History
In the Ming Dynasty, Yanbian was governed by the Jianzhou Guard-district (建州衛), and in the late Qing Dynasty the area was divided into the Yanji (延吉廳) and Hunchun (琿春廳) subprefectures. From 1644 to the 1800s the Manchurian administrators of the Qing state attempted to separate northeast China, politically and ethnographically, into a "Manchuria" to which they could retreat in case an ethnically Han Chinese dynasty regained control over China. However, this effort failed because of the trading and agricultural opportunities available to Han Chinese migrants in the northeast region which made it profitable to evade the rules, as well as later Qing relaxation of the same rules to discourage Russian encroachment.
In the 19th century, Korean immigrants migrated en masse from the Korean peninsula to China. After the foundation of the Republic of China, a second wave arrived. The population increase was caused by the Japanese invasion of that region. The Japanese were trying to use Korean immigration to diffuse the staying power of Chinese in that region. After the end of World War II, many Koreans did not go back to Korea, even though their country had been liberated (as there were economic and political problems back in their country). Instead, they joined the Chinese Civil War and were mobilized by both Chinese communists and the Chinese Nationalists. When the civil war was over, the new Chinese government gave Koreans their own autonomous region (区) in 1952. Yanbian was upgraded to an ethnic autonomous prefecture in 1955.
Korean (Joseon) migration into northeast China began at the tail end of the 19th century and were for the most part escaping the economic hardships faced under Japanese economic policy.
In 1952, the Korean migrants composed some 60% of the local population, but by 2000 their share had shrunk to 32%. The Chinese authorities subsidize Korean language schools and publications, but also take measures to prevent an emergence of the Korean irredentism in the area. From the late 1990s the Koreans voluntarily assimilated into mainstream Chinese culture with increasing speed, often switching to daily use of Chinese and choosing to attend the Chinese language schools.
Read more about this topic: Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture
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“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)