More on Koguryo

I would like to comment on the news report in your paper of Aug. 7 -- titled Ancient kingdom shakes Sino-Korean ties -- over the dispute of the ancient Kingdom Koguryo (37 BC-668 AD) and its archaeological relics and that the Chinese government, claiming Koguryo to be Chinese, was attempting to rob the Koreans of one of the gems of their cultural heritage.

Korean Professor Lee Ki-Baik in his book, Hanguksa Sillon (A new History of Korea) writes that ... "legend has it that Koguryo was founded in 37 BC by Chumong and a band of followers from Puyo (Fu-Yi in Chinese) and the leadership elite of Koguryo was not native to the area it came to rule.

"The warrior aristocracy did not engage in any kind of productive activities but devoted itself entirely to training for combat, in fact, warfare was the most productive activity they might pursue and unlike Puyo, the Koguryo people gave the impression to the Chinese of being warlike and fond of attacking their neighbors and by the beginning of the first century AD, the Koguryo sought to break out of its territorial confines in all directions."

Chinese Professor Tan Qixiang, in his book, The Historical Atlas of China, writes that... "The Chinese territory that existed between the 1750s, after the Qing dynasty had completed its overall unification of China, and the 1840s, before the aggression and encroachment on China by the imperialist power, is the territorial and geographical scope and range of China."

All the nationalities that existed and operated in history within this scope and range are Chinese nationalities. The regimes they established are part of historical China. It is not impossible that the jurisdictional area of a certain regime is found partly inside the scope of China and partly outside it. When that happens, the regime will be regarded as a Chinese one if its political center is situated inside the scope, while the regime will be regarded as belonging to a neighboring country if its political center is outside it.

It should be noted that China is not and was never a nation- state but was and is a multinational universal cultural state and it has now 56 recognized nationalities, including the Chao Hsien or Korean nationality.

SIA KA-MOU

Jakarta