Well, not really but in today’s China Daily (described by wiki as “…the English-language mouthpiece for the [Chinese] government…”) an article about Jilin tourism stated that the ancient kingdom of Koguryo is Korean!
The ancient Korean kingdom established its capital in Ji’an more than 2,000 years ago…..There are roughly 100 ancient Korean fresco tombs in the world, 30 percent are in China and the rest in North Korea. The Korean fresco tombs in China are mainly in Jilin province..(Emphasis mine)
Are CCP censors on vacation or something? Will any heads at China Daily roll?
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
“Are CCP censors on vacation or something? Will any heads at China Daily roll?”
It’s no joking matter. Many Chinese journalists have been persecuted because something they wrote was seen as being critical of the CCP.
Wow, that’s amazing. I never would have imagined that.
There is nothing strange about saying Koguryo is Korean. There are also many Manchurian Tombs and Mongolian tombs and other ethnic minorities and they are part of the history of China.
many Manchurian Tombs and Mongolian tombs and other ethnic minorities and they are part of the history of China.
China is made up of 56 different ethnicities. Can China claim that those 56 different ethnic groups’ history as Chinese history? Is Genghis Khan considered as Chinese? Is Tibetans history Chinese history? Many Korean Americans living in the States make Korean history a part of US history? Then, US have to rewrite the textbook of US history and commemorate Dangun as their forefather.
Most of the time in Chinese history, Han Chinese did not consider other ethnic groups as Chinese. They were called “barbarians” by Han Chinese: 東夷 (Eastern barbarians: Koreans) 西戎(Western barbarians: Tibetans, Uyghur people), 南蠻(Southern barbarians: Japanese), 北狄(Northern barbarians: Mongolians, Manchurians).
Multiethnic Chinese is a quite new concept politically created after the cosmopolitan communist regime was established to promote the unity and stability in the country. It is quite recent that Chinese government began to claim these “barbarians” histories as their own.
And “Han” needs a bit of clarification: Southern Chinese were always called Tang until fairly recently, and Northern Chinese were the Han, both named after the dynasties of the same names. Foreign china towns are referred to as “Tang People’s Streets” because they are populated mainly by people from Southern China. Anyway, Han is also a new idea.
Anyway, this whole ultra ethnic nationalism stuff going on in East Asia seems to be leading the region toward a bit of a tinderbox situation, don’t you think?
Yes, 漢(Han, 206 BC–220 AD) and 唐(Tang, 581 – 618) are the dynasties in different time of China. They were the ethnically same people. And Chinese started calling themselves Han Chinese(漢族) since “Han” dynasty. So it is not at all a new idea. They still identify themselves as Han Chinese (漢族), when they tell the difference from other ethnic people.
中华人民共和国 (People’s Republic of China), or 中国 (literal meaning: “Country in the center”) is the name of the country that implies the pride of Han(漢) Chinese considering themselves as the center of the world and treating other ethnic peoples living in boundaries of China as “barbarians”.
I do not care if China becoming “The United States of China” with multiple ethnic peoples. I am just afraid their claiming Korean, Mongolian or other nation’s histories as their own may result in justification of Chinese invasion to those countries in the future.
Many Koreans think recent Chinese claiming of Korean history as their own is the first step for Chinese to take over North Korea, when Kim Jeongil’s regime collapse. Does it make sense?
FYI, Koguryo (高句麗)’s capital was Pyeongyang, the current capital of North Korea.
No heads are going to roll, because as Premier Wen Jiabao has pointed out to Korean reporters, the “findings” of the Northeast Project have not been adopted by the government of China, and China and Korea don’t have any territorial disputes.
Not that this is going to stop paranoia and fear among China’s neighbours. The fact that China hasn’t invaded a country in thirty years probably won’t sway them either. (Wanna try counting how many countries the U.S. has invaded during that time?) China’s economic rise and the competition it presents is inevitably going to give rise to fear.
