Debating “Chach'i”: The Territorial Ownership Issue of Yanbian and Manchurian Koreans’ Relations with the Two “Fatherlands,” 1945–52

The early partnership between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Kim Il-sung’s North Korean regime was marked by strategic cooperation, first in the Chinese Civil War and then in the Korean War. Despite the camaraderie forged through this collaboration, one of the most contentious issues between the two parties concerned the territorial ownership of the ethnic Korean-populated region in eastern Manchuria along the Sino-Korean border. From the end of WWII in 1945 to the establishment of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in 1952, rumors and speculation about the possible secession of the Yanbian region from China repeatedly surfaced in local society. Not only the Chinese and Korean Communists but also other actors, such as the U.S. and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party, took note of these speculations. It has even been suggested that Kim Il-sung and his deputies overtly requested this territory from the CCP. Previous studies have largely framed this ownership question as a clash between Chinese territorial nationalism and Korean irredentist ambitions, overlooking both the agency of the borderland’s transnational ethnic Korean residents and the liminal nature of their political status. Drawing on multi-archival sources, this essay reexamines and contextualizes the issue in local, national, and international settings. The territorial controversy reflects Manchurian Koreans’ aspirations for political and economic rights, the CCP’s ambiguous promises and ideology-informed mobilization, the region’s transnational connections to both the Chinese and Korean revolutions, and nationalist anxieties among the Chinese population and other political actors. The various speculations on Yanbian’s territorial ownership formed a natural part of the interactive process of pursuing and defining the Korean chach’i (self-governance) of a future Yanbian, culminating in the founding of the Korean Autonomous Prefecture in the People’s Republic of China.