Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

China’S Military Intervention in Korea:: Its Origins and Objectives
China’S Military Intervention in Korea:: Its Origins and Objectives
China’S Military Intervention in Korea:: Its Origins and Objectives
Ebook599 pages7 hours

China’S Military Intervention in Korea:: Its Origins and Objectives

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

This study examines how and why Chinas military intervention in the Korean War came into existence within the time span from May 1949 to July 1951.

China was involved in the war preparations much earlier and deeper than was previously known. Beijings preconditions to enter the war boiled down to three: (1) its full control of China; (2) foreign enemy forces invasion of North Korea; and (3) Moscows logistic and air support. Beijing had incorrectly calculated that Washington would dispatch only Japanese field forces to Korea, which is the very reason underlying its inadequate though early preparations for the war, while it had correctly calculated that Washington would not invade China proper via Korea before it entered the war. Expecting an enemy troops landing at Inchon followed by their invasion of North Korea, Beijing planned to ambush them in northern North Korea. It therefore failed to dispatch a symbolic force into Korea to give credibility to diplomatic deterrence against Washingtons possible invasion of North Korea.

China developed ten prime interventionist goals as follows: (1) to save North Korea; (2) to dispel Stalins suspicions and to pay Maos political debt owed to Stalin in 1941 and 1942; (3) to have the PLA experienced in modern warfare; (4) to have the PLA modernized with Soviet weaponry; (5) to have its economy revitalized with overall Soviet assistance; (6) to enter the United Nations; (7) to exchange South Korean territories for an American withdrawal from Taiwan; (8) to have Nationalist forces in Taiwan; (9) to defuse an American retaliatory or nuclear attach upon China proper; and (10) to have North Korea and South Korea almost return to the status quo ante bellum.

It was Maos de facto dependence upon rather than his alleged independence from Stalin that had made him rise to power in 1949. This Soviet reign turned out to be considerably more decisive than the American threat in driving China into the war in 1950.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 12, 2015
ISBN9781490738611
China’S Military Intervention in Korea:: Its Origins and Objectives

Related to China’S Military Intervention in Korea:

Related ebooks

Asian History For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for China’S Military Intervention in Korea:

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    China’S Military Intervention in Korea: - Dr. David Tsui

    © Copyright 2015 Dr. David Tsui Also known as Yerong Xu.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

    China’s Military Intervention in Korea:

    Its Origins and Objectives

    The right of C.W. David Tsui to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988.

    Condition of sale

    This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

    isbn: 978-1-4907-3862-8 (sc)

    isbn: 978-1-4907-3863-5 (hc)

    isbn: 978-1-4907-3861-1 (e)

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2014910233

    Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

    Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

    and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

    Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

    Trafford rev. 03/09/2015

    33164.png www.trafford.com

    North America & international

    toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

    fax: 812 355 4082

    Contents

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    ABBREVIATIONS

    LIST OF SELECTIVE INTERVIEWEES

    MAPS

    1 Map of the PRC

    2. Operational Routes of the Korean War: 25 October to 27 July, 1953

    FOREWORD I

    FOREWORD II

    INTRODUCTION

    0.1 Part One

    0.2 Part Two

    PART I THE PRELUDE TO THE DECISION TO INTERVENE

    CHAPTER 1

    MOSCOW AND BEIJING RECEIVE PYONGYANG’S APPEALS, JANUARY-DECEMBER 1949

    1.1 Introduction

    1.2 Stalin twice rejects Kim’s proposal

    1.3 Mao offers Kim future backing

    1.4 Explaining Mao’s offer of future backing

    1.5 Mao expects only Japanese ground troops in Korea

    1.6 Summary

    PART II PREPARATIONS FOR THE INTERVENTION

    CHAPTER 2

    MOSCOW AND BEIJING APPROVE PYONGYANG’S PROPOSAL, JANUARY-JUNE 1950

    2.1 Introduction

    2.2 Stalin and Mao discuss Kim’s proposal

    2.3 Stalin approves Kim’s approval

    2.4 Mao underwrites Kim’s proposal

    2.5 Explaining Mao’s compliance with Stalin’s request to back Kim

    2.6 Summary

    CHAPTER 3

    PREPARATIONS FOR THE INTERVENTION, JANUARY-SEPTEMBER 1950

    3.1 Introduction

    3.2 Amassing seven divisions in Northeast China in early 1950

    3.3 Beijing knows in advance the war will erupt in late June

    3.4 Stalin pledges limited air cover

    3.5 Amassing nine more divisions in Northeast China in July-August 1950

    3.6 Activating the intelligence work on Korea

    3.7 Intensifying war preparations and fixing the war budget

    3.8 Beijing expects and plans to exploit a UNC landing

    3.9 Beijing’s strategic response to the Inchon landing

    3.10 Summary

    CHAPTER 4

    DIPLOMACY FOR A NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT, JUNE-OCTOBER 1950

