Chinese Textbooks Misrepresent Korea

Seoul and Beijing are on the same side in trying to persuade Japan to admit its World War II atrocities, but many Chinese school textbook still misrepresent facts about Korea.

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The Foreign Ministry submitted materials on misrepresentations in Chinese textbooks to the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee on Thursday.

Before 2000, Chinese history textbooks usually said the "Chosun people" have lived on the Korean Peninsula for a long time, but that has been changed to "humans". In references to the 1950-53 Korean War, Chinese textbooks do not mention North Korea's invasion of the South but merely state that Chinese troops took part in a "just war".

The East Sea is still widely referred to only as the "Sea of Japan".

In 2004, Seoul and Beijing reached a verbal agreement to deal jointly with distortions of history. The issue arose because the Chinese Academy of Sciences was suspected of being engaged in a project to show that ancient Korean kingdoms were mere adjuncts of China.

This is sometimes referred to in the press as the shorthand "Northeast Project", though that particular program came to an end some time ago, and China has since taken steps to rectify some historical distortions.

Beijing is in the process of revising history textbooks, and Seoul plans to urge it to make necessary changes.