What I know is this:

Although the present Chinese Communist Government may distort certain facts of history, time eventually will correct the propagandas and lies. I say this because its already been shown that no matter what the government of China had wanted to hide or distort, it will later be accurately recorded. For example, Mao Tse-tung, the founder of present Chinese Communist Party made major blunders with his reforms that resulted in shortages of crops and the starvation of millions of people in the 1960’s. Today, this has been acknowledged as a disastrous mistake of of Mao and his government.

The Chinese have a great and respected tradition of historical knowledge that is for the large part reputable for its accuracy and unbiasness. Most biases and inaccuracies are eventually corrected given a decent amount of time. In this case, I’d say the more widely held knowledge that Koguryo was an independent Tartar kingdom in the present day area of Manchuria China was perhaps largely ethnically Tartar and make up the ancestors of the present day Northeastern Chinese, Manchu, and North and South Korea is correct. Both present day Chinese and present day Koreans have a claim to the Koguryo heritage (Manchuria being among the Chinese voice).

And I feel that both the Chinese and Koreans are committing HUGE falicies by applying the present definition of what they identify themselves as today, as being identical to the ethnic makeup of the peoples of the kingdom of Koguryo. Descendents are not of the same ethnic makeup as their ancestors even if those ancestors are acknowledged as a direct line. Certainly the early Chinese are not ethnically the same as people who call themselves Chinese today. The same should be understood for Koguryo and present day Koreans.

Much of northeastern chinese population has Tartar blood. In fact, the present day Chinese capital of Beijing was established by the Kingdom of Jin (Kim, meaning Gold) in the 12th century. Strangely, many Chinese acknowledge the Kingdom of Jin are closely related to Koreans but many Koreans seem NOT to acknowlege this. The Kingdom of Jin and present day South Korea was then conquered by the Mongols who built upon Beijing as a permanent capital. After the Mongols fell, the Ming dynasty was established. The Ming dynasty was the ONLY Chinese dynasty whose founder was Chinese in origin. It may interest you guys to know that Every single Chinese dynasty was established and founded by non-chinese. After several hundred years, these non-chinese adopted the ways of the locals while defining a NEO-Chinese identity for their empire. Interestingly, the founder of the Ming dynasty was an orphan so his true ethnic background is really unknown.

Moving forward, after the Ming dynasty(chinese), the Manchus from Manchuria established the Ching dynasty. The Manchus were a Tartar people related to the Mongols as well Koreans and likely descended partially from the old Koguryo Kingdom.

The Manchus conquered China, subjugated (didn’t conquer) the Koreas, and then as what has happened to many other groups that conquered China in the past, the Manchus assimilated into the Chinese population, adding another layer to the modern Chinese identity.

So my message to Koreans about this issue is that IT’S THE MANCHUS who DEFINED the present day border between China and North Korea,NOT the Chinese. Today’s Chinese Government just merely inherited the lands and borders from the last (Manchu) dynasty. It’s also wrong and unfair for Korea to say the Chinese somehow took or annexed Koguryo, referring to Koguryo as if the Kingdom STILL EXISTS today. The Kingdom and its people no longer exist. Their descendents are present day Chinese (in the northeast), Manchus, and Koreans. Yes, there are Korean minorities in northeastern China as well as Manchus and others today, but it is erroneous to imply that the Korean minority living within the present day Chinese borders are the sole and direct descendents of old Kingdom of Koguryo.

Koreans should not worry too much over what a small handful of Chinese politicians say or claim at this moment. Also as a Chinese, I feel it’s disgraceful that politicians are forcing the voices of Chinese Scholars and China’s respected tradition of historical record keeping. It’s an abuse of Chinese wonderful tradition historical studies.

