Foreign History Books Misrepresent Korea
By Do Je-hae
Staff Reporter
Many English-language history books published by foreign universities contain serious errors about Korea's geography and history, according to a paper to be published by the Northeast Asian History Foundation.
Some maps from these textbooks display the entire Korean Peninsula as a territory of China, while others write the names of ancient Korean kingdoms.
Gye Seung-beom, a research professor with the Institute of Korean Culture at Korea University, came to this conclusion after examining 146 textbooks.
Around 125 of them carried maps related to Korea and 27 percent of the maps had errors regarding the country, Gye wrote in his thesis.
The most glaring error found in these maps was not correctly defining the border between Korea and China, and misrepresenting Korea as part of Chinese territory.
Some maps showing the Three Kingdoms of Korea marked the southern regions of Korea as Japanese territory. The Three Kingdoms refers to the ancient kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla, which dominated the Korean Peninsula and parts of Manchuria from 57 BC until 668.
The problem of the incorrect romanization of Korean dynasties got worse the older the kingdoms were, such as Gojoseon (2333-108 BC). Some wrote Gojoseon as "Chao-Hsien," which is how the three Chinese characters constituting the name are pronounced. Similar examples were found with Goguryeo (37 BC-668 AD) pronounced as "Kao-li," Baekje (18 BC-660 AD) as "Pai-chi," Silla (57 BC-935 AD) as "Sin-lo" and Joseon (1392-1897) as "Chaoxian" or "Chaohsien."
Some romanization of city names also contained errors, as in the case of "Ping-yang," which is the Chinese pronunciation of Pyongyang.
"The importance of maps in such textbooks play a profound role in how Korea is perceived," Gye wrote.
Because the territorial boundaries in ancient times in Northeast Asia were not as defined as they are today, misrepresentation of borders between neighboring countries is quite difficult to address, he said. However, the researcher added that the romanization of Korean territory pursuant to Chinese pronunciation is a serious issue that requires the attention of the authorities.
Such concerns have been emerging from scholars who are trying to counter Beijing's attempts at claiming Goguryeo as its history on the grounds that most of Goguryeo's territory today belongs to China. Goguryeo ruled most of northeastern China for more than 700 years.
The Chinese move, commonly referred to as the "Northeast Project," was initiated by Beijing in 2002 to justify its claims regarding Goguryeo.
In 2004, the Chinese Foreign Ministry deleted references to Goguryeo on its Web site covering Korean history, causing an uproar here.