Within recent years there has been a rise of anti-Chinese sentiment globally and South Korea is no exception. While economic and political dynamics may well factor into this situation across many countries, there is a unique reason for South Korea: the frequent cultural warfares straining Sino-Korean relations, with both sides trying to claim certain cultural heritages as their own, or misunderstanding each other in doing so.

South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, for example, released a notice in July 2021 about its amendments on the official guidelines on the appropriate foreign language for some Korean staples, which stipulates to translate Kimchi into the more similar sounding xinqi (辛奇) in Chinese, thus distancing itself from the original translation Korean paocai (韩国泡菜) as paocai (泡菜) is Chinese pickled vegetables. This measurement has incited heated debates across the two nations, reflecting the growing sentiment among Korean nationals of wanting to distance themselves from Chinese influences.

During the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the situation further exacerbated when the Chinese side presented a woman wearing hanbok as a representative of ethnic Koreans, or Joseonjok people, in China. While the Chinese embassy in Seoul argued for the Chinese minority’s right to represent China wearing its own traditional costumes, Korean commentators typically responded along the lines of cultural appropriation.

Lee So-young, a Democratic Party member of parliament commented: “This is not the first time China has introduced Korean culture as if it were its own. If the anti-China sentiment of the Korean people becomes stronger by leaving this issue as is, it will be a big obstacle when conducting diplomacy with China in the future.”

The disqualification of two Korean short track speed skaters Hwang Dae-heon and Lee June-seo for rule violation during the Olympics, furthermore, sparked Korean suspicions on whether the ruling was made on a partisan basis.

While Chinese responses mostly came from netizens, Korean politicians seem to be more involved, with conservative minority party candidate Kim Gyeong-Jae speaking against the Chinese expat population during the last South Korean election. He declared, “​All of the over a million Chinese people should quickly be sent back to China. These people have caused the rise of too many of society’s problems.” He was a minority candidate and failed to be elected, but this speech and the subsequent reaction from Chinese netizens have only added to the cultural conflict between the two countries.

We interviewed an incoming Harvard graduate student from China, Li Yun — a pseudonym used to protect the identity of the interviewee — and a current NYU Abu Dhabi student from South Korea with an international upbringing, Brian Kim, Class of 2022, about their thoughts on the cultural clashes. They both agreed that while these conflicts have been ongoing for years, the issue of the Hanbok at the Beijing Winter Olympics’ opening ceremonies this year has been the most notable one to date.

Kim mentioned one project that may serve as a centerpiece in this struggle: the Northeast Project of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (hangul: 동북공정 hanja: 東北工程). This was a large-scale project started in 2002 operated by a core think tank of the Chinese government that aimed to study the Northeast region and its history, including Sino-Korean history. This project was accused of historical distortion by Koreans and deteriorated into a diplomatic issue between the two countries.

Kim felt that Koreans were already primed to be critical of China because of the project. “[There was] a lot of anti-China sentiment already in Korea, and growing day by day,” he observed. However, he stressed that Koreans not only have issues with China claiming Korean heritage as its own, but also had clashes with Japan when Japan tried to claim Korean things as Japanese.

Regarding the showcasing of Hanbok by China at the Winter Olympics, Li agreed that the Hanbok is Korean. However, he said: “Korean[s have] been a member of the Chinese family for a long time.” There are 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China, and Koreans (朝鲜族 hangul: 조선족 ) are one of these groups. Ethnic Koreans in China tend to live in the Northeast, near North Korea, especially in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture (延边朝鲜族自治州). Li believed that the woman who wore a Hanbok in the Beijing Winter Olympic opening ceremonies was a Chinese Korean who was representing Korean culture as part of China’s diverse ethnic groups.

However, Kim did not believe that the celebration of Chinese ethnic diversity justified the showcase. Given the history, politics and sensitivity of these cultural clashes, he thought that this rhetoric was a bit suspicious. He also said that he did not believe this issue could be boiled down to misunderstanding and mistranslation because a very high government official from China had made a YouTube video which showed the process of making kimchi using a fermentation technique used for kimchi called gimjang (김장). “[Kimjang is] a UNESCO cultural heritage of Korea… [it is] culturally uniquely Korean,” Kim asserted. Even if this was an attempt to celebrate ethnic Koreans in China, he felt it was not that government official’s place to showcase Korean culture when Koreans in Korea were able to do so.

“I would be fine with that — but even then, I don’t think Koreans would be fine with that, because there is a lot of discrimination against ethnic Koreans who live in China,” Kim shared his thoughts regarding the outcome of China stating that the intention of showcasing Korean culture was to celebrate Chinese ethnic diversity and Chinese Ethnic Koreans were the ones promoting Korean culture instead of ethnic Han Chinese. “A better way to address it would be lending support to actual Korean things, rather than banning a band in K-pop for political reasons.”

Conversely, Li believed that the core of the issue is the lack of confidence of Koreans, which causes them to feel that they must defend their culture. He believed that Koreans were using these issues to showcase their cultural strength. On the other hand, he also said that he felt Koreans were overconfident about their knowledge of history, which caused them to make some wrong claims, but he did not elaborate further as he did not want to be overly harsh.

In addition to the idea of Korean confidence and lack thereof, Li also mentioned that politics also plays a role in these conflicts. He hypothesized that South Korea aligns itself with the US, which is currently competing with China, so this could cause South Korea to have some biases against China. In addition, Li Yun said that the Asian countries have been divided by the West, and so there is more tension.

Kim also believed that politics and Korean national identity played a role in these issues. “One of the things that makes Koreans Korean is our love for our culture and ethnicity,” he said. He elaborated that the phrase “You cannot trick Korean blood” can be seen as a representation of this. He disagreed that the Korean reactions were related to Western validation.

“[Koreans have] always had to fight to have a country for themselves,” Kim opined, expressing that it was difficult for them to maintain their ethnicity, culture and language. He explained he can say this confidently as Koreans have a strong awareness of Japanese and Chinese imperialism as it has a long history of being under the control of other states.

As both interviewees mentioned, Korea was a vassal state of China during certain periods of history. Korea was also colonized by the Japanese in the 20th century. There is a concept in Korean called Han (Hangul: 한 Hanja: 恨), generally used to describe feelings of resentment, loss of identity or sorrow surrounding things like the Japanese occupation, the Korean civil war and other sufferings imposed on Koreans throughout history. Han also has many more subtle complexities debated upon by Korean scholars. “[To Koreans,] this is just another way of protecting [their] country,” Kim explained.

While both of the interviewees disagreed on many things, there was one thing they both agreed on: neither of them have personally seen someone who is actually saying these things. Li asserted that no Chinese person is trying to actually claim Hanbok or Kimchi as Chinese and that Chinese people will only be angry if Koreans claim something like the Han Chinese’s traditional dress, Hanfu, comes from Hanbok — which Chinese people will find to be impossible.

Kim also mentioned that he was unsure if this was “an active spread of misinformation, or Korea deliberately kind of creating this nationalistic propaganda using a very miniscule population of Chinese people who are claiming that these things are Chinese.”

Kim maintained that the overarching cultural issue is not misinformation or propaganda, but rather a tangible project of the Chinese government; however, he acknowledged that it was possible that ordinary Chinese people are not advocating for Korean cultural heritage to be claimed as Chinese.

Unfortunately, both interviewees also agreed that there is no simple and realistic solution. This decades-long conflict does not seem as though it will be resolved any time soon.