PLA 39th Army Group maneuvering close to North Korean Border

C

chuck731

Banned Idiot
Blackstone said:
China in the Han Dynasty extended into north part of Korea. However, the two countries agreed to boarders along the Yalu about a thousand years ago, and it's been stable ever since. Are you trying to tell us Korea will try and ditch that boarder if it's reunited?


.
Click to expand...

It was Wei, not Han, that invaded and crushed Goguryeo. The notion that Korea/Chinese border has been stable for a 1000 years really requires a highly colored nationalistic view of Chinese history which asserted everyone who established control over any parts now within Chinese borders to have really been Chinese, and ignores lengthy periods between fall of Tang and rise of Ming during which China effectively lost control of much of northern China, including the area north of Yalu, to various steppe nomad cultures culminating Mongol invasion. It was only during Ming that China unmistakeably reasserted control over north bank of Yalu.

Korea nationalism undoubtedly aspire to a larger version of Korea than the peninsula south of Yalu, and sees area in China with high concentration of ethnic Koreans as natural places that needs to rejoin the motherland. However, they will undoubtedly lack the strength to force the issue in the foreseeable future. But nationalistic politians will undoubtedly use these aspiration to advance their careers at the expense of easy relationships with China.
 
Last edited:
Blackstone

Blackstone

Brigadier
chuck731 said:
It was Wei, not Han, that invaded and crushed Goguryeo. The notion that Korea/Chinese border has been stable for a 1000 years really requires a highly colored nationalistic view of Chinese history which asserted everyone who established control over any parts now within Chinese borders to have really been Chinese, and ignores lengthy periods between fall of Tang and rise of Ming during which China effectively lost control of much of northern China, including the area north of Yalu, to various steppe nomad cultures culminating Mongol invasion. It was only during Ming that China unmistakeably reasserted control over north bank of Yalu.
Click to expand...
Wei was part of the "Three Kingdoms" which came after Han Dynasty and not before. Which means, the Han Dynasty expended into northern Korea before the Wei kingdom came along. Foreign powers that conquered China, like the Mongol and Qing Empires, adopted Chinese language, Chinese culture, and called themselves Chinese to govern the masses. The Yalu has been the recognized boarder between China and Korea for over a thousand years, through nomad invasions and other turmoils, and when all the hoopla is over, it still is the boarder. It's an incredibly stable land boarder. Finally, you don't have to be ethnic Han to be Chinese, right?

Korea nationalism undoubtedly aspire to a larger version of Korea than the peninsula south of Yalu, and sees area in China with high concentration of ethnic Koreans as natural places that needs to rejoin the motherland. However, they will undoubtedly lack the strength to force the issue in the foreseeable future. But nationalistic politians will undoubtedly use these aspiration to advance their careers at the expense of easy relationships with China.
Click to expand...
So... if I understand your reasoning, you believe the Yalu will continue to be the land board between Korea (united or not) and China.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
chuck731 said:
It was Wei, not Han, that invaded and crushed Goguryeo. The notion that Korea/Chinese border has been stable for a 1000 years really requires a highly colored nationalistic view of Chinese history which asserted everyone who established control over any parts now within Chinese borders to have really been Chinese, and ignores lengthy periods between fall of Tang and rise of Ming during which China effectively lost control of much of northern China, including the area north of Yalu, to various steppe nomad cultures culminating Mongol invasion. It was only during Ming that China unmistakeably reasserted control over north bank of Yalu.

Korea nationalism undoubtedly aspire to a larger version of Korea than the peninsula south of Yalu, and sees area in China with high concentration of ethnic Koreans as natural places that needs to rejoin the motherland. However, they will undoubtedly lack the strength to force the issue in the foreseeable future. But nationalistic politians will undoubtedly use these aspiration to advance their careers at the expense of easy relationships with China.
Click to expand...

No, it was the Tang dynasty that destroyed Goguryeo.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


There are also only 1.9 million ethnic Korean Chinese, and most of them think of themselves as Chinese. So your idea is pretty far from reality.
 
S

stibyssip

New Member
chuck731 said:
It was Wei, not Han, that invaded and crushed Goguryeo. The notion that Korea/Chinese border has been stable for a 1000 years really requires a highly colored nationalistic view of Chinese history which asserted everyone who established control over any parts now within Chinese borders to have really been Chinese, and ignores lengthy periods between fall of Tang and rise of Ming during which China effectively lost control of much of northern China, including the area north of Yalu, to various steppe nomad cultures culminating Mongol invasion. It was only during Ming that China unmistakably reasserted control over north bank of Yalu.
Click to expand...

It is also an incorrect view to assume that Liao and the Jin, who took control of Northern China between the Tang and the Yuan, were not "Chinese." Even the Mongols who conquered all of China and oppressed the Hans established a "Chinese" state with a "Chinese" national title (Yuan), adopted "Chinese" political structures, and composed histories of previous dynasties in the "Chinese" tradition.

