소수자로서 중국 조선족의 이주사(移住史) 및 정치,사회 환경 변화에 따른 정체성 변동

Abstract

In the early modern period, Koreans` migration to northeast provinces of China started with the aggression of Western imperialism and the weakening of the strength of the Qing(淸) Dynasty in the mid-19th Century. Ethnic Koreans were relocated to relatively wide areas in Northeast China, most notably to Yanbian(延邊), Jilin Province(吉林省), China. Over the past 150-plus years, ethnic Koreans have gone through diverse identity changes amidst the changes in their living environment. Until the liberation of Korea from the Japanese colonial rule in 1945, ethnic Koreans in northeastern provinces of China maintained identity in the Diaspora, with thoughts of returning to the homeland someday. However, they came to be reborn as Korean-Chinese under the influence of land reform and the minority policy launched and adopted by the Communist Party of China. They came to have dual identity divided into state identity and ethnic identity. Ethnic Koreans in China came to experience a rapid identity change amidst the process of industrialization, along with reform and an open-door policy in China, the flood of information on South Korea during the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and China in 1992. The rapid stampede of people and the decrease in the population resulted in the hollowing out of the autonomous region of ethnic Koreans in China, and possibly the disintegration of the ethnic Korean society. Many of them migrated to South Korea to find a job. However, South Koreans regarded them as Chinese. Thus, they came to feel that they could not be "one of them" in South Korea, when they were distinguished from Han Chinese.