China and N. Korea flags
© Joseph Campbell/Reuters
Social media has been buzzing since Donald Trump said Korea "used to be a part of China" after a visit with China's leader. The twitterati have offered to help the US president with his world history, while South Korea wants to know who said what to whom.

Trump made the controversial remark in an interview with the Wall Street Journal back on April 12.


However, social media users have only recently begun to pay attention to that particular remark. When the president was describing his much-anticipated meeting with China's leader, Xi Jinping, which had taken place earlier in April, he noted that the two had "very good chemistry."

Apparently, at some point, their conversation had touched on the history of China."He [Xi] then went into the history of China and Korea. Not North Korea, Korea. And you know, you're talking about thousands of years... and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China. And after listening for 10 minutes, I realized that not - it's not so easy," said Trump.

Social media was completely stunned by the comment. Some couldn't hold back their emotions and added scores of emojis to their comments.

One person even ironically offered to help Trump to study world history in depth. Some people wondered on what grounds Trump had made such a statement. Or if Korea had belonged to China on the day God created Earth?

People speculated on whether there were books on the topic that said Korea had, indeed, been part of China. Other wondered if Trump could even find Korea on the map.

Sarcasm and irony prompted people on Twitter to invent other fantasy versions of world history. Like one in which, Scotland had always been a part of the UK. Or Iraq a province of Syria.
Tweets
© Twitter
In the meantime, some did take the remark seriously, saying that they, personally, and America, as a whole, were embarrassed by this new controversial statement coming from the US president.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post published its own historical analysis of China-Korea relations since the first century.

Trump's remarks didn't go unnoticed in the South Korean media. On Thursday, the country's Foreign Ministry said it is checking whether China's president really did tell Trump that Korea was once a part of China.

"We are working to confirm the reports through diverse diplomatic channels including the United States and China," South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck said, as cited by Yonhap news agency. "As soon as detailed facts are confirmed, [the government] will make the necessary response," he said.

On Wednesday, a South Korean Foreign Ministry source said that Trump's remark was historically untrue.

"Whether that is true or not, Korea hasn't been a part of China for thousands of years, and it is an historical fact that the international community acknowledges and no one can deny it," a Foreign Ministry official told Yonhap on the condition of anonymity.