Someone posted a good question asking why the Chinese would bother having Korean history on their website. The reason for this concern is present day China is a remnant of an empire made of many peoples and the ORIGINS of many of it’s present day neighbors. So these old kingdoms that once existed within what is now present day China hold the earliest record of these peoples. This is true for the heritage of the Thais, Burmese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese, Eastern Turks, Huns, and others too many to name. If you want to study ancient history of these groups, you need to study Chinese because their earliest histories were written in Chinese and probably recorded by Chinese historians. As far as the written record, the Chinese have been the best keepers of the torch with a few inaccuracies here and there, but eventually corrected along the way. Chinese historical records are not complete, but they are often contain the most ancient records that any of its neighbors has of it’s OWN history. Additionally, Chinese records have more hard details about its neighbors. They don’t fabricate mythical origins nor do they try to invent where these people originated from. If they don’t know, they’ll record the earliest established knowledge at hand at the that time. For themselves, the Chinese have the confidence to stand by their claim that they DO NOT KNOW their own true origin, only that their ancestors came from the northwest and their people are made up of a polyglot of settled peoples and nomads who shared “some” common ancestry from a tribal Chief called the Yellow “Emperor”. The Chinese also have the uncommon confidence to NOT insist of any fictitious “pure” bloodlines. They acknowledge the friction and conflicts with their neighbors, but often times they record intermarriage and a mutual brotherhood with many of its neighbors ie. the Thais(Dai). Please note, the Thais acknowledge a brotherhood with the Chinese. The Thais were pushed out of China by the Mongols, NOT the Chinese. Intermarriage and assimilation, adoption of culture in both directions was so great that any Chinese claiming a pure bloodline is considered ludicrous by an overwhelming majority of peoples past and present.

Because the Chinese have so many different ethnic elements to begin with, what is recorded is the more generally accepted by MANY sources. Sometimes only until recent times, with archeological evidence and findings can we confirm how truly accurate these historical “tails” are. The discovery of the Teracotta warriors has been written about recorded but no one could confirm it’s validity until the discoveries of these Terracotta warriors in the 1970’s.
Another example is that of Westerners disputing that Chinese written records have drawings and descriptions of Red haired and Yellow haired peoples living within China’s territory far earlier than Westerners have any information about. Western peoples just didn’t live that far east that early in time according to the Western record. Yet, within the last few years, anthropological records of mummies found in China’s northwestern province were uncovered showing an Indo-European culture whose existed were lost or uncertain in Western records.

In the long run, archeological, anthropological and DNA records will let us know about the Kingdom of Koguryo and its people. What may disappoint both the northeastern Chinese and Koreans is that they are the ancestors of both groups despite having more cultural affinity with modern day Koreans.

What I have say about China and my disappointment with its government is that archeological findings can validate SO MUCH of the historical data of the Chinese, of themselves and others it today shares borders with, yet they’re chosing in one way or another, to “destroy” it if it is unimportant, threatening, or doesn’t corroborate with the current Chinese Government’s version of the “story”.

As a southern Chinese, I decry the archeological loss of Yangtze river with the Chinese Government’s monsterous Three-Gorges project that is to damm up the Great Yangtze river. As you know, huge areas of the rivershore will be flooded and submersed by the damming project. Many aboriginal culture of the southern Chinese originate from this area. The Yangtze also holds the Archeological records of most of the Southeast Asian nations and Pacific Islanders who migrated south. Lastly, this area was just recently found to be extremely rich in anthropological records of early ancient modern humans from 30,000 years BC to 10 years BC. Archeologists are scrambling to excavate and save what they have but the projects agressive deadline means that anything that have not be discovered will be lost forever, likely submerged and deteriorate from river water and erosion.

The irony of it all is that by the China Communist Government trying to change the historical records of Koguryo, they are invalidating the Chinese’ own historical records which has long been considered the most authoritative, accurate and respected of East Asian region.

So shame on the Chinese Communist Government. The cultural richness of our ancestors (both Chinese and Koreans) will likely be neglected and lost if it’s not preserved and studied now. All due to the Political games of modern day politicians. For a government barely over 55 years old, the Chinese government has got a long way to go if it wants to earn the respect of the Asian region and restore its dynamic past.

