[칼럼] Korea Story 8 - Atty Jeong-kee Kim

편집자 주     본지에서는 전세계 외국인 독자들을 대상으로 한국의 역사와 문화를 정확하게 소개하기 위해 김정기 변호사의 칼럼을 영문판으로 연재를 시작합니다.

한국의 역사와 문화에 관심있는 전 세계인들에게 도움이 되길 바랍니다.

 

한국어 독자들은 한국어로 번역된 화면이 보이므로 반드시 사이트 상단에서 원문보기로 설정하셔야 영문판으로 보실수 있습니다.

 

 

 

 

 

● 경력
- 제8대 주상하이 대한민국 총영사(13등급 대사)
- 2010 상하이엑스포 대한민국관 정부대표
- 아시아태평양지방정부네트워크(CityNet) 사무국 대표
- 세계스마트시티기구(WeGO) 사무국 사무총장
- 밀워키지방법원 재판연구원 
- 법무법인 대륙아주 중국 총괄 미국변호사
- 난징대학교 국제경제연구소 객좌교수
- 베이징대학교 동방학연구원 연구교수
- 국민대학교 정치대학원 특임교수
- 동국대학교 경영전문대학원 석좌교수
- 숭실사이버대학교 초대 총장

 

 

● 저서
- 대학생을 위한 거로영어연구[전10권](거로출판사)
- 나는 1%의 가능성에 도전한다(조선일보사)
- 한국형 협상의 법칙(청년정신사)
- 대한민국과 세계 이야기(도서출판 책미듬)

(Newskorea=Seoul) Digital News Team = <Korea Story 8 Atty Jeong-kee Kim>

● Where is the end of the Northeast Project?

On November 1, 2006, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which runs 4,064 kilometers and 10,000 miles from Beijing to Lhasa in Tibet, was opened. It was a monumental day when China completely incorporated Tibet, a country with inexhaustible underground resources and a military strategic point, into its territory and completed the Southwest Project, which it had been working on for a century. This railway runs along the 'Sky Road' from Golwu, Qinghai Province, to Lhasa at an average altitude of 4,000 meters above sea level. It is said that the mystery of Tibet, the 'land of the soul', took off its clothes overnight and became naked. It was the starting point of revealing it to the whole world.

When this railway was opened, the sight of Korean broadcasters, newspapers, and other media dancing to China's flute was eye-watering, and this view and attitude of the Korean government and media on the Tibetan issue soon led to the Northeast Project. I couldn't help but think that it was the source of everything.

As this railway, which runs at the highest altitude in the world, was opened, it was natural that Korean media also rushed to send reporters. Reporters began test-driving the railway and reporting its surprises. To summarize, the contents are a praise of the civil engineering technology that opened the railway through a remote alpine area with an average altitude of 4,000 meters, and the Potala Palace. He was eager to report on the amazement of Lhasa's cultural heritage, including the Jokhang Temple, and the rapid transformation of Tibetan society with the opening of the railway, mixed with mouth-watering exclamations.
 
Nowhere in the reports of Korean reporters was there anything predicting that China would accelerate the Northeast Project after the completion of the Southwest Project or at the same time as the Southwest Project. Moreover, the nationalism and desire for independence boiling inside the seemingly quiet Tibetans were completely ignored, as if it were a promise. Not only was the media like this, but the government went one step further. The government of the Republic of Korea did not raise any official concerns about China's annexation of Tibet.
 
Rather, Korea was the country that refused the Dalai Lama's visit several times for fear of offending China. Two months before the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, a popular uprising broke out in Lhasa, and the Chinese army suppressed it by force, shutting down many temples and massacring 200 people who participated in the protest, which was a catastrophe. And the media kept quiet as if they had made a promise. Did they really not know that the result would be a ‘Chinese invasion’ called the Northeast Project?

We often mention the word ‘historical consciousness’. 'Historical consciousness' has become the exclusive property of left-wing materialists to use when promoting socialist revolution based on a materialistic view of history, but in this era, historical consciousness that excludes ideology from 'history' and recognizes history as history itself is needed. Let's take Tibet as an example again.

It was in 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party came to power, that China decided to incorporate Tibet as a Chinese territory. The Chinese Communist Party invaded Tibet as soon as China was unified. The justification was to liberate the Tibetan people who had been exploited by the ruling class and to restore the Tibetan Plateau, which was originally Chinese territory, but none of this made any sense and was only an invasion by the invaders.

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, fled Lhasa in 1959 and established a government-in-exile in Dharamshala in northern India with the help of Prime Minister Nehru. However, the accelerated development of China's western regions following the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will speed up the dispersion of the Tibetan people and the dilution of their unique culture. In other words, if things continue as they are, in a few decades or centuries, the Tibetan people, culture, and nation will vanish forever, only to be found in history books.
    
The reason for the lengthy discussion on Tibet is that what happens in western China can also be applied to the Korean Peninsula, which is located on China's eastern border, as "ongoing history." Historically, when a powerful empire emerged in China, its strong centripetal force led to the annexation of neighboring nations and peoples. Conversely, when the power in the central plains weakened and the centrifugal force grew stronger, the minority peoples, who had been oppressed under the empire, rose and the region returned to an era of competing states. This cyclical principle was common.

Currently, China is establishing a powerful communist empire and is in an era of drawing in neighboring countries with its centripetal force. Tibet, Mongolia, and other neighboring nations, which are within this magnetic field, now require several times more effort to maintain their independence and cultural identity. The Southwest Project is an example of the strong force of a unified China pulling neighboring countries into its melting pot. Tibet was just one of the representative sacrifices.
 