    4.1 Introduction

    4.2 Trying to trade non-intervention for the UN membership

    4.3 Diplomatic efforts to bring forth the PRC’s representation in the UN

    4.4 Warning Washington to halt at the 38th parallel

    4.5 Military deceptions compromise diplomatic efforts

    4.6 Summary

    PART III THE EXECUTION OF THE DECISION TO INTERVENE

    CHAPTER 5

    THE DECISION TO INTERVENE COMES INTO EFFECT, 1-19 OCTOBER 1950

    5.1 Introduction

    5.2 Kim appeals for the Chinese armed intervention

    5.3 Beijing fixes the date to intervene

    5.4 Mao withholds cabling decisions to Stalin

    5.5 Beijing believes in no US invasion of China

    5.6 Peng accepts the assignment as the CPVA’s commander

    5.7 Mao issues the order to intervene

    5.8 Mao wants to ensure more assistance from Stalin

    5.9 Stalin delays dispatching the Soviet air force

    5.10 The CPVA crosses the Yalu River

    5.11 Summary

    CHAPTER 6

    CHINA’S INTERVENTIONIST GOALS IN KOREA, OCTOBER 1950-JULY 1951

    6.1 Introduction

    6.2 Holding some DPRK territory (The CPVR’s First and Second Campaigns)

    6.3 Recovering the whole of the DPRK (The CPVA’s Second Campaign)

    6.4 Crossing’ the 38th parallel so as to placate Stalin (The CPVA’s Third Campaign)

    6.5 Liberating the whole of Korea (The CPVA’s Third and Fourth Campaigns)

    6.6 Securing time for the arrival of reinforcements (The CPVA’s Fourth Campaign)

    6.7 Defusing a US retaliatory or nuclear attack upon China proper

    6.8 Wearing down the effective strength of the UNC

    6.9 Regaining the military initiative (The CPVA’s Fifth Campaign)

    6.10 Returning to the status quo ante bellum

    6.11 Modernising the PLA with Soviet weaponry

    6.12 Deterring domestic disturbances

    6.13 China stabilises its interventionist objectives

    6.14 Summary

    CHAPTER 7

    DIPLOMACY FOR A NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT, OCTOBER 1950-JULY 1951

    7.1 Introduction

    7.2 Conceiving a minimum position for negotiations

    7.3 Rejecting the second UN invitation

    7.4 Insisting on four harsh preconditions

    7.5 Mao’s disagreement with an immediate cease-fire

    7.6 An opportunity to regain Taiwan is lost

    7.7 Linking Taiwan with Korea to facilitate the Chinese armed intervention

    7.8 Attempting to capture more space before starting peace talks

    7.9 The aim of restoring the status quo ante bellum

    7.10 Summary

    CONCLUSION

    8.1 China’s roles in the origins of the Korean War

    8.2 The objectives of China’s military intervention in Korea

    8.3 Briefly Appraising China’s participation in the Korean War

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Titles of Chinese language journals

    Chinese language sources

    English language sources

    ENDNOTES

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    This study is dedicated with love to my parents and my son Tai with his wife Velda.

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    This book is the product of not only my strenuous researching, but also many invaluable sources of support. Prof. Rosemary Foot of St. Antony’s College of Oxford University, had read, commented, and corrected the manuscript word by word for several times. My respected teacher at Harvard University during 1983-1984 who first introduced me to the Western scholarship, Prof. Ezra F. Vogel, kindly read it and encouraged me to publish it. For years, three relatives of mine of distinguished entrepreneurship, Mr. Yu Kwok Chun, Mr. Lee Yun Kee and Mr. Zhang Guoqiang, financed my enterprise and undertaking in Hong Kong so that they could sustain my family and my doctoral training during the 1990s. Fourthly, two scholarships offered by the Hong Kong based Legal Education Trust Fund Scholarship, and Goldlion (Far East) Ltd. respectively afforded my first year’s overall expense at Oxford, and the American Citibank offered me a full scholarship for the third year. The Korean Foundation Fellowship facilitated my trip to Seoul in July-September 1993, where I attained one of the most valuable source materials for this study. The Korean Research Institute for Strategy (KRIS) headed by Ret. Brigadier General Hong Seong-tae provided three grants to partially cover my research expenses.

