Once upon a time, Sima Qian (司馬遷) authored a git repository called Shiji (史記), "Records of the Scribe" or more widely known as Records of the Grand Historian. It compiled the history of China for the past 2500 years as of his authoring. It was publicly released in 109 BC.
Since then, both Chinese and Korean historians have git clone this repo for their own purposes. Eventually, as Korea developed into a nation state, they did a git filter-branch and maintained their own history, but inherited the previous history.
So the claim to 5000 years of East Asian history seems to be a round-up error, since 4623±n years (where n is unknown) is an awkward number to remember.
Even if throughout history the land had been politically fractured at various times, it is no exaggeration to claim China has been one continuous cultural entity (civilization state) at least since the founding of Qin (Chin) Dynasty in 221 BC. Before that, China was a collection of warring states. But it could not have been called civil war, as the entity of "China" did not exist yet, and if you went back in time and asked where someone was from, they would answer, I am from Qin (秦國人), or I am from Qi (齊國人).
Were events prior to 221 BC a part of Chinese history? Debatable, but the consensus is mostly yes, thanks to Sima Qian.
Korea had their own warring states period as well, and the peninsula was unified for the first time under Koryo (高麗) in 918 AD. As far back as Sima Qian's time during the Han Dynasty, there was a kingdom on the Korean peninsula called Wiman (衛滿), which did not control the whole peninsula. Because the Han Emperor thought Wiman was going to ally with the Xiongnu, the deadly nomadic nuisance to his Chinese realm, he sent military expeditions to wipe out Wiman, which they eventually did, and became "directly administered territories", or the Four Han Commanderies of Han (漢四郡). The Korean peninsula from then until 918 AD had been shared between Chinese, proto-Manchurians, proto-Mongolians, and proto-Koreans. If you went back in time and asked where someone was from, would they answer "I am Korean"? Likely not. They would say I am Baekjese (백제사람), or Sillian (신라사람).
Were events prior to 918 BC a part of Korean history? Debatable. For any self-respecting (North or South or overseas) Korean, the answer is definitely yes. For everyone else, read more and find out for yourself.
Back to the question:
Which has a longer history, China or Korea?
If counting from definite unification: China (221 BC) vs Korea (918 AD)
China has a longer history.
If counting cultural proto-history*: China (~1600 BC) vs Korea (~109 BC)
China has a longer history.
If counting neolithic history**: China (8500 BC) vs Korea (8000 BC)
China has a longer history.
If counting age of their git repository: China (~2500 BC) vs Korea (same)
Tied
* Since the Xia Dynasty (~2100 BC to ~1600 BC) is now considered semi-mythical, as per Kaiser Kuo's answer, I left it out of this comparison, to be fair.
** the oldest archaeological evidence of human presence in "China" is 8500 BC and the oldest for "Korea" is 8000 BC
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