The Korean delegation to the 6th Winter Asian Games in Changchun, China has officially apologized for an incident Wednesday in which the South Korean female short-track skating team held up signs that read “Mt. Baekdusan is Our Territory” as they were being awarded the silver medal for the 5,000-meter-relay.
Strangely enough, this seemed to have upset the Chinese. The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded the next day by calling in an official from the Korean embassy in Beijing to issue a strongly-worded protest. The Chinese said the signs were a political slogan that harmed the territorial integrity of China. The Chinese also protested that there were no existent territorial disputes between China and Korea, and the Korean side had hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
Anyway, following the Chinese dressing-down of the Korean embassy, Korean team head Bae Chang-hwan dashed off a letter to the Asian Winter Games organizing committee and the OCA explaining that the ceremony was just an impromptu act by young athletes, not a premeditated political act. Bae then expressed regret to the organizing committee and the OCA for having caused a mess.
See English pieces here, here and here. For a little background on the Mt. Baekdusan “dispute,” see here.
Needless to say, the netizens aren’t happy with their team’s capitulation. Neither is the Grand National Party, which issued a statement saying that Mt. Baekdusan was Korean territory and that Chinese attempts to name the mountain Changbaishan (see for example the recent renaming of schools near the mountain) was evidence that the Chinese were hard at work on their nefarious Northeast Project. The GNP slammed the Chinese for asking for an apology, slammed the Korean team for giving one, and slammed the government for doing nothing about China’s evil intentions.
Oh, and here’s the actual Mt. Baekdusan—Sorry, it was an old camera, and I was quite hungover when I took the photos:
Now, I don’t want to further the meme that “Koreans scream at Japan but bow down before China,” but man, could you see the Korean team apologizing so quickly (if at all) if the games were in Japan and the team had held up “Dokdo is Our Territory” signs?
UPDATE: For some more background on the Mt. Baekdusan dispute, see this post at One Free Korea.
57 Comments
The Japanese made them do it! Hmm…I guess Koreans can’t say too much about Gen. Bell anymore.
Kick em out. And boot any other athlete(s) from any country that uses an international sporting event as a political stage.
Talk about kissing ass
Way to go, Korea!
South Korea should really bitch at North Korea for selling Bakdusan to China. But hey…
I fully sympathize South Koreans’ sentiment about China’s disgusting Northeast Project, but those athletes shouldn’t have used the Asian Games for politics.
Boorish assholes.
Thanks to the educational efforts of this and other blogs about ROK, I thought I remembered that this mountain was the mythical birthplace of the Dear Leader!
How come you failed to mention this important fact? It’s a fine day indeed when a Korea-ignoramus like myself has to be the one to remind you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baekdu_Mountain
“….The Baekdu Mountain has been worshipped by the surrounding peoples throughout history. Koreans and Manchurians alike consider it the place of their ancestral origin….
North Korea claims that Kim Il-Sung organized his resistance against the Japanese forces there and that Kim Jong-il was born there, although records outside of North Korea show that these events took place a short distance within the borders of the Soviet Union…”
Nothing’s mentioned in your post about the presence of a North Korean team at this 6th Asian Winter Games, but I assume they were there. Don’t you think this demonstration was really for their benefit?
Like the spontaneous ROK demonstratons against Japan, in various venues, I think this must be another manifestation of idealistic young ROK citizens’ longing for common ground with the north, in the mystical magical search for “reunification.”
Perhaps an attempt to capture “in real life” the spirit of that film you blogged about recently; what was it called again? The one where the ROK/DPRK “lost patrols” link up in the remote idyllic village, call a truce, and unite against the Americans. Yongsan garrison, Dokdo, Mount Baekdu; each of them has its part to play in the eventual reconciliation of the two Koreas.
Gotta be careful though! It’s tough, trying to judge when to be “obsequious” (what a good word, borrowed from one of your recent USFK posts) and when to be a hard core nationalist. Get the calibration wrong and you have to “apologize”.
