Tussle Over a Vanished Kingdom

Under a hailstorm of arrows and fireballs, ancient Korean warriors clash with Chinese invaders, fighting a battle that keeps millions of modern- day South Koreans glued to their plasma television sets.

The fictionalized battle scenes set in Koguryo, a kingdom of horseback warriors that vanished from the map 13 centuries ago, are common on the serials broadcast by the three main South Korean television networks. But for many South Koreans, the need to defend Koguryo has moved beyond television.

Now South Korea and China are tussling over who should inherit the history of Koguryo, which straddled what is today North Korea and Manchuria, China. Despite its sometimes amusing manifestations, the struggle over the long-gone state could have far- reaching implications in the 21st century, including for a future border between China and a unified Korea, experts said.

When President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea meets his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in Beijing on Friday, the history dispute is likely to surface in a summit meeting that otherwise will be dominated by consultations on how to respond to North Korea's recent report that it tested a nuclear device.

The Koguryo dispute is a fresh reminder of how nationalism looms large in Northeast Asia, a region where politicians often stoke nationalist sentiments for political gain and countries regularly lock horns in historical disputes despite their close economic ties.

South Korea and Japan are embroiled in a dispute over a set of islets. China and the two Koreas, meanwhile, accuse Japan of whitewashing atrocities committed by its troops in the 20th century, especially during World War II. The repeated visits by Junichiro Koizumi when he was prime minister to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese war dead, including war criminals, are enshrined, also stoked nationalist passions in China and the two Koreas.

The latest dispute over Koguryo began flaring a month ago when South Koreans discovered a set of papers posted on the Web site of the Center of China's Borderland History and Geography Research. There, government- paid Chinese scholars described Koguryo as a "provincial" vassal kingdom under the suzerainty of China - not the fiercely independent Korean state that fought and often repelled the Chinese, as generations of Koreans have been taught in school.

To South Koreans, the Chinese argument, which echoes Beijing's stance on Taiwan and Tibet, is as preposterous as calling kimchi, the spicy, pickled Korean cabbage, a Chinese dish.

Newspaper headlines screamed that Korean history had been "shanghaied." Protesters marched, waving national flags, while on the Internet, groups of "euibyong" - named after the Korean guerrillas who fought Chinese and Japanese invaders in ancient times - launched a boycott of China as a tourist destination. A nationalist demonstrator bit, chewed and spit out a Chinese flag before the television cameras.

"Koreans trace their roots to Koguryo; the name Korea stems from Koguryo," said Kim Woo Jun, a history professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. "The Chinese claim shakes the core of Koreans' national identity."

For its part, China has grown increasingly unhappy with South Korea's nationalistic approach to the history of Koguryo. Two-thirds of Koguryo's territory lies within contemporary China, and Beijing wants to forestall any future Korean claim over its northeastern territory, which is home to large ethnic Korean communities, experts said.

Many South Koreans are already demanding that a unified Korea must reclaim a strip of land called Kando, near the Chinese border with North Korea, which they believe was illegally given to China by the Japanese colonial authorities in the early 20th century.

The controversial Chinese papers were written by historians participating in China's Northeast Asia Project. Testifying before the National Assembly in Seoul, You Hong June, head of the Cultural Heritage Administration of South Korea, said the project was part of China's state-financed rewriting of the history of its border regions to create a greater sense of belonging among its potentially restless ethnic minorities, including Korean-Chinese.

But South Koreans suspect a deeper, sinister Chinese design. By accentuating its historical links with Koguryo, China is preparing to make a territorial claim, or install a puppet regime, in North Korea in case the regime there collapses, they say.

This issue has become all the more critical following North Korea's report of a nuclear test. The United States is pushing at the United Nations Security Council for harsh economic sanctions that some experts say could push the North Korean regime to further provocations or to the brink of instability - especially if China refuses to bail out its old ally.

Throughout its 705-year existence, Koguryo, which ruled the largest territory ever controlled by a state sprung from the peninsula, was constantly at war with both China and peninsula- bound Korean kingdoms until it fell under joint attack from the Tang Dynasty in China and the rival Korean kingdom of Shilla in 668.

Today, remnants of Koguryo's glory can be found scattered in China and North Korea, in tomb murals depicting mounted archers chasing tigers. Old documents say the Koguryo people liked to drink, sing and dance, traits some South Koreans proudly say they inherited.

As emotions heated up in South Korea, the Chinese ambassador in Seoul told local politicians that the views in the controversial papers were those of the researchers only. But when Roh met Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China in Finland last month, he warned of "negative repercussions on bilateral relations."

China's growing influence - and the fraying of the South Korean alliance with Washington - also unsettles South Koreans, who are keenly aware of the history of Chinese invasions.

Such uneasiness spiked recently as news arrived that China was developing Mount Baekdu - or Mount Changbai in Chinese - as a tourist zone and possible Chinese candidate for the Winter Olympic Games in 2018.

Koreans consider the mountain the sacred birthplace of their nation.

For its part, North Korea has kept quiet in the Koguryo dispute. The regime cannot afford a quarrel with Beijing when it needs Chinese support for its economy.