During 2009‐2011, Chinese writings on South Korea and the his tory of the Korean nation grew more somber in tone. They widened the national identity gap at the same time the gap was being widened with the United States and Japan. Views of succes sive periods grew more negative. Chinese authors wrote that Ko reans should look back with gratitude rather than resentment at having been China’s neighbor in premodern times. They sided with North Korea and Roh Moo-hyun in their stress on insufficient South Korean vigilance in dealing with collaborators and the legacy of Japan’s occupation. Mainstream Chinese coverage of the Korean War ignores who invaded and why in order to emphasize the US entry into the war as an imperialist aggressor and China’s just in volvement. The legacy of the anticommunism of the Cold War era is deemed to persist after both the democratization of South Korea and the normalization with China that followed. Thus, history per vades Chinese writings on South Korea. North Korea fares much better by comparison. Key words: Korea-China relations, Korean War, China‐North Korea relations, historical memory. HISTORY MAY OFTEN SEEM TO BE AN ARCANE SUBJECT FOR CONTEMPORARY statecraft, but in East Asia it has enduring impact. Although most at tention has centered on Japan ’s record of aggression and colonialism, coupled with its revisionist recollections that have aroused alarm in China and South Korea, another clash of historical memories was emerging by 2004 with no less inflammatory potential. It burst onto the scene as if it were limited to a disagreement over whether to cat egorize the ancient state of Koguryo as part of China or Korea (Gries 2005; Chung 2009; Jin 2011), but China ’s challenge to Korean iden tity is much more far-reaching. Indeed, as shown by a proliferation of Chinese articles on history between 2009 and 2011, criticisms range across the historical spectrum and heavily implicate the United States.