Arguments are going on over the origin of kimchi and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China is trying to prevent it from turning into an issue.
“I'm no culinary expert. To me, what we call paocai in Chinese is a broad variety of pickled fermented food that is not unique to a few countries, ethnic groups or regions. In China, it is generally known as paocai, in the Korean Peninsula and among China's ethnic Korean group kimchi, and the list of names goes on. Despite the similarity, each has its own unique features in terms of ingredient, flavor, recipe, etc. We support meaningful and friendly exchange and discussion over academic issues concerning paocai from a culinary perspective, but there should be no place for bias to avoid inciting confrontation and affecting people-to-people ties,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying remarked on Jan. 21.
The dispute resumed in November last year, when the Global Times reported that kimchi was humiliated as the ISO acknowledged Sichuan paocai, about 90 percent of the kimchi South Korea imports is from China, and about 80 percent of the exports are from a small village in Shandong.
On Jan. 9, Chinese YouTuber Liziqi with more than 14 million subscribers posted a kimchi making video with the hashtags of #ChineseCuisine and #ChineseFood. Chinese U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun posted a similar photo on Twitter on Jan. 3.
In South Korea, a famous YouTuber was insulted by Chinese and had to face contract cancellation for saying that kimchi originated from Korea.