    After I was released from Guangzhou Prison in mid-2011, the Armstrong Foundation of St. Antony’s College of Oxford University jointly with a number of anonymous donors offered me a one-year visiting fellowship which was facilitated mainly by Profs. Steve Tsang (now professor in Nottingham University), Rosemary Foot, and Adam Roberts (now president of the British Academy); my friends Zhang Guoqiang, Deng Zhiduan, He Bingshi, Lei Jianguo, He Zhicheng, Fu Xiaolu, Yao Renjie, Lai Xinping, Wen Suya, Wen Xiaoyu, He Rukang, Huang Xiaoliang and the Independent Chinese PEN granted me salvage chargers, residence and a Prize for Writers in Prison of 2009 respectively, tiding me over the immediate post-jail period. To these people and institutes, I owe more than I can express in words.

    Many people or institutes have offered me, or helped me collect, source materials recently released or discovered in China and the former Soviet Union. I would like to record my indebtedness to: Baik Joo-hyeon, Chen Jian, Chen Xiaolu, Chen Zhonglong, Ding Ninghong, Rosemary Foot, Fu Guobing, He Di, Hong Sung-tae, Liao Xuanli, Qi Dexue, Song Xinning, Tian Pei, Wu Jiyun, Xue Litai, Yang Kuisong, Yang Zhaoquan, Yao Renjie, Yuan Ming, Zhang Xiaojin, and Zhuang Zhuxia; the American Library of Hong Kong, the Bodleian Library of Oxford University, the Centre of Materials Excerpted from Books and Newspapers under the People’s University of China, the Cold War International History Project under the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Washington, D.C., the Congress Library of the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Foreign Ministry of the ROK, and the KRIS. Most of my Chinese interviewees, now all dead, deserve great credit for their cooperation in unraveling inside stories from the CCP or the PLA side. The names and positions of some of them who have been quoted in this study can be found in the List of Selective Interviewees below. Other interviewees’ names and positions can be found in the synopses for the photos taken to mark some of the interviews also below. I have derived much enlightenment from discussing various aspects of this subject with the following: Baik Joo-hyeon, Chai Chengwen, Chen Jian, Chen Xiaolu, Chen Zhonglong, Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Hao Yufan, He Di, Heng Xueming, Hong Sung-tae, Hwang Pyong-mu, Jiang Jiannong, Li Haiwen, Alexandre Y. Mansourov, Meng Zhaohui, Qi Dexue, Qu Aiguo, Ren Donlai, Shen Zhihua, Shi Ze, Shi Zhe, Wang Hanming, Kathryn Weathersby, Odd Arne Westad, Wu Ruilin, Xu Yan, Xue Litai, Yang Kuisong, Yang Zhaoquan, Yao Xu, Yuan Ming, Zhai Qiang, Zhai Zhihai, Zhang Shuguang, Zhang Yongmei, and, more importantly, in June 2013, Prof. Ezra F. Vogel, and Prof. Chen Jian again.

    I am greatly honoured by and deeply grateful to two foreword-writers of this book, i.e. Professor Vogel of Harvard University and Brigadier General Retired from Korean Army Hong Seong-Tae.

    Finally, I owe profound gratitude to my family members who patiently endured my endless preoccupation with this and other academic pursuits.

    P.S. To the numerous officials, personages, media and organisations all over the world who had come forward boldly to lend their voices for or tried in every possible way to save me in jail, I will list their names one by one with high adoration in Annex I of this book, so as to show that they are engraved on my heart forever.