I’m old enough to remember the paranoia about Japan’s rise. The fact that Japan was (ostensibly) a democracy and had a severely limited offensive capability since the end of WW2 didn’t stop the rest of the world from creating alarmist fantasies about what Japan would do in the future. Fantasies all conveniently forgotten now that there’s a new country to worry about…
Yes and no. Though I don’t think the CCPs goals are such, I do think they need a historical context wherein to justify their holding of territory that was obtained through illegal means with imperial Japan (Gando Convention). The CCP has and still does act like a thief that is expecting the police to show up at any minute.
Yes and no.
I do hope the answer is “no” and many Koreans’ assumption is dead wrong, since we already have seen enough how brutally CCP treated the annexed Tibetans.
Chinese started calling themselves Han Chinese(漢族) since “Han” dynasty.
- What sort of bull shit is this?
- “Han Chinese” terms came out of Ming Dynasty because they wanted to claim Han Dynasty’s history.
- Han Dynasty people were Xanbei people nothing do with Han Chinese.
- Again, Xanbei people ruled over Han to Tang Dynasty.
- Today’s Han Chinese people are came out of Yangtze river areas, you can clearly see the evidence from their recent DNA analysis; Chinese have 60% Y-chromosome marker O3, O3 marker was originated from South of Yangtze river. Furthermore, their mt-DNA analysis shows they are basically SE Asian, not only this Chinese language is related to Sino-Tibetan league as well as both grammatically & phonetically matches language of Thais and Viets, Chinese language is toner language, their traditional clothing is also very southern style.
Are you saying Liu Bang (劉邦) the founder of Han dynasty was Xianbei(鲜卑)? Xianbei(鲜卑) established Yan(燕) dynasty. Xianbei was nomadic from Manchuria and and Eastern Mongolia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianbei
Just read wikipedia.
Han Chinese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese
Han Dynasty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Dynasty
“Spanning over four centuries, the period of the Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history. To this day, China’s majority ethnic group refers to itself as the “Han people”[漢人].” – wikipedia
And here is another one:
漢人 (traditional, Pinyin Hànrén, simplified 汉人): Han Chinese (the largest ethnic group indigenous to China) – wikipedia
Peter Kim, you must know these wiki pages have been tampered with Chinese government agency. There was no Han Chinese term during Han Dynasty period. It was during Ming ‘Han Chinese’ term begun. This is why even Manchus classified Han Chinese from other ethnics. During Qing Dynasty, han chinese were listed as third class status by the Manchus banners.
Being Han people is does not means Han Chinese, Han refers to the letter “Han” 漢 Dynasty or Han country. The word “Chinese” means people of China. So the term “Han Chinese” is actually modern word and it’s incorrect logically because 漢族 means Han Dynasty + People. How can you call today’s Chinese as Han-zhu? When there were Sui, Tang, Song & Ming and there were even Liao, Jin, Yuan and Qing. Using this fabricated Chinese logic, are we going to call Japanese people as Yamato-zoku?
Chinese are just “Chinese”, using “Han” to separate from other Chinese people is actually racist. Even during old days in Korea & Japan, both Koreans and Japanese people never actually called Chinese as Han Chinese or Han-zoku or Han-zok. Koreans always referred Chinese as Zhung-hwa min-zok, means people of Middle Kingdom or simply as Chinese. There is no records of 漢族 from Japanese or Korean or even Mongolian/Vietnamese sources.
Again, wiki explains that:
“The fall of the Han Dynasty was followed by an age of fragmentation and several centuries of disunity amid warfare by rival kingdoms.
During this time, areas of northern China were overrun by various non-Chinese nomadic peoples which came to establish kingdoms of their own, the most successful of which was Northern Wei established by the Xianbei.
Starting from this period, the native population of China proper began to be referred to as Hanren, or the “People of Han”[漢人], to distinguish from the nomads from the steppe; “Han” refers to the old dynasty.”
wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese
“Can China claim that those 56 different ethnic groups’ history as Chinese history?” In the sense that it is part of the history of the current Chinese “territory” yes, as long as they identify the cultutral origins correctly.
