Abstract
After World War II, Northeast Asians soon found themselves returned to civil wars or struggling for national unification and independence. As the result of their incomplete civil struggles, the governments of the DPRK (North Korea) and ROK (South Korea) were founded in 1948, and the PRC (People’s Republic of China) in 1949. After his visit with Stalin, Mao realized that Moscow would not send the Russian army to defend Northeast Asia or fight the UNF in the Korean War. He developed a new self-reliant, China-centric defense for the newly founded republic, in the spring of 1950. When the PRC perceived the United States as an immediate threat and the most powerful military in the postwar world, Mao deployed the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) against a possible UNF invasion.
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Notes
- 1.
After receiving Rochshin’s telegram to Moscow, Stalin confirmed Chinese leaders’ concerns of a possible UNF invasion of North Korea. In his telegram to Zhou Enlai on July 5, 1950, Stalin agreed, “We consider it correct to concentrate immediately 9 Chinese divisions on the Chinese-Korean border for volunteer actions in North Korea in case the enemy crosses the 38th Parallel. We will try to provide air cover for these units.” “Filippov (Stalin) to Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai (via Soviet ambassador to the PRC N. V. Rochshin),” Ciphered telegram No. 3172, Archives of the President of the Russian Federation (hereafter APRF), Fond 45, Opis 1, Delo 331, List 79, in “New Russian Documents on the Korean War,” Kathryn Weathersby trans. and ed., in Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC), Bulletin: Cold War International History Project 6–7 (Winter 1995/1996): 43.
- 2.
“The CMC National Defense Report to Mao Zedong from Nie Rongzhen, July 7, 1950,” Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 428; Mao’s Military Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 159, n1; Shuguang Zhang and Jian Chen, eds., Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia: New Documentary Evidence, 1944–1950 (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1996), 156; Nie, “Beijing’s Decision to Intervene,” 39–40.
- 3.
According to the CMC order, the main task of the NEBDA was “to defend the borders of the Northeast.” For more details, see Zhang and Chen, trans. and eds., Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia, 156n16; Chen, China’s Road to the Korean War, 135–37.
- 4.
Bo Yibo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu [Recollections of Certain Important Decisions and Events] (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe [CCP Central Party Academy Press], 1991), 1: 43.
- 5.
The CMC document, drafted by Mao, “CMC Telegram to Gao Gang, August 5, 1950,” trans. and eds. Xiaobing Li, Xi Wang, and Chen Jian, “Mao’s Dispatch of Chinese Troops to Korea: Forty-six Telegrams, July–October 1950,” Chinese Historians 5, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 64; Zhang and Chen, Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia, 157.
- 6.
Mao, “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War,” in Selected Works of Mao, 1: 206, 207.
- 7.
Liu, A Partnership for Disorder, 301.
- 8.
Michael J. Seth, A Concise History of Modern Korea: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 83–84.
- 9.
Ilya V. Gaiduk, “The Second Front of the Soviet Cold War: Asia in the System of Moscow’s Foreign Policy Priorities, 1945–1956,” in The Cold War in East Asia , 1945–1991, ed. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 65, 68.
- 10.
Xiang, Recasting the Imperial Far East, 30–31.
- 11.
General Jiang Weiguo (Chiang Wei-kuo) (GMD Army, ret.), son of Jiang Jieshi, and adoptive brother of Jiang Jingguo (Jiang Ching-kuo), president of the ROC from 1978–1988, interview by the author at Rongzong [Glory’s General] Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 25–27, 1994.
- 12.
See Mao’s telegrams on August 20, October 24–25, and November 2, 1945, in Collected Military Works of Mao, 3: 45–46, 78–79, 82–83, 117–18.
- 13.
War History Division, National Defense University (NDU), Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi jianbian [A Brief History of the PLA Revolutionary War] (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 2001), 542.
- 14.
Westad, Decisive Encounters, 107.
- 15.
War History Division, NDU, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi jianbian [A Brief History of the PLA Revolutionary War], 566.
