WASHINGTON -- Countries in East Asia continually squabble over everything from history textbooks to empty rocks in the sea. So it shouldn't be surprising that the beautiful spectacle of cherry blossom season is also a matter of nationalist dispute.
The elegant flowers have long been associated with Japanese culture and aesthetics, a graceful metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life.
More than a century ago, Japanese authorities gave Washington 3,000 cherry trees to brighten up the city's swampy tidal basin. It's still one of the most effective acts of public diplomacy to this day.
But in a region where resentments over the past are at the forefront of political conversations in the present, even the fleeting bloom of a cherry blossom can inflame nationalist sentiments.
Speaking to a major Chinese newspaper, He Zongru -- the executive chairman of the China Cherry Industry Association -- dismissed claims that the tradition of cherry tree cultivation began in either Japan or what's now South Korea.
He instead pointed to its origins in China's Himalayan highlands. He said the trees arrived in Japan only 1,100 years ago, during the period of Tang dynasty rule in China.
"We don't want to get into a war of words with Japan and South Korea, but we want to assert a fact: Many historical documents confirm that the cherry blossom's place of origin is in China," the Southern Metropolis Daily, based in the city of Guangzhou, quoted him as saying Monday. "As Chinese people, we have a responsibility to let more people know this history."
Such conversations are a constant theme in China, where even the official outlets obsess over China's civilizational pre-eminence on the world stage.
In recent years, there have even been heated protests in Seoul over the revisionist work of Chinese historians who claimed that the Koguryo dynasty -- one of the founding players in the Korean national story -- was technically of "Chinese" origin.
Some commentators wondered whether that eventually would justify Chinese annexation of North Korea.
It should be noted that the South Koreans recently laid claim to the cherry blossom phenomenon, asserting that the DNA of the Japanese trees blooming in Washington can be traced back to Jeju Island, off South Korea's western coast.
He of the China Cherry Industry Association was having none of it.
"Simply put, the cherry blossom originated in China and flourished in Japan," he said.
"South Korea has nothing to do with it."
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