    ABBREVIATIONS

    LIST OF SELECTIVE INTERVIEWEES

    MAPS

    1 Map of the PRC

    158424176.jpg

    2. Operational Routes of the Korean War: 25 October to 27 July, 1953

    89897740.jpg

    FOREWORD I

    By Ezra F. Vogel

    David Tsui (Also known as Zerong Xu) here brings new sources to bear to present an overview of China’s roles and goals in the Korean War. He makes extensive usage of written materials, including primary sources in Chinese from 1948 to 2008 (a good many of which are still unknown to the Western academia), as well as secondary scholarship in Chinese and English. In addition to this, David was able in the 1990s to conduct interviews with high level Chinese military officials who had played a role in China’s military preparations for and operations in the Korean War. This special access to these high level officials (many of whom whose photographs with David are included in this volume) was possible because David was not only a child of the barracks (a son of a high Chinese military officer who grew up in a military compound), but also his father was, like most of his interviewees, a member of the Fourth Field Army and had known many of them personally. Now many of these officials are no longer alive. An earlier draft of the material for this volume became David’s D. Ph. thesis for Oxford University where he worked under the direction of Professor Rosemary Foot, a leading scholar of Chinese foreign policy. For the present volume, David has updated his original research by making use of the recent scholarship on the Korean War, which in turn draws on those newly-released primary materials in Russian, Korean, and Chinese that were not available when he conducted his original research.

    From his investigation, David has drawn significant discoveries and excellent inferences. For example, first, Chinese military preparations for the Korean War had begun much earlier and were far more thorough than previous scholarship had shown. Secondly, even while Beijing was undertaking diplomatic efforts in an attempt to dissuade UNC from crossing the 38th parallel, it had begun making mental and physical preparations for entry onto the battlefield in full swing, though confidentially. Thirdly, although Mao was much concerned about repaying his two political debts owed to Stalin and persuading the latter to keep delivering ample assistance to him continuously as a reward to his dispatching the CPVA to Korea, yet in preparing for the possibilities of military action in Korea, Mao was to a large extent acting on his own, not simply on directions from Stalin. Fourthly, some Western as well as Chinese-origin scholars’ acceptance of Mao’s claim that China’s successes in the Korean War was essentially derived from subjective factors was romanticised, not based on reality. Actually from late 1951 to mid-1953 Mao had at his disposal far more troops than the United Nations.

    I first came to know David in 1983-1984 when he was a graduate student at Harvard University while he was a student in a seminar I taught. He had already graduated from Fudan University, one of China’s leading academic institutions, having passed entrance examinations shortly after Deng Xiaoping had re-established entrance examinations in 1977. At the time David passed entrance examination, competition for university admission was especially intense, for youths unable to enter universities for over a decade all competed on the entrance exams. Rather than remain at Harvard, David chose to return first to the Chinese University in Hong Kong and then to go on to Oxford to work toward his D. Ph.

    I saw David several times in the late 1980s while I was doing research in Guangdong and he returned home, for his mother had remained in Guangdong. After the Cultural Revolution she returned to her post as vice Communist Party Secretary in Sun Yat-sen University, in Guangzhou. In 1987 I spent seven months in Guangdong doing research at the invitation of the Economic Commission of Guangdong and made many other visits to Guangdong during this time. As I began preparing my book, One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform (published 1989), David translated some of my early drafts of materials from interviews (that I had conducted in Chinese but recorded in English) back into Chinese to pass to some of my colleagues in China to make sure that I had reportedly accurately on what they had told me. For several years thereafter, I did not see David except for one occasion when I saw him at Oxford when I had been invited to give a lecture there.

    I have always been impressed with David’s seriousness and devotedness as a scholar, but there is a tragic and stoic side of his history. His father, an intellectual in the Chinese military, was one of the first in Guangdong to become a victim; David was 16 when his father, then Vice Commissar of the Provincial Military Command of Guangdong, died. In 2000 David was arrested in Guangdong for illegal possession of state secrets and for passing them on to overseas organs. He was sentenced to prison for 13 years but was released in 2011, after his sentence was reduced for two years. While David was in prison, Profs. Rosemary Foot and Steve Tsang collected letters from scholars appealing for his early release. John Kamm of the Duihua Foundation wrote many appeals for David’s early release, and working through John Kamm, I also wrote letters on David’s behalf.

    For many of the years while he was in prison, David was allowed to write in long-hand and to read books. As a result, David was able to continue scholarly writing during his years in jail and worked on four books, including a work negating the Marxian Labour Theory of Value with its practice in China. After he was released from jail, David returned to Oxford, this time as a visiting fellow. There he was able to resume his contacts with the scholarly world. Since leaving prison, he has been able to update his original study as mentioned in the opening paragraph of this foreword. The result is an authoritative and coherent study that enhances our understanding of the origins and objectives of China’s military intervention in the Korean War.