And it is difficult to remember to whom to apologies, vs whom to strike with righteous fists.
It’d be interesting to see a picture of the North Korean team, taken at the moment the ROK team held up their sign/banner. Do you suppose similar beaming smiles broke out on their young faces when they saw what was happening? Probably not; but maybe the Dear Leader won’t be able to keep his people’s expressions fixed in grim impassivity foreever.
The Goat,
It depends what the political message is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommie_Smith
To be fair, I doubt South Korean’s are worried about China’s claims on Peakdusan due to the myth of Kim Il-sung being born there. South Korea has historically considered North Korea to be “Korean” territory, and Chinese claims are obviously counter to that.
I sincerely hope that China turns up the heat with such claims, that Roh continues to toss China’s salad, and that there is a backlash against Roh & China leading to a collective realization that the U.S. is not after Korean territory, but China might be.
Ok, back to the crack pipe. . .
South Koreans think China will be like the US. A big country with big heart which will allow self-expression.
Think again. China is not like that.
When Koreans speak, the Chinese will hit the table and say “Shut up”. No apology from Bush, no apology from Bell.
Just “if you don’t want to die, shut up”.
China is not America.
I wonder who put the girls up to this.
Wikipedia never fails. Admittedly reflects the bias of whoever wrote the entry, but that’s an inherent problem of all writing anyway. Its ready accessibility provides an invaluable baseline for further “memory refresher”.
6th Winter Asian Games aren’t even over yet and already there’s an entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.....sian_Games
26 National Olympic committees are competing, to include ROK of course (118 athletes), and DPRK is indeed there (66 athletes). Lots of non-competing other countries are “participating” as well.
(”Chinese Taipei” is there as a competitor, 14 athletes, now that’s interesting).
And hey — forget about the banner/sign incident! Here’s the real offense, one that should be deeply offensive to gentlemanly sportsmen of all nations everywhere:
“Highlights (Pre-games):
Opening ice hockey group matches end largely in mismatches, the largest being Kazakhstan’s 38–0 win over the United Arab Emirates.”
There oughta be a law. Looks like the Kazakhs are still operating in the spirit of Timurlane, who swept through the Middle East leaving pyramids of skulls in his wake (and wasn’t his army mainly ethnic Koreans?)
(Hmm, was Timur the Lame in fact a Kazakh? Maybe he was Uzbek, maybe even one of the other “stans”. Gosh, if I got it wrong, I most humbly apologize. What can you expect from a barbarian anyway).
Robert, that’s quite a phenomenal picture–that second last one. What a wonderful experience you must have had there; I can’t help thinking it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen (until I see the next one, anyway).
Timur’s origin is modern Uzbekistan. Sorry about that, chief.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur
Nathan—Thanks. I got lucky in that the Lake of Heaven is often covered in clouds, but that day, it was really clear. Baekdusan is a remarkably beautiful area, although as I said, I was quite hungover at the time since I had spent the night drinking white alcohol with my classmates and a professor. Joseon Yeonbyeon is a fascinating area, especially if you’ve got an interest in Korea.
Oh hell no. Everyone knows that Mt. Pekdu is my land… Well, at least the southern half of it. I won it from Kim Jongil in a game of poker (five-card draw. None of this wussy texas hold-em crap.) Tell these damn figure skaters that if they want it (the lake up there is pretty good for ice skating, though it’s a bit of a climb), they have to come talk to me rather than holding up signs for KJI (after all, if they’d wanted the Chinese to read it, I assume they would have written in Chinese ideograms rather than Korean letters). I was thinking of selling it for a few hundred million won, but that was before the inept political statements made by a group of female ice dancers (in a place where making inept political statements can get you booted out, no less). Now, change that won sign into dollars, and we’ll talk.
As per Dr. Lankov’s observations, this period in time, here in Asia, is like an echo of the conditions that lead to the First World War in Europe — the “pre-war years”, only the next war will have “Made in China” stamped all over it.
