Jottings from the Granite Studio

UPI reports: “Five South Korean female short track players raised signs reading, “Mount Paekdu is our (Korean) territory” during an awards ceremony Wednesday.” The incident is the latest in a series of back and forth sniping between China and Korea in a variety of media including competing op-ed pieces, ‘scholarly’ articles, and even teledramas over the historical status of the China-North Korea border. The South Korean skaters raised the signs as they received silver medals at the 2007 Winter Asian games being held this week in Changchun. The 2750 meter/9022 foot volcanic mountain has long been the center of border disputes between the Chinese and Korean governments.

Paekdu 백두산, also spelled Baekdu, is known as Changbai Shan 长白山 in China and can be found in Chinese geographical texts dating back to the shanhai jing 山海經 “Classic of Seas and Mountains.” During the Qing, the Kangxi emperor designated the mountain as the birthplace of his clan, the Aisin Gioro, and annual rites were held at the mountain to celebrate the origins of the ruling dynasty.

Several Korean dynasties considered the mountain sacred including the Goguryeo (37 BCE - 668), and Balhae (698-926) both of whose origins were the subject of controversy after a Chinese research project published a paper claiming that these two dynasties actually had “Chinese origins.”

Border agreements between China and Korea were signed in 1712, 1909, and again in 1962. Some in South Korea reject the latter two agreements as the 1909 agreement was negotiated by the Japanese occupiers of the peninsula and the latest one was signed by the DPRK with no input from Seoul. The unclear location of the boundary on the mountain has caused problems for visitors to the area. Hikers attracted to the sublime beauty of the mountain and its crater lake, Tian Chi, have been unwitting pawns in the ongoing dispute. In 1998 a British hiker was picked up by DPRK border guards on the wrong side of the line and spent a month in a North Korean jail. Not good times.

Needless to say, Chinese officials were less than thrilled with the actions of the Korean skaters and have lodged a formal protest with South Korean diplomatic and sports officials. ROK officials responded that the action was “an accidental happening and shouldn’t be interpreted politically.”

In an unrelated gaff, a Chinese tourism delegation to Zimbabwe was greeted at Harare Airport by banners and signs welcoming the delegates…in Korean. The African nation has been seeking to attract Chinese visitors and overcome concerns that Zimbabwe is poor and unsafe. A member of the Chinese delegation called the mistake, “embarrassing.”

“We have been trying to teach our own people to speak Chinese without much success,” said a Zimbabwe Tourism official. “We now fear using the wrong language, writing Korean when you think you are writing Chinese.”
———————
Top right: map of Korea-Chinese border showing the position of Mount Paekdu
Middle left: painting of the Changbai Shan from the Qing shi lu.
Bottom right: aerial photograph of Changbai Shan/Tian chi