중국의 大國化와 백두산 세계자연유산 등재 추진의도

The Rise of China & Implications of the Movement of Listing Mt. Paekdu as the World Natural Heritage

Historically, the rise of China has been interpreted as pursuit of supremacy and even today it still means marching toward becoming a global power. The issue at hand is that this pursuit of obtaining global power transcends China’s national boundary. Considering China has past of pursuing expansionist policy or establishing Greater China within the region exercising influence beyond the borders, we must keep a close eye on the Chinese move. Neighboring China who is rising as a global power, Korea faces challenges of studying the rise of China in light of its prospective influence not only on the Korean Peninsula but also on changes in order within the Northeast Asia region, since complex historical and territorial issues of the present and future coexist between the two nations. As a means of pursuing global hegemony, the socialist China has emphasized nationalism stressing the concept of "Greater China", aiming at establishing groundwork of perceiving itself as a ’unified multi-ethniccountry’. China is aware of that any inner chasm or ethnic conflict involving minorities is likely to be a barrier for it to achieve global supremacy. That is why the regime has started the Northeast Project, claiming that all histories that once appeared in the Chinese territory of today are all Chinese history. National borders and boundaries have changed throughout the history but the Chinese government continues making unreasonable claims in total disregard of such historical background and only on the basis of the present borderline. Chinese regime has stubbornly insisted on the Northeast Project as a part of its pursuit of supremacy with political motives, which also accounts for the recent Chinese move to list Mt. Paekdu as one of the World Natural Heritages. China’s move to include Mt. Paekdu on the list of World Natural Heritages of UNESCO is deemed to be in the same context as its pursuit of supremacy since it is based on the so-called ‘Changbaishan (Mt. Changbai) culture theory’ underpinned by the same rationale as the Northeast Project. China’s claim for recognition of World Natural Heritage is also connectedto a massive Mt. Paekdu development project. China’s move for World Natural Heritage recognition has failed for now in the face of protests from both South and North Koreas, but, China will repeat the move again since China has just been elected as a member of the World Natural Heritage Committee whose term is to become effective for 6 years from 2009 when South Korea has to retire from the incumbent position soon. In historical perspective, vicinity of Mt. Paekdu has not been where ethnic Chinese have resided. However, the so called ‘Changbaishan Culture Theory’ contains a groundless argument that the ethnic Chinese was the main player around the Mt. Paekdu area and ‘Changbaishan Culture’ belongs to Chinese history. We have to continue to raise concrete criticism against such distortion. China intends to tighten its central control over the ethnic Korean communities China and build a defense in preparation for potential territorial dispute over Gando area. Following their argument from the Northeast Project, territorial domain that ’Changbaishan Culture Theory’ claims to be China’s is up to the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Thus, we need to prepare for countermeasures. South Korea must cooperate with North Korea to preserve and develop Mt. Paekdu in North Korea and continue to conduct studying on the Gando issue to effectively confront the China’s pursuit of supremacy and ‘Changbaishan Project’.