All peoples involved, Make Love Not War.

One of the history profs at my uni and I got talking about it over lunch one day, and to tease him a little I asked if he really believed the Korean people sprang from a man who was the offspring of a bear and a tiger. (Yes, I was being a dick, but he and I have given each other permission to needle each other a little)

He answered that it was both true and not true, and said “Let me tell you how Korean historians approach this story”.

(From memory as best I can remember) “Although we call it history, some of our 5,000 years is in fact prehistory. We know there were people here, and they were up to something, but exactly what we have very little idea.”

Me: “So, how many years history does actual history does Korea really have?”

Him: “Oh, 5,000 years or more, it’s just complicated.” (evasion, perhaps). “Anyways, the likeliest theory is that there was A Bear and A Tiger, but that they were tribes, not actual animals. They probably used these powerful animals in a totemic way - to represent them, like a flag. This creation myth of Koreans probably represents an alliance or merging of these two tribes, and since the story endured it was probably surprising, and since it was surprising these two tribes probably had had very bad relations for a very long time.”

“This is all conjecture of course, we have no original sources, but just as European historians suspect the pre-historic volcano explosion near Crete may have lingered into recorded history as the Atlantis myth, the enduring and detailed nature of this Tangun creation myth suggests it symbolizes some actual pre-historic events”

(Honestly, he really talks like this. It’s why I always try to eat lunch with the guy)

“Tangun may well have been the real name of a real leader…perhaps the unifying leader of these two tribes, or a son of the unifying leader. He must have achieved something during his rule, too - a great defense, or victory, or as I personally think, he lead them to abandon nomadic behaviour and settle the first city/town on the peninsula.”

Well, that’s the core of the theory for anyone interested. I found it interesting.

Never heard of any direct descendants of NE Asian/ Manchurian tribes or Han Chinese having emotions or a conscience of deep cultural & identity-building attachment to Koguryo’s history and ancestral royalty like Koreans from the North and South have - and not only recently, but had throughout the last decades or centuries. And no, it’s not because of an alleged brainwashing of the Korean populace through a ultra-nationalistic historical indoctrination during the Park Chung- Hee and/ or Kim Il-Sung regimes.

The Mainland Chinese “Koguryo” claim is a totally new, politically driven one, not mentioned in the authoritative scholarly works or school books of the PRC before, not to speak of the historic chronicles of the different Northern and Southern Chinese dynasties, who referred to proto-Koguryo, proto-Paekche and proto-Shilla kingdoms of being the “Eastern Barbarians/ Archers”, inhabiting the Korean peninsula and Manchuria among other nomadic tribes. The hostile Sino-Koguryon rivalry regarding the mutual challenge about the hegemony over Manchuria have excluded Koguryo out of the centralistic, paternalistic Chinese view on its conquered territories and the peoples of different ethnicity within. They tried to subdue and control Koguryo under a diplomatic trbutary system, but received, besides short time spans of reconciliation and peaceful exchange, not the expected calming of a threatening expansionary policy of Koguryo.

What is discomforting is China’s intentions. China only just started making these claims, only just started revising its official version of history. And it calls Goguryeo a “ethnic minority Chinese regime,” failing even to include ethnic “Koreans” as a minority people in Chinese history.

??¼??­?œ????, ??¼??­????¸° may have various shortcomings, but to me the point is that Korea has consistently laid claim on Goguryeo, not erasing previous versions history to do so, not doing it all of a sudden, and it has talked as if Goguryeo was Korean for many hundreds of years. This Chinese project to claim Goguryeo is so ahead of itself that most Chinese textbooks don’t reflect that change in government-sanctioned history yet.

The idea that it can be the history of both is an abstract form of classroom correct, something for armchair historians, something coming from a more perfect world where recent developments didn’t mean scary things.