China says it has discovered a new section of the Great Wall that stretches to Hushan or Tiger Mountain in Dandong, in the northeastern province of Liaoning along the Yalu River, much further east than originally thought. It has so far set the eastern starting point of the Great Wall as Shanhaiguan in Hebei Province.
Tiger Mountain is believed to be the location of defensive fortifications from Korea's Koguryo Kingdom, so China's claim is expected to rekindle debate between the two countries over how far their spheres of influence reached in ancient times.
Chinese media on Sunday reported that a ceremony took place on Tiger Mountain on Friday commemorating the demarcation of the new eastern starting point of the Great Wall. Wu Guoqiang, secretary general of the China Great Wall Society, said, "Research by archeologists proven by a committee of experts discovered the eastern starting point of the Great Wall at Tiger Mountain rather than Shanhaiguan, and we declare this finding to the world."
Wu added said the declaration "restored the Great Wall that was built along the banks of the Yalu River to its former shape." The region is near Dongdong along the mouth of the Yalu River, around 400 km from Shanhaiguan. Based on the research, China claims that the Great Wall stretches further northeast from Shanhaiguan up to Changtu in the north and up to the Yalu River in the south. This means that the Great Wall has lengthened from 6,300 km to 8,851.8 km.
There is some suspicion that China is moving the eastern starting point of the Great Wall as part of efforts to co-opt Korea's ancient Koguryo Kingdom and claim the territory with it. China started researching the Great Wall in May 2007. An official announcement that the eastern starting point is somewhere in the Tiger Mountain region came in April this year.