The CCP in China has much audacity, no morals and an ever increasing military commitment that shows no signs of slowing down, this it is more likely than not that such projects as the Northeast Project and other little details are not benign efforts but are the pretext for war, since they will certainly help them to sell the next war to their more naive population.
Comment deleted by blog administrator.
If you’re going to pull an ill-advised stunt like that at least do so with a gold medal around your neck.
Earning a Korean apology it was a double-gold day for China as it also took the women’s 3000-meter relay gold. That’s right, the 3000-meter relay; there’s no women’s 5000-meter short-track relay in the Asian Games or the Olympics, though both the Korea Times and the Chosun report otherwise.
Is Korea’s dominance fading? On the short track I mean. China did quite well in the medal tally.
Whoa, xixi. That comment is really in poor taste.
Better a sore winner than a sore loser, eh?
Was white alcohol called BaekduSan Soju? You were really lucky to experience the magnificent Cheon Ji under the clear sky, Robert.
Close… it was Chinese baiju. And I was quite lucky indeed. Even hungover it was an awe-inspiring experience.
very unclassy, if you want to make a statement then boycott the games otherwise keep the politics out of the games.
친중사대주의
친중사대주의
exactly what it is.
There is no way that South Korea can fight the Chinese in a war. In order to avoid future bow downs to China for bull shit reasons, South Korea should develop their own nuclear weapons.
I advocate a South Korean nuclearization.
South Korean nukes will be the only deterrant to Beijing moving in to occupy Pyong Yang when the time comes. Or, get some US nukes.
Further proof that the maturity level of the average Korean is roughly 12-15 years below their physical age.
They may as well have been 4-year olds in a sandbox clutching their dolls and yelling at the other kids “ITS MINE!”
iheartbleballs: that’s funny.
An interesting suggestion (ROK should “get” some US nukes).
Just flying some in and dropping them off at an ROK airbase (along with the instruction manual) is no doubt a violation of NPT. So presumably your “model” is a withdrawl of USFK and their replacement by a US military advisory group, one that maintains control of a few dozen US nukes.
1) ROK President would have to keep the red phone handy, ready to call US President Probably they’d have to be gravity bombs, to be delivered by
xixi,
Wait till Korean plastic surgeons work on them. You will pay $1000 just to suck their toe. One toe.
Didn’t have time to read the comments…
(pointless) Questions…
When the soccer player did the Ohno! dance…
Did the US complain?
Did anybody apologize?
If American atheletes had done this, I’d have complained. I can agree (after some difficult) with the two black athelets in Mexico who held up a fist at the Olympics way back during the Civil Rights problems in the US, but I’d prefer global athletics (and sports in general) keep as much politics out as they can…
Please, give us at least some space to just be people…
….and there is something good to say about the idea of healthy competition in sports and being able to put aside even big issues of conflict —– (I’m having vague memories of a bobseldge team in Bosina (the city whose name I can’t spell that got shelled and sniper fire day after day for, what was it, years?) that was composed of atheletes from both groups (Christians and Muslims, I believe) who were locked in such a horrible conflict that had those snipers shooting men, women, and children at the time….
IF every athlete used international sporting events as a soapbox for their own little parochial cause the way Korean athletes do the events would devolve into a joke.
I’ll grant some leeway for the Big Issues of our time, like genocide somewhere or egregious human rights violations, but minor league territorial disputes like Dokdo and Paekdusan don’t cut it.
Why is it that protesters in China, from hippy free Tibeters to South Korean vankers, keep using languages other than Chinese to make their points?
UsinKorea: I think you’re trying to recall the siege of Sarajevo, 1992-96.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo
Here’s another Wikipedia article, ref: 1994 Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer Norway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo
A extract from it references the 1994 Bosnian “bobsleigh” team (a new spelling to me, I thought it was “bobsled”).
