Anti-China sentiment intensifying in Korea

Not only Japan, but China's attempt to incorporate Korea's history, culture and its distortions are noticeably increasing.

 

China began stealing Korean history and culture since early 2000s, and its action plans are progressing even more explicitly with the movement called "Cultural Northeast Project."

 

(Reasons)

 

In China, among 56 ethnic groups, Han Chinese covers 92% of the population, but the remaining 8% “the minority of the ethnic groups occupies 60% of China’s total territory.

 

China’s policy integration of ethnic minorities was implemented because in the future,

if reform and global opening accelerates, the possibility of segregation and independence of ethnic minorities will become inevitable. (Prepare in advance)

 

Second, this is a preliminary preparation to ensure the border and territorial issues after the reunification of South and North Korea.

If Korea’s reunification is South Korea centered, North Korean party and military leaders with weapons can move to the northeast and the can be a possibility of a political force such as in exile.

 

 

Third, North Korea’s plan to register Goguryeo-related relics in Pyongyang as a World Cultural Heritage in 2001, may triggered the start of the Northeast Project.

 

Although it was unsuccessful, if the ancient tombs of Goguryeo were successfully designated as a World Heritage Site, it is highly likely that China’s justification for claiming Goguryeo history as its own history would disappear.

 

(Recently)

Recently, “Cultural Northeast Project” movement is targeting Korean culture.

 

China is targeting Korean Kimchi, hanbok (Korean traditional dress), song of Arirang, Taekwondo, Samgyetang (chicken soup with ginseng), even now Korean steet food, tteokbokki (dish made with stir fried rice cake).

 

Even national flag of Korea was made by a Chinese, causing a lot of controversy.

In November 2020, Chinese ‘Global Times’, a sister magazine of the Communist Party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, claimed that kimchi originated in China.

 

Chinese ambassador of the United Nations also tweeted that kimchi was Chinese. 

Here, he was making kimchi and provoked another controversy by saying that kimchi is Chinese.

 

In January, a Chinese youtuber (Liziqi) with 14 million subscribers posted a video making kimjang (kimchi-making for the winter).

 

As soon as this video was released, it recorded an explosive number of views and recorded over 2.8 million views in a short time.

Obviously, it is not a strange thing to try to make foreign food, where the whole world is almost one world. For example, Koreans make spaghetti and foreigners make Korean traditional dishes, where it gives an interesting event to watch for subscribers.

 

The problem is that this youtuber with 14 million subscribers posted making kimjang using a hashtag ‘Chinese traditional recipes” and “Chinese food”, later heavily criticized by the viewers.

Some of the viewers also commented, “how inferior can Chinese be stealing the culture of another country?”

 

 

In April 2021, another Chinese youtuber posted a video titled ‘Chinese street food’.

In the video had rice cakes, fish cakes, and red pepper powder adding green onions and boiled eggs all in a large pot.

 

The cook was making tteokbokki, a popular Korean street food and if it hadn’t been taken by a Chinese, everyone would have thought of the street food of Korea.

However, this video went up under the title ‘Chinese street food’, making confusion for the first time viewers.

(Reasons)

 

A lot of Westerners chose Chinese culture as the representative culture of Asia, but now they are interested in Korean cultural contents such as K-pop and K-movies/dramas, and they are showing a sense of crisis and false patriotism as they believe that the leadership of Asian culture can move from China to Korea.

 

<BTS>

<Parasite>

 

(Countermeasures)

 

First, active government involvement is absolutely mandatory, since China’s Northeast Project started with political intentions form the beginning.

(Chinese government also supports with a huge budget, in other words, Korean government also needs to actively support for the study of Korean history such as Goguryeo)

 

 

Second, South Korea, North Korea and China should jointly study history and write textbooks accordingly especially there are many historical relics left in North Korea (Goguryeo)

 

 

Third, the history and culture of Korea should be further promoted by Koreans by blog, youtube, and SNS.  

 

 

“We Koreans may have different ideas, but if we all love our country as one people, we can find success through that common goal”  - Dosan Ahn Chang Ho