The Goguryeo controversies are disputes between China and Korea (North and South) on the history of Goguryeo, an ancient kingdom (37 BC – 668 AD) located in present-day Northeast China and the Korean Peninsula. At the heart of the Goguryeo controversy is which part of history the kingdom belongs to. Korean scholars have the viewpoint that Goguryeo is part of Korean history alone.
Overview
In 2002, the Northeast Project conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), claimed Goguryeo as a local ethnic minority state in Northeast China. This sparked a major academic and diplomatic controversy, as Korean experts on Goguryeo history accused the Chinese government of using history for political purposes. In response, in 2004 South Korea established the Goguryeo Research Foundation (renamed the Northeast Asian History Foundation in 2006), and summoned the Chinese ambassador. In 2007, the Northeast Project ended, and the study of Goguryeo history in China has dramatically declined. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences continues to hold its historical perspective on its homepage.
Various analyses of the controversy have focused on external motivations for the reevaluation of history, including Korean irredentism towards adjacent Chinese territory, the possibility of North Korean collapse, and the challenge to China from transnational separatism. Nationalist historiography has inflamed both sides of the debate, as Korean nationalism treats the themes of a powerful Korean Goguryeo and independence from China as central (see: Korean nationalist historiography), while Chinese nationalism stresses the inviolability of its territory and the unity of its ethnic groups. Some scholars have also criticized the projection of modern-day national identities onto ancient peoples.
History of the dispute
Background
As neighboring areas, northeast China and North Korea have both laid claim to the history of ancient kingdoms that occupied the region. The interpretation of history in this region has implications for contemporary territorial sovereignty. During the heyday of Maoism, the Chinese government line was that the history of Goguryeo (Gaogouli in Chinese) was Korean history. Notable statements on Goguryeo being Korean included those by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, who said in 1963 that Korean people have lived in the northeastern region of China since ancient times and excavated relics prove that Balhae, considered a successor state of Goguryeo, is a branch of ancient Korea. The former Chinese premier's remarks have been made public through a document entitled “Premier Zhou Enlai's Dialogue on Sino-Korean Relations. During this time, the Chinese position was in part motivated by its good relationship with one of its key allies, North Korea. Since the 1980s, government control over scholarship liberalized, and more than 500 books about Goguryeo-related topics were published since then, comprising 90% of China's research since 1949. During this time, some scholars such as Tan Qixiang questioned the state's old interpretation of history, arguing for the study of all polities within China's territory as part of Chinese history. Jiang Mengshan proposed a "one history, dual use" (, yīshǐ liǎngyòng) system whereby Goguryeo would also be considered part of China's history, arguing that the kingdom's capital, for 460 out of 706 years, lay in modern northeast China, and that three-quarters of its population were not ethnic Korean. He related ancient identities to modern-day peoples by suggesting that "the people of Buyeo and Goguryeo had the same lineage as the Chinese in the Northeast region, while the Korean people were a part of the Silla lineage."
2002–03
Another faction of historians, led by Sun Jinji (, Sūn Jìnjǐ) and Zhang Bibo (, Zhāng Bìbō), of the Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, criticized Tan and put forth the thesis that Goguryeo should be regarded as a regional subset of Chinese history ("local Chinese history") rather than purely Korean history. They cited the traditional view in Chinese historiography that Korea was founded by the Chinese prince Jizi, as well as Goguryeo's status as a tributary to ancient China. In 2002 these scholars, mostly from northeast China themselves, established the Northeast Project of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to investigate this view.
The establishment of the Northeast Project marks the beginning of the modern Goguryeo controversy. However, the Northeast Project cannot be equated with the study of Goguryeo, because it studied more topics than Goguryeo, including the history of the Russian Far East, the Bohai Kingdom, economic history, and local histories in ancient China and Korea.