- 16.
Military History Research Division, PLA Academy of Military Science (AMS), Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun quanguo jiefang zhanzhengshi [History of the PLA in the Civil War] (Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe [Military Science Press], 1997), 3: 1–3.
- 17.
Qian, Jundui zuzhi bianzhixue jiaocheng [CAMS Graduate School Curriculum: Military Organization and Formation], 40.
- 18.
Military History Research Division, PLA-AMS, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun quanguo jiefang zhanzhengshi [History of the PLA in the Civil War], 5: 146–211; Military History Research Division, PLA-AMS, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun de qishinian, 1927–1997 [The Seventy Years of the PLA, 1927–1997], 357.
- 19.
General Zhang Aiping, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun [The Chinese People’s Liberation Army] (Beijing: Dangdai zhongguo chubanshe [Contemporary China Press], 1994), 1: 63.
- 20.
Mao’s Telegram to Lin Biao, October 31, 1949, “My Suggestions on Your Troops Disposition and Battle Array,” Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 107.
- 21.
Defense Ministry, ROC, Guojun houqin shi [Logistics History of the GMD Armed Forces] (Taipei, Taiwan: Guofangbu shizheng bianyiju [Bureau of History and Political Records, Defense Ministry], 1992), 6: 199–200.
- 22.
Mao’s Telegram to Lin, October 31, 1949, Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 106–107. Marshal Lin Biao was one of the most brilliant military leaders of the CCP and the defense minister of the PRC in 1959–1971. He participated in the CCP-led Nanchang Uprising against the Jiang Jieshi government in August 1927. Lin served as a battalion, regiment, and division commander in the CCP Red Army in 1927–1931. He rose quickly through the ranks because of his success in combat and loyalty to Mao Zedong. At the age of twenty-five, Lin became commander of the Red Fourth Army and then the president of the Red Army University. During WWII, Lin commanded the Eighth Route Army’s 115th Division. Then, he was appointed the president of the CCP’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University at Yan’an (Yan-an). At the beginning of the Chinese Civil War, Lin was appointed commander and political commissar of all the CCP forces in the northeast to fight against Jiang’s arriving armies. In November 1948, the CCP reorganized its troops into the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and established four field armies. Lin Biao became the commander of the Fourth Field Army, totaling 800,000 troops. Lin’s successful campaigns against the GMD forces brought about an early victory for the CCP in the Civil War and made him one of the top CCP leaders. Lin Biao became one of the ten marshals in the PLA in 1955, and China’s defense minister in 1959–1971. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Lin became the second most powerful leader in the country, next to Mao, who made Lin his successor in 1969. Two years later, however, Lin was accused of leading a military clique against Mao, and Lin and his family members were killed in a plane crash in Mongolia on September 13, 1971. See Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jiangshuai minglu [Marshals and Generals of the PLA] (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 1992), 1: 10–11.
- 23.
Mao’s Telegram to Lin, Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 107.
- 24.
He Di, “The Last Campaign to Unify China: The CCP’s Unrealized Plan to Liberate Taiwan, 1949–1950,” in Chinese Warfighting: the PLA Experience since 1949, eds. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2003), 82–84; Li, A History of the Modern Chinese Army (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 76.
- 25.
Xiaobing Li, “How to Train the Dragon: Soviet Advisors and Assistance to the Chinese Navy, 1949–1960,” in Naval Advising and Assistance: History, Challenges, and Analysis, eds. Donald Stoker and Michael T. McMaster (West Midlands, UK: Helion, 2017), 226.
- 26.
Lieutenant General Wu Ruilin, Kangmei yuanchao zhong de 42 jun [The Forty-second Army in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea] (Beijing: Jincheng chubanshe [Golden City Publishing], 1995), 6–7. Lt. Gen. Wu was the commander of the Forty-second Army of the CPVF in the Korean War from 1950–1953. See Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jiangshuai minglu [Marshals and Generals of the PLA], 1: 296–97; Tan Zheng, Zhongguo renmin zhiyuanjun renwulu [Veterans Profile of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Force] (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe [CCP Party History Press], 1992), 297–98. See also Yang and Wang, Beiwei 38 duxian [The North Latitude 38th Parallel], 45.
