ROK OPINION OF CHINA DRIVEN BY GOGURYEO ANXIETY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 003323

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10 YEARS AFTER KOREAN REUNIFICATION
TAGS: KS KN PROG PREL
SUBJECT: ROK OPINION OF CHINA DRIVEN BY GOGURYEO ANXIETY

Classified By: POL M/C Joseph Yun. Reasons 1.4 (b/d)

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) Mt. Baekdu, known in China as Mt. Changbai, is
considered in Korea to be a sacred mountain, containing the
legendary foundation of the nation. This highest mountain in
Korea (and Manchuria) has come to the fore for many South
Koreans because they perceive Chinese economic, cultural, and
infrastructure developments around the mountain as an attempt
to claim the whole mountain as Chinese territory. The
planned 2008 start of the Mt. Baekdu tours appears to be the
most recent salvo of the ROK's effort to rebuff PRC claims to
the area of the historic Goguryeo dynasty, including Mt.
Baekdu, according to scholars at the Northeast Asian History
Foundation. The fact that the tours were the first item
sought for implementation from the October 3 North-South
Summit Declaration indicates growing South Korean unease,
both among the elites and the public, with what is perceived
as China's designs on the Korean peninsula, especially in
light of the PRC's growing power. The agreement on the start
of the tours was set against a background of increasingly
unfavorable South Korean views of the PRC, with many scholars
pointing to the Goguryeo issue as the dividing wedge. As a
result, more South Koreans have begun to view the ROK-U.S.
alliance as a hedge against future Chinese hegemony. END
SUMMARY.

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ROK Elite and Public Opinion Shifts Against PRC
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2. (C) The urgent implementation of the Mt. Baekdu tours
points to a larger shift in ROK-PRC relations. While the
U.S. has improved its public image in South Korea since 2003,
the PRC's image has taken a nosedive since the Goguryeo
Dynasty first became a hot-button issue in 2004. Polling
data provided by the Office of Research show a somewhat
consistent "favorable" image of the PRC of around 70 percent
from May 2000 until March 2004, but then a steep decline to
an average of approximately 50 percent from March 2004 to the
present. More tellingly, the "unfavorable" image of the PRC
increased from a consistent 30-percent level to around 50
percent. In addition, the volatility of the two figures in
the past 24 months suggests an ambiguity of South Korean
views toward the PRC. The hopes for the PRC as an Asian
partner struggle against concerns that China will turn into
an adversary. In other words, sentiments of the PRC being a
friendly "brother" Asian nation have shifted to increasing
worries that the PRC will turn out to be a "Big Brother" with
designs on the Korean peninsula.


3. (C) A separate poll conducted by the Korea Daily on South
Korean perceptions towards its neighboring countries plus the
U.S. showed the same trend. In the latest survey of 1,000
South Koreans conducted in late August to early September of
this year, South Koreans perceived the U.S. favorably to the
tune of 61 percent, followed by China with 44 percent. This
was a 12 percent decrease for China from the past year, and
approximately a 20 percent decrease from the 2005 survey,
when China had a 65 percent favorable rating, the highest for
all neighboring countries. Media Research, which carried out
the survey, analyzed that increasing perceptions of China as
a threat contributed to the steady decrease in favorable
perceptions toward China.


4. (C) Elite opinion also appears to be shifting toward the
"China threat" paradigm. Kim Heung-kyu, Professor of China
Affairs at MOFAT's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National
Security (IFANS),stated that, in spite of the PRC's "charm
offensive" via Track Two academic exchanges, Korean academics
"could not trust" the motives behind the PRC's increasing
outreach to ROK elites. Chung Jae-ho, Professor of
International Relations at Seoul National University and
another China specialist, said that he had recommended to
ROKG officials that they draw certain "red lines" concerning
the Goguryeo issue with China, and that the Goguryeo issue
could not be downplayed as "merely academic." Specifically,
the Chinese attempt to incorporate Goguryeo into their
history robbed Koreans of their ethnic and national identity.
Yoon Hwy-tak, Research Fellow at the Northeast Asian History
Foundation, took this a step further: if the Korean people of
the Goguryeo dynasty could be considered part of the greater
Chinese ethnic identity as claimed by the PRC through its
Northeast History Project, this essentially meant that
modern-day Koreans could be considered part of the greater
Chinese nation. This would lay the foundation for a
potential "swallowing" of the Korean peninsula by the PRC.

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Mt. Baekdu Tours Counteract PRC Claims
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5. (C) The ROK prioritized the implementation of the Mt.
Baekdu project after the recent North-South Korea Summit
because it wanted to counterbalance PRC efforts vis-a-vis the
Goguryeo issue, according to Dr. Yoon Hwy-tak of the
Northeast Asia History Foundation. Yoon mentioned that the
Foundation was actively coordinating with Hyundai ASAN to
increase the Foundation's access to the area for historical
research and excavations. According to Yoon, myths
propagated through the PRC's official version of the history
of Changbai Mountain, as the PRC refers to Mt. Baekdu, will
be corrected during the South Korean-operated tours of the
Mt. Baekdu area. While the economic benefits were not
insignificant, Yoon claimed that Chinese efforts to make the
Chinese side of Mt. Baekdu an international cultural and
tourist site were based on Chinese calculations to support
historical claims to the area as an integral part of Chinese
ancient history. This was seen as a provocation by Koreans
-- both North and South -- who regarded Mt. Baekdu as the
point of origin of the Korean ethnic lineage. (NOTE:
According to Korea's traditional foundation story, the first
"Korean" kingdom of Gochosun was established in the Mt.
Baekdu area in 2333 BC. END NOTE) Yoon explained that the
agreement at the recent inter-Korean summit to jointly
develop the Korean side of Mt. Baekdu was based on the need
to check Chinese historical, cultural, and potentially even
territorial claims to the Mt. Baekdu area.


