As neighboring areas, northeast China and North Korea have both laid claim to the history of ancient kingdoms that occupied the region.
[3] Notable statements on Goguryeo being Korean included those by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, who said in 1963 that Korean people have lived in the northeastern region of China since ancient times and excavated relics prove that Balhae, considered a successor state of Goguryeo, is a branch of ancient Korea.
[4] During this time, the Chinese position was in part motivated by its good relationship with one of its key allies, North Korea.
[2] Since the 1980s, government control over scholarship liberalized, and more than 500 books about Goguryeo-related topics were published since then, comprising 90% of China's research since 1949.
[citation needed] In 2003, China applied with UNESCO to register the Capital Cities and Tombs of the Ancient Koguryo Kingdom within its territory as a World Heritage Site.
[2] In August 2004, China sent its Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wu Dawei to Seoul to defuse tensions.
Meanwhile, Chinese social scientists continued to publish research articles on the ancient Northeast Asian polities, including Guchaoxian (Gija Chosun), Fuyu (Puyo), Goguryeo, and Bohai, which Koreans exclusively considered their own.
In 2007, the Northeast Project concluded, but neither China nor South Korea has changed their view of Goguryeo history after the dispute.
North Korea narrates their national history to conform to Juche, by denying any indication of foreign occupation of the Korean peninsula, such as the existence of any Chinese commanderies there.
[16] Much of the scholarship on the Goguryeo controversy has focused on China's strategic intentions towards the Koreas, and presumptively overlooked the validity of Chinese scholars' historical claims.
[2] Yonson Ahn, a Korean scholar who has studied Korean comfort women and historical debates in Korea and Japan,[17] writes that historians such as Quan Zhezhu, Sun Jinji, Kim Hui-kyo, and Mark Byington "perceive the launching of the Project as a defensive reaction to preserve China's own territorial integrity and stability.
For example, in the 20th century, Koreans switched the central figure in their founding myth from Jizi, a Chinese human sage, to Dangun, a god.
[2][page needed] Li Yangfan, a researcher of international relations studies at Peking University, believes that South Korean historical sensationalism, caused by the turbulent modern history of Korea, was the driving force behind the conflict.
[29] A highly influential view in China, later known as "One History, Two Uses" (一史两用),[36] was proposed by Chinese historical geographer Tan Qixiang in the 1980s.
In 427 AD, Goguryeo moved its capital to Pyongyang, and its political and economic center shifted to the Korean Peninsula.
Therefore, Tan divided Goguryeo history into two phases: it is considered a regional Chinese power until 427, and a foreign state after moving its capital.
[38][full citation needed] Additionally, significant numbers of dispersed Goguryeo people taken into Tang custody would break free and escape to these neighboring states during the Khitan rebellion of 696 led by Li Jinzhong.
[citation needed] China, Japan, and other foreign states during medieval times acknowledged the legitimate succession by Korean dynasties such as Goryeo and Joseon of Goguryeo and viewed them as its rightful successors.
[122] According to John B. Duncan of UCLA: "For the last 1,000 years, Goguryeo was an important factor in helping modern Korea find its identity.
"[123] According to Mark Byington of Harvard University, who has followed the debate since 1993, Goguryeo "was clearly not a Chinese state in any sense, as demonstrated abundantly by China's own dynastic histories".
[92] Finnish linguist Juha Janhunen believes that it was likely that a "Tungusic-speaking elite" ruled Goguryeo and Balhae, describing them as "protohistorical Manchurian states" and that part of their population was Tungusic, and that the area of southern Manchuria was the origin of Tungusic peoples and inhabited continuously by them since ancient times, and Janhunen rejected opposing theories of Goguryeo and Balhae's ethnic composition.
The real-life Koguryoans would have been surprised or even offended to learn that, in the future, they would be perceived by Koreans as members of the same community as their bitter enemies from Silla.
However, according to Han-Wool Jung, vice-director of the Center for Public Opinion Analysis of the East Asia Institute, the Northeast Project annihilated China's diplomatic accomplishments in South Korea with a stroke.
[127] On the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Korea-China ties, the National Museum of China presented a chronology of Ancient Korean history which only included information about kingdoms like Baekje (18 B.C.-660 A.D.) and Silla (57 B.C.-935 A.D.) which were located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula, while omitting Goguryeo and Balhae, whose main territories belonged to the current North Korea and some parts of Manchuria, the current Chinese territory.