US President Donald Trump has enraged South Koreans by saying in an apparently offhand comment after meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that “Korea actually used to be a part of China”.
The historically inaccurate sentence from a Wall Street Journal interview bumps up against a raft of historical and political sensitivities in a country where many have long feared Chinese designs on the Korean Peninsula.
It also feeds neatly into long-standing worries about Seoul's shrinking role in dealing with its nuclear-armed rival, North Korea.
In Seoul, protesters gathered outside China's embassy to make their point, while the South Korean foreign ministry issued a public rebuke to the US president. South Koreans believe he was prompted to say it by China's President Xi Jinping after their meeting in Mar-a-Lago.
South Korea fears China wants to make it part of its sphere of influence by rewriting history and turning past Korean kingdom into “vassal state”.
Ahn Hong-seok, a 22-year-old college student, said that if Trump is a person capable of becoming a president, I think he should not distort the precious history of another country.'
South Korea dismisses #Trump's remark that Korea was "part of China." pic.twitter.com/DtHa4gOSHe
— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) April 20, 2017