SEOUL, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- South Korea's governing and opposition parties both spoke out Tuesday against China's "continuing distortion of history."
The politicians said a series of books and articles in China's "Northeastern Project" distort the history of both countries, claiming Korea's ancient culture originated from China, The Korea Times reported Tuesday.
"Beijing's continuing distortion of history is no longer tolerable," said Rep. Woo Sang-ho, spokesman of the governing Uri Party. "China has seriously harmed the identity of South Koreans."
Rep. Na Kyung-won, a spokeswoman for the opposition Grand National Party, put the blame on South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, whom she called on to take responsibility for diplomatic failures that have allowed neighboring countries to distort history.
"The Roh administration should have paid more attention to the history dispute instead of being obsessed with the wartime operational control issue," she said. "Roh has stressed to improve the nation's self-defense capabilities by taking the wartime command over South Korean troops back from the United States, but has neglected what is more important."