“….In his address at the opening ceremony, Samaranch recalled Sarajevo and its 1984 Winter Olympic Games, at the time in the midst of Yugoslav war of 1991-1995, with an emotive message: “Our message is stronger than ever: Please stop the fighting. Stop the killing. Drop your guns.” The composition of the Bosnia and Herzegovina four-man bob team was one Croat, two Bosniaks and a Serb, mirroring the ethnic diversity of the country.”
This is interesting. I am sure other countries will take note. Countries that go out of their way to be nice to Korea (like the US and Japan) get pissed on by the Korean government and people, while countries like China that angrily put their foot down are greeted by Korean smiling faces.
Better idea would be to end the connection between nations and athletics. Let everyone run, skate, jump, swim, etc. under no flag. It is ridiculous connecting sports and nationalism.
The Chinese Communist Party is fighting a war on several fronts to dominate and control Chinese as per this article in the NY Times:
This illustrates nicely the seige mentality of the CCP and it’s ongoing agenda of using any means to maintain its grip on the country and its people. Their response to this political statement by the Korean athletes is predictable and only the start.
Did someone mention that Korea should have nukes? Holy smokes…that’s probably the scariest thing I have ever heard in the world. You don’t give a 44 magnum to a little 4 year old temper-tantrum throwing brat who whines and screams whenever he/she can’t get her own way. Just seeing how Koreans go ballistic and off the deep-end just on internet disagreements should tell you that that is definitely a bad idea.
Changbai Hill is sitting in a joint area of China and N Korea,it is Chinese territory,and Maozedong gave half of the hill to Kim Il-Sung as birthday gift.
It’s ugly to use sport games for political aim.
Thoese cowards wrote the slogan in Korean.Chinese athelets who don’t know Korean still smiled to them and took photo with them.
This behavor is totally stupid and useless, it irrigated China and Chinese people, China will remember this.
fenghuang, it’s very nice to know about your patriotism for China.
May I ask if it’s censored and influenced at all by your state government?
1. Can you comment on 1989, Tianmen Square? Or is everything now okay, because people are making money and that’s of supreme importance?
2. Is Tibet Chinese territory? Can it remain Chinese territory without use of military force? Most importantly, are people in Tibet happy?
3. Can you vote for anyone else than the Communist Party of China? Is it not important, because everyone is making money and that’s of supreme importance?
4. Ever heard of the one child only policy?
5. Do you think certain religions in China get brutally suppressed by the government? Ever heard of Falun Gong?
6. Have you ever heard of Chinese prisoners having their organs sold overseas after they are executed? Myth? Evil western press?
7. Why does China feel a need to build up its military to match the US, when it is doing so much commerce with the US?
8. Is China being ethical in sending North Korean escapers away from South Korea and towards North Korea?
Answer if you can. We’ll see whose mind is controlled and is cowardly.
fenghuang, did you vote for Hu Jin Tao, or did he just suddenly become leader of China? Is that right, in your brave opinion?
fenghuang, regarding Chinese involvement in wars aiding North Korea,
did that make North Korea a better place in the world?
Fenghuang, regarding Chinese involvment in wars aiding Vietnam,
did that make Vietnam a better place in the world?
Or did both actions set both countries decades back in economic development and quality of life?
I think I can say truthfully that US involvement in South Korea made South Korea a much better place than it has ever been in its entire history.
Russian and Chinese involvements in wars only made those countries poorer. Chinese involvment in the Korean War only prolonged the War 2 more years and killed way more people.
i changed my mind from a few months ago. Japan should get nukes. South Korea should get nukes.
Robert, may I suggest that #17 has clearly crossed even the most tolerant limits and should be removed?
wjk,
If the posts were actually counted I would accuse you of fluffing.
