Northeast Project - China's distortion of history started from the confucious time

Source:   신완순 "중국은 애초부터 실체가 없었다. (2006년 9월 23일)
http://www.breaknews.com/sub_read.html?uid=49933

프로필  ▲신완순 교수 ▲한국 우리역사연구회 연구위원 ▲ 명지대 민족사콘텐츠학과 고대사 강의 ▲ 한국 우리역사 아카데미 강의 ▲ 왜곡된 우리역사를 바로 세우기 위해 참여강의 집필 중.   © <사진/김상문 기자

Professor Shin Wan Soon’s comments on  China’s Northeast Project (an absurd attempt to distort the history of Goguryeo)

CHINA HAD NO ENTITY FROM THE BEGINNING

China’s so called Northeast Project is getting increasingly serious in its extent. A few of its fabulous contentions include those such as the basin of ‘the Han River was China’s territory’, ‘Balhae  was a  provincial regime of Dang당(Chinese pronounciation: Tang)', ‘Goguryeo 고구려, Balhae 발해 and Buyeo 부여 were all subject states belonging to history of China’, ‘the ignition of 2008 Asian Winter Olympic torch at the Mt Baekdu’ 백두산.   Moreover, China is recently extending its attempt of Northeast Project to claiming Mt Baekdu as its proper territory. 

If it were allowed to go on, the whole part of Korea, north of DMZ, would become part of China’s territory, let alone Mt Baekdu. Under these situations, there have come out hurriedly a variety of countermeasures proposed by the academic circles. Among them, Professor Shin Wan Soon of MYONGJI University has come forward with a strong countermeasure, saying there is only one way to fight against this confrontation.

At the interview with a journalist on the 12th by saying that he could not help feeling deeply grieved as an academic historian to watch the developments of China’s Northeast Project. Prof. SHIN pointed it out firstly that China’s distortion of history had started 2500 years before.

‘CHINA’S DISTORTION OF HISTORY STARTED FROM THE CONFUCIUS TIME’

According to Prof. Shin, the first nation of China, which is Ha 하나라, was established 2208 BC, while ‘Old Chosun 고조선was established by Dangun 단군2333 BC, which means that the foundation of Ha was 130 years later than that of Old Chosun. Prof. Shin says the necessity to make up for the late start was the motive to distort the history, That is the background how Confucius began to write ‘history book of Chun Chiu 춘추.

It is said that at the time when Dangun 단군 founded Old Chosun at Asadal 아사달, there was King ‘Yo’요 in China.

Taking opportunity of this situation, Confucius fabricated a history making King Yo the foremost founder of China. However, King Yo, King Sun 순 and their succeeding kings were in fact no more than small feudal lord regimes. Ha was a genuine country in real terms founded in China, but later than Old Chosun. In order to emphasize its historical superiority, they had to drag up the epoch of their founder, which tells us how Confucius wrote the history of Chun Chu (Chun Chiu) 춘추.

Prof. Shin maintains that the civil administration policy in times of Song 송 dynasty of China and the burning books and burying scholars alive by Emperor Qin Shi (Qin Dynasty) are the further evidences of attempt of distorting history. Emperor Qin Shi (Qin Dynasty), after having unified 6 nations into one, needed strong order or discipline to govern the nation by. The intellectuals in that time were mostly emigrants from Chosun (Old Chosun?) or Chosun Confucian scholars. He had to get rid of these intellectuals and burn up those history books relating to the history to achieve his objectives. Prof. Shin insists that the fundamental reason behind the ‘burning books and burying scholars was the fear of our race.

China started to distort history from the time of writing Chun Chiu 춘추, history by Confucius 2500 years ago. Kingdoms Yo 요, Won 원 and Ching (Qing) 청 can not be of Chinese history; The people of Yeojin 여진 and Manchuria 만주 should be treated to belong to the Korean history, he says.

Since Han nation of China has always been in awe of Korean nation, they have taken every advantage of suppressing Koreans as opportunities arose, the rational of which the China has maintained so far, leading to the recent attempt of China’s Northeast Project.

Prof. Shin says that as China is a multiracial nation, China puts its utmost priority on the unity of China, and that China treats history of Goguryeo in the context of that logic. China might think that the fate of its nation, life or death, should depend on their ability to maintain peace along the border regions. Prof. Shin hints that the way of treatment of Goguryeo’s history by China has something to do with how they have treated the history of other minority peoples.

THE CHINA’S INTENTION TO EMBRACE MINOR RACES

It is Prof. Shin’s opinion that China has accommodated tolerance policy towards minority races throughout history of Kingdoms Song 송, Won 원, Ming 명and Ching (Qing) 청 up to now, and that China is not intent on rejecting or obliterating minority races at all, but it embraces them to live together, which is in effect only a deliberate attempt to justify China.

It is true that China is a country where minority races have been able to co-exist with the majority, but  its tolerance policy is nothing but a smart outward show. Their calculated motive was to steal their territory and their history to make them their own. Pretending to accommodate the territory, history, culture and traditions, which Han and 55 minority races have enjoyed, China has virtually hoodwinked them into believing that theirs belong to China.

They say that China is a multiracial nation consisting of 55 minor races. But Han race, the majority, accounts for 91.9 % and the rest of minors merely 8.9%.