    July 2013

    Note:

    Ezra Feivel Vogel is a Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University and has written on Japan, China, and Asia. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1950 and received his Ph.D. from the Department of Social Relations in 1958 from Harvard University. He then went to Japan for two years to study the Japanese language and conduct research interviews with middle-class families. In 1960-1961 he was assistant professor at Yale University and from 1961-1964 a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard, studying Chinese language and history. He remained at Harvard, becoming lecturer in 1964 and, in 1967, professor. He retired from teaching on June 30, 2000. Since retirement he has published a book on Deng Xiaoping and his era. Vogel succeeded John Fairbank to become the second Director (1972-1977) of Harvard’s East Asian Research Centre and Second Chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies (1977-1980). He was Director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at the Centre for International Affairs (1980-1987) and, since 1987, Honorary Director. He was Chairman of the undergraduate concentration in East Asian Studies from its inception in 1972 until 1991. He was Director of the Fairbank Centre for East Asian Studies during 1973-1975 and 1995-1999. He was the first Director of the Asia Centre (1997-1999). From 1993 to 1995, Vogel took a two year leave from teaching and served as U.S. National Intelligence Officer for East Asia. The followings are his selected works:

    A Modern Introduction to the Family (1960), with Norman W. Bell

    Japan’s New Middle Class: The Salary Man and his Family in a Tokyo Suburb (1963)

    Canton under Communism; Programs and Politics in a Provincial Capital, 1949-1968 (1969)

    Modern Japanese Organization and Decision-making (1975)

    Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (1979)

    Comeback, Case by Case : Building the Resurgence of American Business (1985)

    Ideology and National Competitiveness: An Analysis of Nine Countries (1987)

    One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform. (1989)

    Chinese Society on the Eve of Tiananmen: The Impact of Reform. (1990), with Deborah Davis

    The Four Little Dragons: the Spread of Industrialization in East Asia (1991)

    Living with China: U.S./China Relations in the Twenty-First Century. (1997)

    Is Japan Still Number One? (2000)

    The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle, 1972-1989 (2002), with Ming Yuan and Akihiko Tanaka

    China at War : Regions of China, 1937-1945 (2007), with Stephen R. Mackinnon, Diana Lary

    Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011), ISBN 978-0-674-05544-5

    The Park Chung Hee Era : The Transformation of South Korea (2011), ISBN 9780674058200

    FOREWORD II

    By Hong Seong-tae

    In this book, Dr. David Tsui (Zerong Xu) used almost all of the Chinese and Soviet materials already available, including those recently declassified, to analyse the roles and goals of China’s participation in the Korean War, from a perspective far from being in the same breath with that of the Chinese authorities and the mainstream Korean War studies both.

    For example, the latter mostly agree that China participated in the war because America had posed a threat to its security. The author, however, concludes that the war being virtually the result of a tripartite collaboration among Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing, the most decisive cause for Beijing’s participation is that it must for itself respond to the request of Moscow, with the understanding that Washington would not invade China proper.

    Very unusual are the contents of the interviews conducted by Dr. Tsui to get primary source materials for his work. High-ranking P LA officers who had participated in the war and Mr. Shi Zhe, then Chinese interpreter during the PRC-USSR Summit talks in Moscow had allowed the interview. The wife of Mr. Gao Gang, then top leader of Northeast China, and Gao’s chief security officer, are among the interviewees too. Some of their remarks contain important and astonishing information.

    I met Dr. Tsui, the author of this book, for the first time in the autumn of 1994 when he visited Seoul on his research tour for this book. I was deeply impressed by his serious passion for naked truth. We started exchanging research materials for the war, and the continuation of such a communication has formed a strong bond between us, despite the age gap between we two.

    Having read Dr. Tsui’s book draft repeatedly, I am deeply impressed with its broad references and unique insights. The extensive range of documents and literatures used by the author, the high quality of the interviews conductive to bring out new interpretations of the war facts, and the logical connections between descriptions and interpretations, all of these convince me that Dr. Tsui’s book was truly a great work.

    Surely Dr. Tsui’s book will stir up animated discussions, yet without any doubt, it will serve as an outstanding reference for all the ones who are more interested in a balanced analysis of the Korean War.