This would be little different from korean claiming the history of Baekche, Shilla, Kogyuro, Balhae etc, whether or not much ethnically different, or little different from British history claiming the various different ethnicities as there own within the territory of Britain as long as they correctly identify with romans, celts, angles, saxons, picts, norse etc.
I am not against People’s Republic of China’s multiethnicity. I wish the different ethnic peoples in Chinese territory would live peacefully in unity with diversity, respecting different cultures.
My point here is that quite recent claiming of Koguryo’s history as Chinese look suspicious. It looks as strange as if President Dmitry Medvedev abruptly claims Polish history as Russian on the basis that some Polish population is living in Russia. Polish may well get uneasy about what if Russians are plotting aggression against Polish with the sudden claim.
Again, I hope the worst possible assumption is dead wrong and peace prevails in Asia and the World.
from what i know, china is not going to claim korea any time soon. it might do everything to misuse its position and milk some n.korean riches from the rulers (i hope not, i have more faith in kji) who want to sustain their own neck by selling bits off to the chinese. but i don’t think china wants to gobble korea up soon. you know why? because they don’t need to hurry.
if you talk frankly with any chinese person, they have this absolute belief that everything came from china, and everything, at least in the east asia is part of china anyway. they don’t even need to claim this because it’s a fact that everyone knows. it’s an astonishing and eyeopening attitude at the same time. they are very aware of their position as the most populous and the most powerful nation to be on earth. their nationalism is something else. it’s got clout of might. to them japan is an island where some chinese went to mingle with the monkeys, korea? mwhawhawhawha what korea? – that’s what they are thinking, if they haven’t told you so already..
I have heard enough of Chinese cultural pride and their influence in Asia and the world. But I do not think it is right for it to be abusively imposed upon minorities, as in the case of Tibet.
Peter Kim, these 55 ethnic minorities in China are under oppression, they don’t like to be called Chinese and they do not want to associate with Chinese. But China paint them as peaceful 55 ethnic minorities of China. Another commie style propaganda. Did Russian being fair to their ethnic minorities during USSR era? Chinese don’t have cultural pride but they have imperialistic pride. These four great inventions of China were actually invented by one of these 55 ethnic minorities not really by Han Chinese. Even the name “Han Chinese” is logically failed word.
Let’s use this flawed “Han Chinese” into these 55 ethnic minorities.
For example:
1. Tibetan – Tibetan-Chinese
2. Uyghur – Uyghur-Chinese
3. Mongolian – Mongol-Chinese
4. Manchu – Manchu-Chinese
4. Han???? – Han-Chinese
So Han Chinese are actually ethnic minority of China?
Funny how Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and Manchus weren’t Chinese but only Han people were.
What is commonly known as the “Han Chinese” is a culturally homogenized conglomerate of racially disparate group of races. Hans in the NE, Central Plains, SW and South are phyically different, speak different tongues bound by a common written script and cultural identity and shared history.
The assimulation process was carried through the ’000s of conquering and being conquered. Every much like the Borg.
22 @ Sonagi
According to Chinese media and government, only Tibetans and Uyghurs are revolting against to China, really? Manchus have been suppressed and even executed by Chinese, they don’t even speak their own mother tongue anymore. Isn’t this is enough to say about other minorities in China. Btw, they weren’t minorities before ROC.
23 @ maotai
That is exactly why I stated that ‘Han Chinese’ is modern term and imaginary ethnicity. If Han Chinese at NE, Central Plains, SW and Souths are physically different then they are NOT same people. Able to communicate using common script and share culture doesn’t translate into One ethnic. All English speaking nations share common written language & culture, so are they all English?
If what you said is true then why the hell there are non-Han Chinese minority? Why not just be ‘Chinese’?
See how illogical ‘Han Chinese’ term is?
I’ll tell you you people where this Han Chinese supposed to be, these Chinese tribes once lived between Yellow river to Yangtze river are Han Chinese, rest are non Han-Chinese tribes.
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