SEOUL: "It's not that we were on Japan's side; we were cheering for Japan because we didn't like China." Lee Seung-ho, 62, was one of many South Koreans who found themselves doing the unthinkable this month
- rooting for the Japanese soccer team when it played China in the Asian Cup final in Beijing, even before local fans turned abusive toward the victorious visitors.
In an abrupt turnaround over just a few weeks, South Korea's love affair with China has dissipated and given way to a national furore over what South Korea sees as its big neighbour's attempt to claim the ancient kingdom of Koguryo as its own.
To set history almost 2,000 years old straight, South Korea is taking on China, the biggest buyer of its exports and the most trustworthy mediator there is in the negotiations to eliminate the nuclear ambitions of neighbour North Korea.
South Korea is determined to convince China that Koguryo was not a peripheral province of its dynasty and that Beijing should revise any literature in the country that depicts it as such.
"The issue of distorting the history of Koguryo is about shaking the identity and foundation of our nation and the government is handling it with a strong and unwavering position," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters. For its part, China has stayed quiet so far.
Koguryo (37 BC-AD 668) is one of three kingdoms that both South and North Korea consider to have been precursors of a united Korean nation. Koguryo's hunting tribes controlled a mountainous swathe of what is now northeast China and North Korea.
The furore has gone beyond the realm of official-speak. Century-old maps are pulled from archives and past borders with China are studied. An obscure scientific study published six years ago was dug up and its findings that half of the pollutants in South Korea's air originate from China are repeated on radio shows. Japan, once a colonial occupier in Korea and China, has often been the target of South Korean ire.
ENLISTING N. KOREA?: A mark of China's determination to accept or distort history - in the eyes of South Koreans - will be whether Beijing will attempt in coming months to revise history textbooks for next year, Seoul's top diplomat handling the issue said on Tuesday.
"What our focus comes down to is whether Chinese textbooks will distort this issue and how, and what needs to be done if it happens," Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said on KBS radio.
Asked whether Seoul's effort will ultimately involve stinging diplomatic actions such as strengthening diplomacy with Taiwan or recalling South Korea's ambassador to China, Lee said: "Those options need not be ruled out at this point."
Chinese Foreign Ministry or Communist Party officials were not immediately available for comment. South Korea sent a senior diplomat to Beijing this month to press its complaint but officials told him they had no control over what they considered an academic issue.
Seoul's drive to persuade China may extend to having North Korea involved, officials in Seoul said. South Korea's vice minister of unification, Rhee Bong-jo, said while there was no plan to put Koguryo on the agenda of the next round of high-level talks with Pyongyang, such discussions between the two Koreas may be possible to build on studies by their respective academic communities. North Korea has maintained silence on the Koguryo issue. -Reuters