    January 2013

    Note:

    Hong Seong-tae, a Brigadier General retired from the Korean Army, is presently Chairman of the KRIS, and used to be the President of it. He graduated from the Korean Military Academy in 1958, receiving his B.A. and M.A. from the National University in Seoul, graduated from the Führungs Akademy of Germany in 1971, and took the strategic study courses in the National Defense University of Korea. He worked as head of the Policy Division in the Planning Bureau of the National Defense Ministry from 1980 to 1982, and the Dean of the Korean Army Staff College during 1985-1987 after he served as a commander of the 1st Armoured Brigade in the Korean Army from 1981 to 1983. With military affairs of contemporary China as his research area, his major books include: Study on the CPVA Operations in the Korean War, Analyses on the Operational Conducts in the Korean War, and Studies on the Maneuver Warfare in the Korean War.

    INTRODUCTION

    0.1 Part One

    This book was basically completed in St. Antony’s College of Oxford University on 16 November 1998. Some publishers asked me to cut it shorter, from then nearly 126,500 (including Annex I and II nearly 9,000 words) to 100,000 and even 80,000 words. I was reluctant to do so, because I had collected almost all bibliographically significant Chinese source materials appeared from 1948 to 1998 (for example, those public articles carried by Shijie Zhishi [Knowledge about the World] and Xinhua Yuebao [New China Monthly Report] from 1950 to 1951, which had been long overlooked by Western scholars), cutting the book short to such an extent would eliminate a crucial part of them, and otherwise keeping them basically intact would greatly benefit those Western scholars who are also familiar with Chinese in the Korean War studies. One of the reasons for its being nearly 126,500 words long is that it gives its Chinese sources out bilingually, i.e. both in English and in mainland Chinese Pinyin.

    Hardly had I begun to ponder reducing the length of the book, however, when I was arrested by the China’s National Security Department on 23 June 2000. I was sentenced to imprisonment for 13 years and deprived of the political rights for 3 years by the Higher People’s Court of Guangdong Province on 18 November 2002, due to the crime of illegal provision of State secrets, i.e. a Chinese source material collected by me for this study "Zhongguo Renmin Zhiyuanjun Kang-Mei-yuan-Chao Zhanzheng Jingyan Zongjie Bianxie Weiyuanhui [The Compiling Committee on the Summary of the Experience Gained by the CPVA during the War of RAAK], ed. A Summary of the experience gained during the War of RAAK. 4 vols. consisting of 5 books. No publishing place and house, 1956", to overseas organs, and the crime of illegal business operations, i.e. printing academic books in the PRC without administrative permission in advance. Inevitably, the publication of the book could not be carried on against the Chinese penal code. However, people could reason out whether I should be held culpable or not. I was finally released on 23 June 2011 with a commutation of sentence for 2 years. St. Antony’s College of Oxford University immediately offered me a visiting fellowship effective from October 2011 to September 2012. Although more than one decade had passed since its original completion, yet at Oxford I found that the study is not at all obsolete. First, on the contrary, a good many of its unprecedentedly-released source materials in general and its unprecedentedly-summarised judgments and inferences have remained largely unknown or blurred to both the academia and the public, especially to its Western part, which is surprisingly beyond my expectation in jail. As a result, I made a decision to submit the book largely in its original form to the present publisher during 2013. Although Prof. Shen Zhihua of East China Normal University has compiled a documentary book entitled The Korean War: Archives from Russia which seemingly could be downloaded free from the website under the name of Shen Zhihua, yet the translation arranged by me from Korean to Chinese of The abstract for the Korean War documents, January 1949-August 1953 compiled by Dr. Baik Joo-hyeon and his colleagues in the East European Division of the ROK Foreign Ministry in 1994 can be seen as an essential of the Russian archives of the Korean War. The latter is adequate for the present study on China’s roles and goals in the Korean War both in quantity and quality terms. Prof. Shen once tried to play down the significance of it by saying that it is ideologically-biased. Are those Chinese and Russian source materials not ideologically-biased? Could such biases nullify their carriers’ scholarly value?

    Moreover, it is said that among a dozen of books on the Korean War published by the writers of mainland-Chinese origin but living in the West or Japan, the Korean Research Institute for Strategy (KRIS. kris007@chol.com) had taken precedence in translating my book into Korean and published it in December of 2011 even without deletion, anticipating the book’s English version. This fact may well stand for collateral evidence indicating that the book’s far from being obsolete. In his letter to me written on October 20, 2011, the Chairman of the KRIS, Brigadier General (Ret.) Seong Tae Hong, says:

    I have read your dissertation for many times and made sure that it is an outstanding scholarly achievement. It is certainly a masterpiece with a newly appraised history, and a logical framework which has drawn out the conclusion through extensive research including high-quality interviews. I sighed for your misfortune despite this scholarly achievement, which reminds me of the phrase 怀璧有罪" from 《礼记》.