- 27.
Xiaobing Li, “PLA Attacks and Amphibious Operations during the Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954–55 and 1958,” in Chinese Warfighting: the PLA Experience since 1949, eds. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2003), 148.
- 28.
CMC document, drafted by Mao, “Circular on the Lesson of Jinmen Battle, October 29, 1949,” Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 101.
- 29.
General Ye Fei, Ye Fei huiyilu [Memoirs of Ye Fei] (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 1988), 608; the author’s interview of the staff member of the Tenth Army Group HQs at Hangzhou, Zhejiang, July 6, 2006. Ye was the commander of the Tenth Army Group in 1949–1955. Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jiangshuai minglu [Marshals and Generals of the PLA], 1: 58–59.
- 30.
Grand General Su Yu participated in the CCP’s Nanchang Uprising and joined the Red Army in 1927. During the Anti-Japanese War of 1937–1945, he led his division to establish the CCP military base in southern provinces. In the Chinese Civil War of 1946–1949, Su became deputy commander of the East China Command in 1947 and then the Third Field Army in 1948–1949. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he served in numerous positions including the chief of the general staff of the PLA. Su Yu made one of the ten grand generals of the PLA in 1955. See Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, ibid., 1: 38–39.
- 31.
Grand General Xiao Jinguang joined the CCP in 1924 when he studied in the Soviet Union in 1921–1924. After his return, he participated in the Northern Expedition in 1926–1927. Xiao studied at Leningrad Military and Political Academy, Soviet Union, in 1927–1930. After his return, he became president of the CCP Central Military and Political Academy, and then served as army commander and political commissar in the Red Army. He participated in the Long March in 1934–1935. During the Anti-Japanese War of 1937–1945, Xiao served as the commander of Shaanxi Garrison Corps of the Eighth Route Army. In the Chinese Civil War of 1946–1949, he became commander and political commissar of the First Army Group and then Twelfth Army Group of the Fourth Field Army. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, Xiao served as commander of Hunan Military Command, PLA Navy, and vice minister of defense. Xiao Jinguang made one of the ten grand generals of the PLA in 1955. See Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, ibid., 1: 30–31;Yang Guoyu, Dangdai Zhongguo haijun [Contemporary Chinese Navy] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe [China Social Sciences Press], 1987), 17.
- 32.
The first group of 89 PLA Air Force pilots graduated from the training schools in May 1950. The PLA Air Force organized its first division in Nanjing with fifty Soviet-made fighters and bombers. Defense Ministry, ROC, Guojun houqin shi [Logistics History of the GMD Armed Forces], 6: 262, 277.
- 33.
Defense Ministry, ROC, ibid., 6: 277.
- 34.
Liu’s report on July 4 and letter on July 6, 1949, to Stalin and Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, in Liu’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 16, 26.
- 35.
“The Minutes of the Meeting between Stalin and Mao on December 16, 1949,” file no. 00255, Government Documents from the Soviet Archives, in the Research Center for the International Cold War History, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; “The Minutes of the Meeting between Stalin and Mao on December 16, 1949,” Dangshi yanjiu ziliao [Research Materials of the Party History] 5 (1998), 4–5.
- 36.
For Mao’s “anger” and “furious” over the “ill-treatments” and his “half prisoner,” see Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine, Mao: The Real Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 369–71; Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, 31–33; Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (New York: Knopf, 2005), 351–53; Short, Mao, 424.
- 37.
During their second meeting on December 24, for example, “Stalin did not mention the treaty at all,” but, instead, mainly discussed with Mao “the activities of the Communist Parties in Asian countries….” The quotation is from Pei Jianzhang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, 1949–1956 [Diplomatic History of the PRC, 1949–1956] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe [World Knowledge Publishing], 1994), 18.
