The Washington Post reported on Thursday that South and North Korea are cooperating to accuse China of attempting to lay claim to a discrete part of Korean history, the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo.

The US daily said that Chinese academics taking part in a government-run project recently shocked scholars from both South and North Korea by releasing documents that claim Goguryeo as an ethnic kingdom of ancient China.

Korean academics and politicians accuse China of attempting to lay claim to the kingdom out of fear that its 870-mile-long border with North Korea will rupture from a flood of refugees if the government in Pyongyang collapses.

The report quoted scholars as saying the Chinese may be laying the groundwork to dispute the current border with North Korea and, if they find it to be in their interest, claim more territory. According to the paper, they also argue that China is trying to head off any attempt by pockets of Korean speakers on the Chinese side of the border from eventually becoming part of a unified Korea.

The report said that in the name of Korean history, the outcry here has linked the voices of a number of South Koreans and their counterparts in the communist North to underscore a growing feeling of Korean nationalism.