The "Chinese" or Huaxia (华夏）culture predates the "Han" ethnic identity, which is not really one based on blood but one based on culture. If you look at historical records and artifacts of the era, the various non-Han groups (to a lesser degree the Mongols) that occupied China between the Tang and the Ming were all extensively assimilated by the culture of the Hans. Consequently, many ethnic groups like the Khitans, Jurchens, and Manchus became so sinicized that their descendants largely identify as Han. Although the view of traditional Chinese historians was to exclude the non-Han empires from Chinese historiography (curiously including the Yuan), it is more correct to recognize as Chinese those peoples who adopted the Chinese culture and way of life, rather than narrowly equating it to the artificial ethnicity known as "Han."
 
N

no_name

Colonel
The Chinese identity is like the Greco-Roman + christianity identity of Western sphere, but stronger, more comprehensive, and actually historically and culturally linked, and toned right down on the religious aspects.
 
S

stibyssip

New Member
no_name said:
The Chinese identity is like the Greco-Roman + christianity identity of Western sphere, but stronger, more comprehensive, and actually historically and culturally linked, and toned right down on the religious aspects.
Click to expand...

i half agree, but you must admit that the western identity is also coherent in its historical and cultural linkages. however it might be noted that the historical narrative that defines the chinese identity is more insular, less disjointed, and all happening on the same piece of land; while the western experience is more culturally multifarious and geographically diverse.
 
C

chuck731

Banned Idiot
stibyssip said:
i half agree, but you must admit that the western identity is also coherent in its historical and cultural linkages. however it might be noted that the historical narrative that defines the chinese identity is more insular, less disjointed, and all happening on the same piece of land; while the western experience is more culturally multifarious and geographically diverse.
Click to expand...


I think it needs to be addressed that western cultural tradition is not an "Identity", but about a shared deep cultural strata that transcends differences in language and colloquial customes.

Chinese culture tradition, on the other hand, is very much about shared "Identity", of which language and relative uniformity of colloquial custom forms a dominant part.

As a result of this difference, Chinese and western people have a hard time seeing eye to eye about what constitutes a successful cultural tradition. Each see the other as having failed where itself has had the most outstanding success, and succeeded only in areas where itself would not have much bothered.
 
Last edited:
Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
kroko said:
None of these scenarios are politically realistic.

Once the NK communist regime is gone, North Korea will be history. The NK people will want reunification with SK who would basically annex NK (like what happened in Germany. The unification was basically an annexation of East Germany by West Germany, for obvious reasons).

And why would the unified Korea want to ally with china? Japan is not an enemy of SK. Most of all, SK is a treaty ally of the US, and so is japan. The US is the true power between them, and always been since the end of WWII, which was 70 years ago, a lot of time already. Don’t get illusions. SK will not ally with china. If anything, china perceived as an enemy of SK, which has maintained the division of the Korean peninsula with its support of NK, which is the arch-enemy of SK.

Once this regime start to unravel, the only way of china to salvage what is left of its interests in the Korean peninsula, is to militarily occupy NK (support of someone of the ruling regime would help) and impose conditions for the Korean unification: US pullout of Korea and end of alliance with the US. Korea would be a neutral nation, if SK would accept that.

Of course, china would be on its way of becoming an international pariah in doing so.
Click to expand...

...because Korea has no hope against China on land, so their best option is to exchange an military alliance with China (against re-militarized Japan) for Chinese support for a bloodless (relatively) Korean unification. Japan is the common enemy of China/Korea given WW2 history, so it's natural they are allies given their history (allies against Japan for much of their history) geographical location, power disparity, and shared experience of Japanese colonialism.

Unfortunately for you, most S. Koreans don't hate China for it's participation in Korean War, since they remember China pressuring for the free independence of Korea at the Cairo conference, and they also remember U.S./USSR reneging on the promise for a independent Korea by dividing Korea at the 38th parallel originally.
 
Blackstone

Blackstone

Brigadier
Phead128 said:
...because Korea has no hope against China on land, so their best option is to exchange an military alliance with China (against re-militarized Japan) for Chinese support for a bloodless (relatively) Korean unification. Japan is the common enemy of China/Korea given WW2 history, so it's natural they are allies given their history (allies against Japan for much of their history) geographical location, power disparity, and shared experience of Japanese colonialism.
Click to expand...

Good point on China's real enemy is Japan and not the United States.
 
Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Chinese can offer trillion dollars in economic aid for post-unification reconstruction and can contribute to a relatively bloodless reunification by joining up with S. Korea against Pyongyang, in exchange for a military alliance against shared-mutual enemies (re-militarized Japan).

America is near financially bankrupt, unable to contribute "nation-building" economic aid to reunified Korea without asking CHINESE for more loans, and her insistence on challenge China by stationing troops post-unification will likely escalate to full-scale war again, and Korea is forced to be an "ally" of her old former colonial master (Japan).

As China replaces U.S. as the world's top trading nation, exporter, creditor, consumer market, etc... the choice is obvious for Korea to throw their strategic lot and future with... and it won't be with an alliance with the United States.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top