But the size of the territory China has taken away from the minority races is no less than 63.7 % of all China. Supposing that all the minority races were to be independent of China, then the Han race of China should live in only 36.3% of the current territory.

It follows that both China’s Westnorth and Westsouth Projects aimed to occupy permanently the lands of Tibet, Uyghur,  Yunnan and GuiZhou 贵州 provinces. Accordingly, China’s Northeast Project can also be interpreted to take aim at extending its territory for occupation.

Prof. Shin voices his opinion strongly that China has created their fictional race name of Jung’hwa 中華 (meaning the centered people of all human beings). Such a race has not even existed in history. Its sole objective was to snatch away the history and territory of all minority races around.

As China insists, to achieve their goal of reviving great Junghwa (中華) Race, China has been claiming the history of Goguryeo to be theirs, still more those of 56 minority races.

According to Prof. Shin, the true aim of its Northeast Project is firstly a process necessary to prevent China’s internal dissolution and achieve the unity into one. The disintegration and collapse of ex Soviet Union has given them a lesson and makes them try all the means to avoid the same fate.

Secondly, China is supposed to anticipate the probable unification of Korean Peninsular or the political upheaval of North Korea, in which case the Northeast Project will provide a historic means to them to occupy North Korea. The dream of expanding territory is behind the project. It is a wicked design which has originated from the fear of Korea’s unification.

The ultimate aim of the project is to prevent the break-up of their nation. As China is made of various minority races, it is their utmost fear to see the break-up of their history and territory.

CHINA’S HISTORY IS ALL FICTITIOUS

Recently, Prof. Shin has strongly advocated that there is only one weapon to fight China’s greedy desire of the North East Project, which is the logic of non-existence of China. She says we should say that there is no China.

It was in 1911 that the official name of China came into use, which means there was no China before 1911. Look back on China’s history, for example, Ching (Qing) dynasty was founded by the Manchurian race. In the terms of China’s Han race, it (Ching) cannot be China’s history. Another example is Won dynasty founded not by the Han, but by the Mongolians. In the light of China’s logic, the country of  China did not exist before 1911.   In the same sense, Chinese history is only available after 1911. Non existence of China before 1911 leads to non existence of China’s history before 1911. Therefore, the most viable logic we should take is that China has no entity.

China’s Northeast Project, a secret motive to seize our territory and history, which originated from the fear of Korean people.  We should punish them by the results of study of China’s acts of usurping others’ history.

As a counterblow to China’s assertion that China is one, we should refute it with a logic of naught or zero, which is the opposite of one. Prof. Shin continued to contend that we should argue against China by highlighting the fact that Goguryeo had survived for as many as 900 years.

In the face of China’s absurd assertion that Goguryeo was not a country, but a small provincial regime of minority ethnic race, we should contradict it by pinpointing the fact that while Gogoryeo existed for 900 years, China saw rises and falls of 36 nations in the heart of their land during the same period. Is it logical to say that while Goguryeo, referred to as a provincial minority ethnic regime as they insist, lasted for 900 years, the central government of China changed 36 times? It would be an outright nonsense.   Lastly, Prof. Shin pointed out that we should stop our extremely Korean Peninsular-centered historical view.

“We Koreans tend to see our history centering around the Korean Peninsular, which means we view our long history in the geographical terms. Since we confine our history merely to the events occurring in Korean Peninsula, it is no wonder that China should try to usurp our history easily.

Dangun Chosun, the predecessor of Goguryeo, and Goguryeo Balhae did not occupy merely Korean Peninsular, but also extended their power deep into China and Manchuria. We should change our historical view.

WE MUST END OUR KOREA-CENTERED HISTORICAL VIEW

He further emphasized that we should not put too much weight on our single race. We need to have such a view as accepting the descendants of Goguryeo as our race. Whereas Malgal 말갈 , Geo’ran 거란, Yeojin 여진 and Mongols 몽골 are all offspring of Goguryeo 고구려, we tend to treat them as barbarians and do not include them in our history.

“In the land of Goguryeo was established Balhae 발해 and later Georan 거란. While we include Balhea in our history, we do not include Georan in ours. Look at China, who asserts that all the events generated by all kinds of races in their land belong to their history. Why not we? There is no reason why we can not include in our history all events brought about in the land of Goguryeo.

We should embrace the view that the peoples who lived in the land under Goguryeo’s influence should be the same race as ours, not aliens. With this historical view, we can counteract the effects of China’s logic.” Prof. Shin asked the government for more positive and active measures.

“The government from now on should take positive steps to cope with China’s distortion of history as soon as possible. This is the most important and vital matter directly concerned with our national pride as well as our future. Despite of any expected diplomatic problems involved, the government should consider this matter more important than anything else and step forward positively.”

Prof. Shin warns that unless China is not split into many as former Soviet Union was, China will continue its plan of Northeast Project. He expressed his concerns that clumsy and slovenly measures by the government might cause us to grieve the miserable fate of losing our nation and history again as we did before.

“Man dies when body and soul are separated. In the same sense, when the soul of nation (history) and the body of nation (territory) are separated, the nation ends. For the present, our body is in the state of being completely crushed and our soul is in danger of being taken away by China. Unless we should be awakened, the outcome will be a certainty. We should not forget that we might end in becoming Chinese.”