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China has renamed 18 primary and secondary schools after a scenic mountain that straddles the border with North Korea, raising concerns by Koreans that Beijing is trying to claim its historical sovereignty over Korea's ancient kingdom which ruled northeast China for over 700 years.

North Korea signed an agreement in the 1960s to secede territorial rights to about half of Mount Paektu to China. The Chinese fear a unified Korea might try to nullify the agreement to the rights to Changbaishan, as it is called in Chinese.

China has irritated Koreans by claiming the ancient Koguryo Kingdom (B.C.37-A.D.668), which ruled most of northeastern China as well as the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, belonged to China.

Some South Koreans insist the 1904 China-Japan agreement on the transfer of China's Yanbian region, which encompasses Mount Paektu, should be nullified because Korea's diplomatic sovereignty was deprived at that time, several years before Japan formally colonized the Korean Peninsula in 1910.

The Committee for the Protection, Development and Management of the Changbaishan Protection Zone under the control of the Jilin Province, northeast China, said Wednesday it changed the name in July of last year to boost the protection of the mountain. The provincial government administers the Chinese part of the mountain.

The schools now have 11,000 students and 1,720 teachers, according to the committee.

The 2,750-meter peak, the highest on the Korean Peninsula, is a major tourist attraction for both Koreans and Chinese.

In September last year, China issued a directive to about a dozen hotels operating there, including four run by South Koreans and one by an ethnic Korean resident of Japan, to cease operations and leave by year's end. The move was seen as part of its initiative to make the Mount Paektu area a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site.

In a related move, Jilin Province has announced its plans to develop the mountain as the country's highest-level tourism zone.

China is bidding to host the 2018 Winter Olympics on its side of the mountain.

Shenyang, China, Feb. 1 (Yonhap News)