Now, you might understand why I began discussing the fate ofTibet to think about the impact of China's Northeast Project on the Korean Peninsula and the countermeasures. An interesting study has emerged that suggests Silla’s preemptive strike against Tang China in 670 and the completion of the unification of the Three Kingdoms were closely related to the situation in the Western Regions (西域). According to this study by Seo Young-kyo, Silla attacked Tang as Tubo (Tibet), which had emerged as a new power in 669, raided the Silk Road, forcing Tang to urgently deploy Seol In-gwi, who was stationed in the An Dong Protectorate in the former territory of Goguryeo, to the western front. Silla seized this opportunity to attack Tang, and as a result of a six-year war, expelled Tang’s forces from the Korean Peninsula.

Once China's "Western Development" is completed, China will soon channel its enormous expansion and attraction forces into the northeastern region. How long will the government continue to refuse the Dalai Lama’s visits for fear of offending China? The true threat of the Northeast Project lies here.
   
Many scholars and government institutions believe that China’s Northeast Project began in 2002 under the direction of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Borderland History and Geography Research Center. They see its motive as a preemptive strike against potential future territorial claims by a unified Korea over the Gando region and to solidify the identity of the Korean-Chinese. The starting point of this project, which aimed to reclassify the historical states of Goguryeo and Balhae, which possessed vast territories in Northeast Asia, as local regimes of Chinese minority ethnic groups, took the form of "historical research." This is the so-called Northeast Project. South Korea’s response to this has been to hastily intensify ancient history research following the principle of "history with history" (although without much success).
 
However, I believe that China's Northeast Project did not start in 2002. Just as it began invading Tibet almost simultaneously with the establishment of the communist regime (the unification of China), the Northeast Project aimed at the Korean Peninsula started with China’s massive intervention in the Korean War in 1950. China’s intervention in the Korean War, which involved deploying hundreds of thousands of troops and bearing enormous national sacrifices, was not merely for the logic of "lips and teeth". It was an expensive investment to secure rights over the Korean Peninsula, considering it as part of China’s local regimes.
 
Therefore, the Northeast Project is not simply a matter of ‘history’. It would be a tragic mistake to think that we have done all we can by rewriting secondary school history textbooks and producing and airing a few TV series.
The first thing to do is to establish the country's identity and appear diplomatically confident. The fact that the President showed an attitude of ‘I will say what I have to say to China’ is the first time in a long time that I have seen the Korean government show its integrity.

From now on, the president and the government should never become insignificant in front of China. They should not act weak like children who comply in front but criticize behind. Our president and government must not respond weakly or shamefully to North Korea, which China sees as a pawn it can control whenever it wants since the "Korean War to Resist America and Aid Korea." The ghost of the Northeast Project is hovering over the non-border border in the north of the Korean Peninsula, and it has been confirmed that Koreans in the Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China are dispersing throughout China, losing their identity just as Tibetans are disappearing in Tibet. The Northeast Project now seems like the autumn day, with only the final threshing remaining.
 
The good news is that we live in a democracy where we can change presidents and governments every five years. However, among those who have declared and are running to become president, including the president, not a single one has presented a clear vision on this issue. It was barely a general and sentimental comment.

In the previous administration, the only thing Moon Jae-in did was hastily establish an organization related to "Goguryeo history research," leaving this national and ethnic task to the activities of the private academic community, which ended up being nominal. It’s questionable whether such a government can be called a government and whether a country with such a government can be called a true nation. I hope the Yoon Seok-yeol administration will recognize China’s Northeast Project not as a simple "ancient history issue" but as a comprehensive issue of national survival in the present and future and respond appropriately.
 
What is the ultimate goal of China's Northeast Project? Needless to say, it would be the Tibetanization of Korea. Otherwise, it may be an anachronistic dream to turn back the clock and return to the Joseon Dynasty, when tribute was paid for survival in the name of good neighbors and the king was installed by the emperor. Alternatively, it may be a strategy to use the Korean Peninsula as a breakwater to protect mainland China from powerful maritime powers such as the United States and Japan.

South Korea’s diplomacy with China must clearly establish its identity so that the Chinese leadership realizes these goals are delusions. It has already been confirmed that Koreans in the Korean Autonomous Prefecture, including Yanbian, are dispersing. Moreover, the North Korean government’s efforts to restore national history, such as reconstructing the tomb of King Dongmyeong and building the Dangun tomb on a large scale, seem powerless in real conflicts with China, and it has become clear that the power to set this right comes only from the South Korean government. We must not forget that the Northeast Project is not just an issue of history textbooks but a problem of contemporary politics and national survival, and the party responsible for solving it is not the pseudo-theocracy in North Korea, but the government of South Korea.

☆ Author:  Atty Jeong-kee Kim ☆

● Education
- Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Summa Cum Laude, State University of New York at Stony Brook
-  Doctor of Jurisprudence, Marquette University Law School
- Senior Executive Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
- Research Scholar in North Korean Studies, Peking University

● Experience
- Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai
- Commissioner General for the Korean Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo
- CEO, Asia-Pacific Local Government Network for Economic and Social Development (CityNet)
- Secretary General, World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization(WeGO)
- Law Clerk, Milwaukee Circuit Court, USA
- Senior Attorney-at-Law, Dr & Aju LLC
- Distinguished Visiting Professor, World Economy Research Institute, Nanjing University
- Research Professor, Institute of Oriental Studies, Peking University
- Distinguished Professor, Graduate School of Political Science, Kookmin University
- Chair Professor, Graduate School of Business, Dongguk University
- First President of Soongsil Cyber University

● Publications
- Georo English Studies Series for College Students [10 volumes] (Georo Publishing)
- I Challenge the Possibility of One Percent (Chosun Ilbo)
- The Art of Negotiation (Cheongnyonneongsin Publishing)
- Korea and the World (Chekmidum Publishing)