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The history of the kingdom of Parhae (Ch. Bohai, J. Bokkai, 698-926) has been studied and debated in East Asia since the early twentieth century. Despite the scarcity of textual sources, over the past few decades, sophisticated analyses of a range of aspects of Parhae politics, society, and culture have been produced by scholars writing in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. Only very recently, however, have significant efforts- led by Korean scholars-been made to expand the history of Parhae into English language scholarship. This article serves to place these more widely accessible contributions into the context of the international and multilingual negotiation over how the history of Parhae should be understood. Readers from other disciplines who encounter this scholarship are in effect hearing only a single speaker who in practice is engaged in a lively conversation with many participants. The present study is intended to address specifically the needs of such readers, and suggests that the emphasis on "multiculturalism" in contemporary Korean society may aid Korean scholars' engagement with international audiences on the Parhae issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, the dispute over the history of the ancient kingdom of Koguryŏ (37 bce, trad.-668 ce), located in Manchuria and northern Korea, has been one of the hottest issues between China and Korea. The debate seems to have fueled a new nationalistic or Sinocentric historiography of the ancient Chinese northeast. A ninth century BCE poem called “Hanyi” in the Classic of Poetry [Shijing] has been the cause of a far older history dispute. Whereas Chinese scholars have generally understood Han as a Zhou feudal state ruled by a Ji-surnamed scion of the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 bce), most Korean scholars have linked the polity with Old Chosŏn (n.d.-108 bce), the earliest known state in Korean history. However, by comparing the “Hanyi” with several bronze inscriptions with similar contents, this study seeks to re-read the “Hanyi” from a perspective that transcends the dichotomy of Chinese history versus Korean history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China's Northeast Project (NEP), also known as the "Research Project of Northeastern China," has unleashed national sentiment among many Korean people. Even if it originated in purely academic research, the NEP poses a grave political challenge to contemporary Korea. The Korean response to the NEP can be broadly categorized in two ways: The first is that while negative perceptions of these moves by the Chinese have prevailed in Korean society, the Korean government has been very cautious in expressing criticism of the NEP due to national interests with the Chinese government. The other point is that as time has progressed, a series of Korean self-reflections on the complex nature of nationalism in response to the NEP has emerged. With the analysis of these self-reflections, this paper attempts to address an inter-subjective nationalist perspective of history as a solution that recognizes "mutual recognition of national identity" in considering the prevailing reality of Northeastern Asian nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out the limitations of culturalist approaches to the PRC and the ROK and deals with factors that contribute to the legal definition of citizenship in those two counties. The understanding of political and economic interests, rather than cultural aspects, is important in explaining the changes of the definition of citizenship there. China institutionalized a state-centered national identity, while Korea constructed an ethnic-centered national identity as they became integrated into the international order as nation-states. However, both the PRC and ROK made important changes in their legal definitions of citizenship regardless of their distinct national identities in China and Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]