Tuesday evening, I was wandering with
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raphinou through Toronto's Chinatown on Spadina, looking for
chinoiserie. In one store, I came across a world globe inlaid with what looked to be semi-precious stones, available for almost four hundred dollars Canadian. As I looked at it, for a moment I thought that the globe's makers had given Korea a good-sized chunk of northeastern China. It was just the angle of the light.
That said, Korea might well have acquired that territory north across the Yalu. 20th century Korea has always been a more porous society than contemporary Japan; of the
75 million Koreans now alive, almost five million live outside the peninsula. China, particularly in its
northeastern regions, is home to two million ethnic Koreans, ranking alongside the United States as a centre for this diaspora. The Korean community implanted along the North Korean frontier is ancient, with the ancient
Koguryo kingdom basing itself partly in this region and modern immigration to what was then the underpopulated Manchu homeland beginning in the 16th century. Korean immigration kicked up in the late 19th century, owing to poverty in Korea and the onset of Japanese colonialism. Japan tried, and failed, to make the Koreans in Manchuria Japanese agents, while under the People's Republic of China Koreans managed to gain a certain amount of autonomy in the
Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and the Changbai Korean Autonomous County. The border area, referred to be some as a
"Third Korea", has begun to receive significant attention from the outside world, especially South Korea. The Third Korea has become part of the
complicated Chinese-South Korean relations relationship, marked by growing trade and tourism and cultural exchange and by migration issues (ethnic Koreans migrating to work in South Korea, North Korean refugees taking refugee among their co-ethnics).
One reason that China's quietly hostile to the idea of Korean reunification, apart from the prospect of having a pro-American state bordering some of its most important industrial areas, is the possibility that a unified Korea might lay claim to these areas. The idea of Korean irredentism isn't wholly without foundation. Just after Korea was made a Japanese protectorate in 1905, Japan signed with China the
Jian Dao/Gando Convention renouncing Korea's rights to much of this border region.
Recent statements from the South Korean foreign ministry to the effect that this convention is without value produced the expected uproar in the People's Republic, complicated by a
1999 citizenship law that would have given ethnic Koreans near-equality with South Korean citizens, and perhaps also by South Korea's new
cultural outreach programs. Expansionism isn't likely even after reunification, given China's strength and Korea's certain preoccupations with the North.
Over on soc.history.what-if, I
wondered if it might have been possible for Korea to include at least some of these territories, if, perhaps, Japan might have demanded that China transfer historically Korean lands to Japan's Korean protectorate. That might have happened, but as a commenter pointed out China likely would have gotten these territories back from Korea after the Soviet invasion of Japan's mainland holdings in 1945 (assuming, of course, that the Pacific War follows on track). Any ethnic Koreans living in these lands would, judging by precedents elsewhere in Eurasia after the Second World War, be repatriated to their ethnic homeland, bringing the Third Korea to a premature end. This Korea is still likely to come to a premature end, owing to the
demands of South Korea's
immigrant-attracting economy and aging population.
The government will establish a training system to produce more qualified Korean-language teachers and develop both online and offline language study programs. More scholarship programs will be offered for ethnic Koreans interested in studying Korean language and culture, ministry officials said.
"The government is considering making it easier for ethnic Koreans, especially those in China, to come to Korea as the labor shortage is feared to weaken the nation’s competitiveness," a ministry official told The Korea Times.
"No detailed plan has been fixed yet, but the Presidential Committee on Aging and Future Society will be in charge of developing new programs after discussing it with related offices including the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development and the Overseas Koreans Foundation."
According to the ministry, some 2.14 million ethnic Koreans live in China, the second largest ethnic Koreans’ group in the world. The figure is slightly lower than 2.15 million in the U.S.
Japan placed third with some 630,000 ethnic Koreans, followed by Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States with some 550,000 people.
The National Statistical Office (NSO) said earlier this month that the number of Koreans able to participate in production activities will begin to decrease in 2016, considering the falling birth rate and the growing number of the elder population.
If ethnic Koreans in China are likely to be sucked up, so too are ethnic Koreans living in other relatively poorer countries. The
Koryo Saram, the ethnic Koreans of Central Asia, transplanted by Stalin from the Far East, are also likely candidates. German N. Kim, an ethnic Korean from Kazakhstan,
wrote last year for
The Korea Times that the Koryo Saram were rooted in Kazakhstan, while Kim's quarter-million Uzbekistani counterparts were largely responsible for
Daewoo's dubious investments in that country. Diaspora identities are always valid, but attractive homelands exert an inexorable pull. Look at how Germany's open door has absorbed almost the whole of the German diaspora left in central and eastern Europe after the Second World War, or how Estonia may yet attract
the Eastern Estonian diaspora. The idea of a Third Korea, or a Greater Korea, seems destined to have been ephemeral in almost any plausible history akin to ours. It's perhaps a pity, but at least it had a lifespan at all.
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