Gando Convention - Korean Claims

Korean Claims

The Korean claim is partly based on what is perceived (on the Korean side) to be an ambiguity in the 1712 boundary agreement between the Qing Dynasty (which ruled China at the time) and the Joseon Dynasty (which ruled Korea at the time); this actually did not become an issue again until about 150 years after the agreement was approved by both parties, when Manchuria and Gando was opened to Han Chinese migration by the Qing. The other major part of the claim relies on the fact that by the time the Gando Convention was signed in 1909, the Korean state (by that time the Korean Empire) was neither consulted nor had any way of disputing the legitimacy of the treaty as it was already a protectorate of the Japanese Empire and was essentially prevented from resolving or re-negotiating the boundary dispute as an independent state, and as such the Gando Convention, like other unequal treaties (such as the Eulsa Treaty and the Japan-Korea treaty of 1910) dealing with Korean territory/governance or claims made by Imperial Japan, should be revoked and the boundary dispute rectified between Korea (though there is no stated consensus on which of the two current Koreas should be party to this) and the People's Republic of China (though the Republic of China, as the nationalist successor to the Qing Dynasty, may be a more legitimate party to this on the Chinese side as it still claims all of the territory held while the Qing Dynasty still ruled China as a sovereign state).