By Andrei Lankov
“Pyongyang rulers paid with our nation’s land for their rescue!” For decades, this was one of the most persistent myths of the South Korean Right in regard to relations between China and North Korea. According to the myth, the Chinese decision to join the Korean War and save the North Korean forces from certain annihilation was paid in kind, by a promise to revise the Sino-Korean border in Chinese favour. However, recent discoveries have demonstrated that these accusations were completely groundless.
The relevant material was found in a second hand bookshop in China. In 1974, during the Cultural Revolution, the government of Jilin Province published a collection of treaties between China and neighbouring countries. For the province which is located near Korea, the Soviet Union, and Mongolia this was an important document. It was made even more important because of the internal strife within local leadership. While the South Koreans accused the North Korean government of being too soft on China, the Chinese Red Guards were levelling the same accusations against the Chinese authorities who allegedly were too soft on Korea!
Korea has arguably the world’s most stable borders _ their basic outline had not changed much since the mid-15th century! However, this does not mean that Korea has not had border disputes. The border with China presents a number of problems. It largely runs along two rivers, the Amnok (Yalu) and the Tuman. Both rivers often change their course, and have a number of islands and inlets.
Second, the area between the rivers is a heavily forested highland which has never housed a large population. Thus, this part of border, around Paektu Mountain, has usually not been properly marked and often been controversial.
Although some border problems in this area date back to the 1700s, they were seldom seen as a cause for deep concern. However, in 1962 the two sides decided to iron out the problems once and for all. Perhaps, it was the recent border conflict with India that prompted the Chinese decision to negotiate the demarcation of the borderline.
Whatever the case, from the North Korean point of view, the timing could not have been better. In 1961-1962 China was increasingly on bad terms with the other Communist great power _ the USSR. China was trying to create a Communist bloc of its own, and it badly needed allies. North Korea, in those days, was drifting towards China, and Pyongyang could hope to get very preferential treatment on the border issues. A few square miles of cold and inhospitable forests probably appeared to China but a small price to pay for alluring North Korea into the Chinese camp (they obviously forgot that borders tend to last longer than alliances).
The Paektu area was at the heart of the border talks held in Pyongyang between September 26 and October 2, 1963. In October, Zhou En-lai himself, the powerful Chinese Prime Minister, secretly visited Pyongyang to sign a formal agreement, soon to be augmented by additional documents.
For the North Korean (or should I say Korean?) point of view, the major success was the ownership of Chonji Lake. Paektu Mountain once was a volcano, and this small but deep lake occupies its former crater. The Chinese side agreed to re-adjust the border in a way that divided the lake in two parts: one remained in China while other became Korean territory. Actually, the DPRK got a bit more: 54.5% of the lake surface area was confirmed as Korean territory.
It was a major success. Paektu Mountain has always featured prominently in Korean shamanistic myths, and is also an important part of the North Korean official symbolism. Its shape decorates a number of North Korean publications, and it is officially alleged that Kim Il Sung once secretly directed guerrilla operations from the slopes of Paektu (fiction, of course).
The negotiations on the river border were also quite successful. On the Yalu River, 127 out of 205 inlets and islands went to Korea, and on the Tuman River it was 137 out of 246.
Thus, the border negotiations were another major success of North Korean diplomacy. No wonder, that the 1962-1963 agreements were later attacked by the Chinese Red Guards who claimed that the ‘capitalist-roaders’ gave the ‘revisionist’ Koreans sacred Chinese land. That accusation came as Sino-Korean relations hit their lowest point in the late 1960s. But that is another story…