신채호
Following the decline of China's prestige and the rise of Korean nationalism in the early twentieth century, Korean intellectuals no longer took pride in their association with the Chinese Gija, and thus started to doubt the authenticity of his traditional story. Shin Chaeho (1880–1936) was the first to question the extent of Gija's contributions. In an essay titled "Doksa Sillon" ("New Reading of History"; 1908), he argued that Korean history was the history of the Korean "minjok", a race-nation descended from Dangun, the mythical founder of the state of Gojoseon. Gija, a foreigner, did not belong in Shin's racially defined view of Korean history. Shin argued instead that Gija had become a vassal of the Kings of Buyeo and was only given control of a small territory.