Anyways…
The more I think about it, the more I think that the message was not political in nature at all. It was not cowardly writing it in Korean rather than Chinese - it was in Korean as the message was for Koreans It was a photo op to be cute and make people (especially themselves) feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Haisan,
“Better idea would be to end the connection between nations and athletics. Let everyone run, skate, jump, swim, etc. under no flag. It is ridiculous connecting sports and nationalism.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj8LR25HeJA
(nice idea but will never happen)
wow,1989,Falu n ,again,surely I know,I am Chinese,I know and I care more of China than you.
My aunt died because of Fallun,it’s a evil religion,it forbid the religioners go to hospital when they are ill.
I heard one child policy,but I have a brother.
Military,I think we just don’t want US army go into China ,as into S Korea,
I am not the memeber of Communist Party of China but I support it.There is not only one way to realize democrcy,like US have.Korea want to go with US, but we have our way.
Tibet problem,if I say Tibet people are happy,will you trust?no!so don’t only trust your media told you,you’d better go to Tibet and see.BTW,Tibet is Chinese territory from Tang dynasty,and before 1949,Tibet is a slavery society.
North Korea.China also poor before,so we hope N Korea can develop economy ,but you know,we can’t control N Korea.
I think it’s useless to debate like this,we can’t persuade eath other,thank you,wjk,
I guess you also have your patriosim.
From the Korea Times:
“The Chinese officials defined South Korean players’ act as a political activity, which is banned under the charter of the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia.”
From the IOC charter
“No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial
propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other
areas.”
The apology from the South Korean official was prompt and the proper thing to do under the circumstances.
Not surprisingly, the nutizens are uninformed and out of line. Somewhat surprisingly, the GNP is also way out of line for a government party. They MUST respect the charter of the games and make their political statements elsewhere.
some funny variants of this picuture can be found here:
http://www.mitbbs.com/mitbbs_a.....mp;ftype=0
http://www.mitbbs.com/mitbbs_a.....&pno=6
http://www.mitbbs.com/mitbbs_a.....&pno=5
One question: are the girl in the middle and the the one on the right identical twins?
history will repeat itself. korea will be chinese vassal for hundreds of years again. chinese have huge army and huge economy and korea will never be able to catch up. if korea want to have their own government, korea must swallow her pride and follow US with no hesitation. korea also must forget about the past and build strong alliance with japan if they do not want to be next tibet.
Twins?! Obviously you’ve never heard of the world renown Dr. Hwang Woo Suk and his clone-short-girls-with-thick-thighs project. “Height of a dwarf, thighs of an elephant, Dr. Hwang Woo Suk powers…activate!”
Can we please have more comments like 39-42 & 46?
Delectable. Psst — retarded Chinese farmers are buying and selling Korean comfort women today, and Korea has already forgotten. China obviously knows something that we don’t, and I’m sure the Japanese would love to know where they could buy the breaks that China gets.
39 is obviously on to something here.
Correction; make that 35.
kimchi2000,
I have been saying the same thing for last three years. Korea must embrace Japan and shun China. Otherwise, be the slaves to China. And, the Chinese will be harsh masters. fenghuang shows the real Chinese.
fenghuang,
What do you suggest the people at the stadium to do? Shout and spit on the girls? How about beating them up till they lose consciousness and gang-rape them?
Would that make you happy?
Only a few people know that Kim Jongil is following the commands given by Hu verbatim. Yes, the nukes and the missiles are all dictated by Hu (and other Chinese leaders).
KJI does not do anything without the permission from China.
The Chinese wanted to use “NK problem” as a bargainning chip against the US. They wanted Taiwan but it seems they may settle for total withdrawal of the US Forces from the peninsula.
When that happens, SK will collapse. Basically, SK becomes VietNam. KJI will rule entire Korea. And, China will use Korea to attack Japan.
I find it priceless that many Korean commenters at Marmot posts who a short while ago were one step away from apeing KJI and calling Japan to be turned into a sea of fire over Takeshima and whatever else are now calling for a grand alliance to stop the onslaught of the Chinese. Some things change… other things don’t.
iheartblueballs
Welcome back!
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