    The translation of your dissertation has been completed by the KRIS and it has been planned to be published as soon as you are discharged, even though many years have passed.

    The main objective for the publication is to make your masterpiece widely known among the public because there are still many intellectuals who don’t know about the true motivations of China’s military intervention in the Korean War, and some even have wrong ideas about it.

    If it’s possible, I would like to invite you next year to present your perspectives at the 2012 KRIS International Conference during your stay in Seoul…"

    From these comments, both the academia and the public may come to realise that it might be this book of mine that would make most of the cognate books obsolete rather than vice versa. The more newly-released source materials including Russian archives they used, the more blind they become in asserting that China was compelled to join in the Korean War. Was China compelled to join the First Vietnam War against the French and the Second Vietnam War against the Americans? Was China compelled to support and train the Communist insurgents in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines? Was Pol Pot supported by Mao himself compelled to kill his fellow countrymen? Having said so, however, I must state immediately that I am not against China’s military intervention in the Korean War, which will be explained in the book’s Conclusion.

    New additions into the book’s English version after my being released from jail count up to several dozens of paragraphs or sentences, whose newness are stated clearly right away, and one set of invaluable photographs taken to mark the interviews. To publish my book much in its original form has another scholarly necessity in its indication that using almost synchronously (from 1988 to 1998) emerged Chinese, English, and Russian source materials, I nevertheless could draw judgments and inferences about the origins and objectives of the Chinese military intervention in Korea very different from those put out by most of those Western-educated scholars of mainland-Chinese origin. For example, I argue unprecedentedly that, first, it was Mao’s de facto dependence upon rather than his alleged independence from Stalin that had made him rise to power in 1949; and with no alternative proved available, this dependence would remain much to be his desire after 1949. This Soviet rein turned out to be considerably more decisive than the American threat in driving China into the war in 1950. Secondly, Beijing had incorrectly calculated that Washington would dispatch only Japanese field forces to Korea, which is the very reason underlying its inadequate though early preparations for the war. More recently released Chinese and Russian source materials after my being arrested have further justified my conclusions rather than theirs. It would be very unfair to them if I had used the later-released source materials to argue with them using early-released source materials. Obviously, the Western - including Japanese - China studies circles as a whole should learn a lesson from this significant disagreement more profoundly if my book is published largely maintaining its original form. This lesson implies how difficult it would be for even Western-educated scholars of mainland Chinese origin to get rid of the shadow shed by the Moaist subtle falsehood in historical descriptions and interpretations. Of course, I have planned to write a new book China’s military intervention in the Korea War revisited so as to reflect the new development of the Korean War studies after 1998. Right now, I just have no time and energy to re-write my book since I have no choice but concentrating on revising and publishing my four jail-written new books, which would at least takes two or three years of time.

    Since there has been a widespread prediction foretelling that China might intend to conspire North Korea to initiate a second Korean War against the United States in the height of a possible Sino-Western military confrontation—some may argue that a vice versa situation might be also possible, it is believed that this historical study published in time is very much worth to be read by the public in general and the statesmen, servicemen, scholars, media people and businessmen in particular concerned on both sides. The Chinese Pinyin and English titles of such a case which can be found on a Chinese website (http://space.aboluowang.com/16646/viewspace-12422) are:

    Being the most courageous to be corrupted and to be defeated among armed forces all over the world, the PLA can fight tough battles in no circumstances.

    It is hoped that the predicted second Korean War would be largely prevented by the publication of one of my jail-written books entitled The erroneous abstractions at the heart of Marxism: A negation of the Marxian Labour Theory of Value with its practice in China, which probably will be translated from Chinese into English in 2014. It is believed that the book has the unprecedented strength of science to eliminate the ideologically-dominant status of Marxism in the remaining Communist countries, just like taking away the firewood from under the caldron. However, the book is theoretically rather than politically revolutionary, since it just tries to persuade rather than overthrow the CCP leadership.

