Trump parroted Chinese version of history

Related Link How an Ancient Kingdom Explains Today's China-Korea Relations  –  The Atlantic

“He then went into the history of China and Korea. Not North Korea, Korea. And you know, you’re talking about thousands of years . . . and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China. And after listening for 10 minutes, I realized that it’s not so easy.”
— President Trump, interview with the Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2017

This claim was largely buried in news coverage of Trump’s wide-ranging interview with the Journal, during which he made numerous flip-flops on several policy areas. But it belatedly went viral in South Korea after a Quartz article Tuesday drew attention to it.

Trump’s inartful retelling of Sino-Korean history sparked widespread outrage among Koreans, who are particularly sensitive to the U.S. president’s rhetoric amid heightened tensions between North and South Korea. Leaders across the political spectrum criticized Trump’s characterization, calling it a clear distortion of history and an attempt to undermine Korean sovereignty....

Korea has been long intertwined culturally and historically with China but was not under direct and official territorial control by China, despite repeated Chinese invasions.

Xi — and Trump — may have been referring to the tributary system between China and Korea, during which Korea gained protection from China while it was forced to pay “tributes,” or gifts. These gifts “signaled a subordinate but still independent position,” historian Kyung Moon Hwang wrote in the Korea Times.