600,000 Koreans oppose the construction of a China Town in Gangwon Province. The picture shows a view of Incheon China Town.
More than 600,000 South Korean netizens signed a petition on Cheong Wa Dae’s website to oppose the construction of a 1.2 million square meter Chinese cultural city in Gangwon Province. The “China Town” plan died on Monday (27) amid rising anti-China sentiment. A Korean-American civil rights activist told the station that South Koreans are increasingly wary of Chinese Communist infiltration. (Kevin Hu reports)
South Korea’s Gangwon Province had planned to build a Chinese cultural city, which sources said would have cost $1 billion. Due to strong public opposition, Kolon Global Corporation, the company in charge of the project, decided to cancel the project on Monday (27), saying “the company understands that the Korea-China cultural city project can no longer be carried out. Kolon Global Corporation decided to cancel the project on Monday, stating that “the company understands that the Korea-China Cultural City project can no longer proceed,” even though it would suffer huge losses.
Korean-American civil rights activist Kim Se-sun told the station that the pro-China Moon Jae-in government has low support among the Korean people, especially the youth, and that the debate between Korea and China over the cultural origins of kimchi and Korean costumes has raised anti-China sentiment among Koreans.
Kim Se-sun said, “This (China Town) project was seen as one of the projects to appease the Chinese Communist Party, and in the eyes of many South Koreans living in South Korea, this project would also lay the foundation for further expansion of the Chinese Communist Party and fuel Chinese nationalism in South Korea. So I’m not surprised that the project has been canceled, because I think there are a lot of Korean people who really feel violated and disrespected when they think about things like kimchi and Korean costumes, which are our traditional costumes.
Kim Se-sun also said that the Korean media has reported extensively on the protest movement in Hong Kong, and that the public generally supports the Hong Kong protesters and is disgusted with the Chinese Communist Party’s suppression of human rights. In addition, Korean people are tired of the Chinese Communist Party’s “One Belt, One Road” campaign, which is always trying to influence regional politics and economy on the grounds of cultural exchanges.
The governor of Gangwon Province, Choi Mun-shun, has been insisting that the proposal is a tourism project with private investment, not a “Chinatown” where Chinese people will live en masse, but he has not been able to convince the public. Those who signed a petition against the project on Cheong Wa Dae’s website criticized the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to distort Korean history and destroy Korean culture such as kimchi and hanbok, and they opposed the establishment of a site on Korean soil to promote Chinese culture, fearing that the plan would destroy the ruins in Chuncheon, the capital of Gangwon Province.
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