing the draft report, the CRS put off the publication of the diplomatically sensitive report from late last month.
Seoul officials have raised concerns that the report may send a wrong signal to the U.S. public and the international community about the U.S. position on China’s historical distortion.
“I’ve learned that due to time constraints, the CRS just put the Chinese argument and South Korea’s explanation in parallel,”said an informed source. “But the institute said it will make it clear in its report that the paper aims to ring an alarm bell to China’s intention of making unreasonable claims.
Under its history research project, dubbed as ”the Northeast Project,“ China has made an attempt to incorporate into its own the Korean history of Koguryo and its successor Balhae, which ruled what is now most of northeastern China and some northern parts of the Korean Peninsula.
Seoul rejects the move as a political motivation to assert its own grandeur while seeking to emerge as an Asian and further global hegemon.
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Articles by Korea Herald