    0.2 Part Two

    The Korean War was the major hot war fought during the Cold War among the ideologically-opposed Great Powers which included not only the United States of America (USA) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but also the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the United Kingdom, and France. China managed to fight to stalemate the United Nations Command (UNC) in Korea. That this military balance could be achieved has marked China’s re-emergence as a great power in the world after two centuries of relative weakness. The armed conflict left millions of Koreans dead or wounded tens of thousands of their families separated, and their country still divided. The bitter animosity between the North and South born out of the war has intermittently threatened the peace on the Korean Peninsula as well as in East Asia more broadly. Some believed that the threat brought about by this animosity was once even broader to include the possibility of a third world war. Needless to say, such an important contest between the Great Powers grouped in opposing camps warrants close scholarly attention.

    The emphasis of this study rests on China’s roles in the origins of the Korean War and the goals of China’s military intervention in Korea, or, in short, how and why China came to be involved in the war between the time span of May 1949, when Kim Il-sung, then Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and Premier of the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), first solicited approval for his proposal to reunify Korea by force from Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), after he had done the same on Joseph Stalin, then Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and July 1951, when the two belligerent parties, that is, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) together with the Korean People’s Army (KPA), and the UNC, began to hold armistice negotiations.

    Kim’s first solicitation of Mao’s approval in May 1949 thus started the preliminary stage of China’s decision to intervene in Korea by force. Mao’s official approval of Kim’s proposal in May 1950 marked the beginning of the confirmative stage of that decision. The latter formally came to a close on 19 October 1950, when the CPVA was ordered to cross the Yalu River, which opened the executive stage of that decision. However, since there were some interventionist objectives relevant to the first two stages which only became apparent months after, that date, that is, during the first phase of the executive stage, it is necessary to cover these months characterised by mobile warfare until the commencement of the armistice negotiations on 10 July 1951. Even after the negotiations began, the fighting continued for two more years, during which time China remained an active belligerent and developed new interventionist goals. However, the focus here will be on those most crucial decisions and goals in the preliminary and confirmative stages, and the mobile warfare phase of the executive stage.

    Prior to the early 1980s, to answer how and why China came to be involved in the war was not an easy one due to the scarcity of source materials originating from the Communist side. Many scholarly studies on the war, both outside and inside mainland China involved assessments based on contemporary public sources. Consequently, they were incomplete and inconclusive.¹

    The story behind how and why China came to be involved in the violent strife therefore remained very much an untold one, even several decades after the war had ended.

    The situation began to change, however, in the early 1980s, when many more source materials on the war originating first from China, then from the former Soviet Union gradually became available to scholars and the wider public. Although a fuller picture of these source materials will be presented in the Bibliography of this study, yet it is necessary to brief the readers at the outset on the most representative ones among them so that they will have an idea of the contours of these source materials before getting into this study’s main text.

    The primary source materials originating from China can be divided into seven categories as follows. Attention: when first quoting a book or an article, this study will mark the quotation source in an abbreviated form, while quoting them since the second time, in a further abbreviated form. Readers could easily match the two forms for a same quotation source, and find their unabbreviated forms in this book’s Bibliography, except for those very long Chinese news reports’ titles.

    (1) Government archival, such as those re-printed in Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao [Mao Zedong’s manuscripts since the founding of the state], Vols.I and II (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 1987); Jianguo yilai Liu Shaoqi wengao [Liu Shaoqi’s manuscripts since the founding of the state], Vols.I, II and III (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2005); Jianguo yilai Zhou Enlai wengao [Zhou Enlai’s manuscripts since the founding of the state]. Vols.I, II and III (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2008); Zhou Enlai junshi wenxuan [Selected military works of Zhou Enlai], chief ed. Liu Wusheng, Vol.IV (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1997); Deng Lifeng (ed.), Xin Zhongguo junshi huodong jishi, 1949-1959 [A factual record of the New China’s military affairs] (Beijing: Zhong-Gong Dangshi ziliao Chubanshe, 1989); Zhou Enlai waijiao wenxuan [Selected diplomatic works of Zhou Enlai], eds. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Waijiaobu and Zhong-Gong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 1990); Mao Zedong junshi wenji [Collected military works of Mao Zedong], eds. Zhong-Gong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi and Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Junshi Kexueyuan (Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe and Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 1993), Vols.I, II, V, VI; and Mao Zedong waijiao wenxuan [Selected diplomatic works of Mao

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1