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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. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
ROK Elite and Public Opinion Shifts Against PRC 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶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 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶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. 
 
----------------------- 
Reasons for ROK Concern 
----------------------- 
 
¶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. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
PRC "Northeast Project" a Political Move 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶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. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
Background on Northeast Asia History Foundation 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶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