The current border line between Korea and China is not an original boundary between the two countries; it is a distorted border line from the Amnok River to the Duman River under Article 1 of the 1909 Gando Convention that was illegally entered into b...
The current border line between Korea and China is not an original boundary between the two countries; it is a distorted border line from the Amnok River to the Duman River under Article 1 of the 1909 Gando Convention that was illegally entered into by Japan and the Qing. Thereafter, the Korea-China border has been drawn as such in maps showing Korea. At the time, Japan illegally assigned the sovereignty over Gando to the Qing in order to acquire railroad extension/construction concessions and coal mining concessions needed for the Japanese invasion of the continent.
Those who are unaware of the afore-said execution process of the Gando Convention understand that the Amnok River·Duman River border line was demarcated in the latter era of the Joseon Dynasty. This border line decided at Japan’s discretion was an illegal act committed by the country for its own interests, ignoring historical facts that the Joseon Dynasty dispatched gwanrisas to East and West Gando and put the opposite area from the Amnok River under jurisdiction of Pyongan Province. Furthermore, the Amnok River·Duman River border line disregarded the Korea-China demarcation shown in numerous Western ancient maps.
After Japan annexed Korea, Japan started to compile History of Joseon Peninsula from the Japanese colonial historical perspective, represented by shared Japan-Joseon origins, stagnancy and heteronomy, for its colonial rule in Korea. And then Japan set up the “Joseon History Compilation Association” in 1925 and started to publish Joseon History in 37 volumes from 1932. Naturally, Joseon History, with many distortions and inaccuracies to justify Japanese colonial rule, put a huge influence on Korean historical developments thereafter.
Japanese colonial historians claimed that all of Korean historical facts occurred within the Korean Peninsula. They decided that Wanggeom-seong, i.e. the capital city of Gojoseon, and Lelang Commandery were located in Pyeongyang near the Daedong River and the Four Commanderies of Han were established in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. In particular, they even claimed that the 9 fortresses built by General Yun Gwan to the northeast of the Goryeo-Jurchen border were located around currently Hamgyeong Province in North Korea, misrepresenting Gongheomjin in Seonchunryeong about 700 li north of the Duman River. Furthermore, they diminished the territory of Goguryeo by asserting that Goguryeo’s new capital established by King Jansgu was Pyeongyang on the Korean Peninsula. They even curtailed the territory of Goryeo within the Korean Peninsula although Goryeo’s border reached the Liao-ho River to the West and Gongheomjin to the North.
These distorted historical claims based on Japanese colonial historiography started from Lee Byeong-do, a successor to Japanese colonial historians, and then have been ceaselessly advocated by his disciples in accord with his views. Eventually, the maps based on such distorted historical theory misrepresent the territory of Korea, thereby causing huge damage to the country in the future.
Above all, historical circles should reflect on the past in order to rectify the incorrect border line between Korea and China on maps as well as Korea’s history that was largely distorted by the colonial historians. Moreover, such rectification should be made through critical and academic discussions with mutual candor for the self-purification of historical circles.