6. (C) Hyundai ASAN's Mt. Baekdu tour site would project in
its initial stages to have capacity for only 200-300 tourists
at any given time. The Mt. Kumgang project, in contrast, can
currently accommodate more than 7000 tourists daily. The
location, in the far northern part of the DPRK, is far from
any other existing economic cooperation project, such as Mt.
Kumgang or the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC). Hyundai
ASAN is betting that South Korean tourists, including some
that have visited Mt. Kumgang, will pay about USD 1000 for a
flight-lodging package to Mt. Baekdu.

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Reasons for ROK Concern
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7. (C) The Goguryeo controversy began in 2004 when PRC
scholars at the state-funded Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (CASS),working to promote an idea of a "Greater
China" national identity in what was called the "Northeast
Project," claimed the Goguryeo kingdom as a part of the
regional history of China rather than as a Korean kingdom.
This created strong concerns in the ROK over fears that the
"Greater China" nationalism, as demonstrated by the PRC's
Northeast Project, might be used to justify expansionism into
areas of historic Chinese dominance such as the Korean
peninsula, according to Korean scholars. More than just the
fear of Chinese territorial designs, the elimination of the
larger Korean nation was perceived as a possibility if the
Northeast Project was indicative of the PRC's strategy in
East Asia. The fear of Korea being "swallowed" by China
contrasted sharply with the former prevailing view that the
PRC was becoming a benevolent power, more interested in
business and commerce than territorial expansion. In light
of these fears, Yoon said that the Korean internal debate
over whether the U.S. or the PRC should be favored as the
major partner country in the future had swung increasingly
toward the U.S.


8. (C) Chung stated that the PRC's position on the Goguryeo
issue injured Korean national pride, in and of itself a major
thorn in ROK-PRC relations. While the border concerns
stemming from the Goguryeo issue were real, the indignity of
Koreans being cast as a subset, and by implication
subordinate member, of the Chinese nation was itself a source
of anger. This challenge to Korean national identity has
contributed to the rechanneling of what had been
anti-American energies toward a rise in anti-Chinese
sentiment.


9. (C) Of least concern in the Goguryeo debate were the
"academic" aspects, according to the South Koreans we spoke
with. Scholars pointed out that academic accuracy alone
would not be a major cause for such a heated debate, and
emphasized that the issue was a political one.

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PRC "Northeast Project" a Political Move
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10. (C) Yoon claimed that the PRC's pursuit of a
comprehensive national strategy to maintain control over its
minority populations led to its creation of the Northeast
Project, which provided state funds for research into Chinese
claims to the Goguryeo dynasty. The Project reflected
growing PRC concerns about Chinese citizens of Korean descent
and their loyalty to the PRC, as well as the potential for
North Korean refugees to flood across the Yalu River, Yoon
said. Koreans were not the only target for such pan-national
Chinese identity espoused by the Project; Yoon mentioned the
Tibetans, Uighurs, and Hmong as other ethnic groups that the
PRC was attempting to incorporate into such an identity. The
ostensibly academic Northeast Project reinforced such an
identity by asserting that all ethnic groups that lived in
present-day Chinese territory were Chinese. The Chinese,
Yoon claimed, were developing a historical argument in order
to achieve political goals.


11. (C) The practical implications of the Project, however,
went beyond internal stability and minority control. In the
event of a political change on the Korean peninsula, the
pan-Chinese identity argument would effectively halt the
impact of such a change at the North Korean border.
Furthermore, it would also provide a justification for
intervention on the Korean peninsula in the event of a
collapse of the North Korean regime or system, according to
Yoon.

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Background on Northeast Asia History Foundation
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12. (C) The ROKG-funded Northeast Asia History Foundation
began in 2004 as the Goguryeo Project. The think tank was a
direct response to the PRC's 2004 launching of the Northeast
Project. In 2006, the Goguryeo Project combined with
scholars on the Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo),Comfort Women, and
other controversial "historical" issues to form the current
Foundation. The Foundation will meet in December 2007 with
its Chinese counterparts in Beijing in an attempt to build a
Track Two dialogue on the Goguryeo issue. The Foundation has
also formed partnerships with academic institutions at
Harvard and Stanford Universities in what appears to be an
effort to raise support for the ROK's position on the
Goguryeo issue.

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COMMENT
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13. (C) During the 2007 Asian Winter Games in China's
northeast city of Changchun, a group of South Korean athletes
held up a handmade sign during the award ceremony
proclaiming, "Mt. Baekdu is our land." Chinese netizens
responded immediately with a parody picture with Chinese
athletes claiming, "Mars is our territory." The dispute --
and the differing responses in Korea and China -- is a
reminder that ROK-PRC relations will continue to be
complicated by concerns and issues deeply entrenched in the
region's history, culture, and ethnology. END COMMENT.
VERSHBOW