- 38.
Zhou Enlai Military Record Compilation Team, Zhou Enlai junshi huodong jishi [Zhou Enlai Military Affairs Record] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe [CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Press], 2000), 2:117–18.
- 39.
Mao’s conversation with Wang Jifan and Zhou Shizhao in Beijing on October 27, 1950, quoted http://bbs.creaders.net/history/bbsviewer.php?trd_id=1368581
- 40.
CCP Archival and Manuscript Research Division, Zhou Enlai nianpu, 1949–1976 [A Chronological Record of Zhou Enlai, 1949–1976] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe [CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Press], 1997), 1: 23–25.
- 41.
Yang, Dangdai Zhongguo haijun [Contemporary Chinese Navy], 48, 52.
- 42.
Mao’s telegram to Liu Shaoqi, “Approval of Disposing Four Divisions for Landing Campaign, February 10, 1950;” “Mao’s Comments on the Proposal of Attacking Dinghai First, Jinmen Second, March 28, 1950”; and Mao to Su Yu, “Instructions on Paratroops Training,” Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 256–57, 282.
- 43.
Marshal Nie Rongzhen became a Chinese student activist when he studied in Paris, France, in 1919, and he joined the CCP in 1922. He went to the Soviet Union for further education in the military and defense industry in 1924–25. On his return to China, Nie served as secretary and instructor in Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy’s Political Department, where Zhou Enlai was the director. During the Nanchang Uprising on August 1, 1927, he was the CCP representative to the Eleventh Army. With his organizational skills and Soviet military training, Nie became a deputy director of the Political Department in the Chinese Red Army HQ in the late 1920s and political commissar of the Red Army’s First Army Group in the Long March of 1934–1935. During the Anti-Japanese War of 1937–1945, he was the political commissar of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army and commander and political commissar of the North China Military Region. During the Chinese Civil War of 1946–1949, Nie served as the second secretary of the CCP’s Northern China Bureau and commanded the PLA’s Northern Military Region. In 1948–1949, he worked closely with Mao on a daily basis after the communist leadership moved from Yan’an, the remote communist capital in the northwest, to North China, closer to the civil war battlegrounds. Nie successfully protected the CCP HQ and PLA high command by defeating the GMD attacks and personally saved Mao’s life once in an air raid when Mao refused to leave his bedroom for a shelter. Nie’s efforts enabled Mao to achieve his military and political success throughout the war, and Nie became one of Mao’s closest working colleagues and trusted generals. See Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jiangshuai minglu [Marshals and Generals of the PLA], 1: 18–19; Nie Rongzhen Biography Compilation Team, Nie Rongzhen zhuan [Biography of Nie Rongzhen] (Beijing: Dangdai zhongguo chubanshe [Contemporary China Press], 2006), 423–37.
- 44.
Grand General Xiao Jinguang, Xiao Jinguang huiyilu [Memoirs of Xiao Jinguang] (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 1988), 2: 8, 26.
- 45.
He, “The Last Campaign to Unify China,” 82–83.
- 46.
General Jiang Weiguo (Chiang Wei-kuo) (GMD Army), interview by the author at the Rongzong (Glory General) Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 23, 1994. General Jiang recalled that his father Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) and the GMD intelligence had the information on the PLA landing preparation in the spring of 1950.
- 47.
CCP Party History Research Division, Zhongguo gongchandang lishi dashiji, 1919–1987 [Major Historical Events of the CCP, 1919–1987], 191–92.
- 48.
General Ye Fei, interview by the author in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, in July 1996. General Ye served as the commander of the Tenth Army Group, Third Field Army of the PLA in 1949–1951.
- 49.
Mao was very dissatisfied with this and later confided, “They [North Koreans] are our next door neighbor, but they did not consult with us about the outbreak of the war.” Mao’s quote is in Li Haiwen, “When Did the CCP Central Committee Decide to Send the Volunteers to Fight Abroad?” Dang de Wenxian [Party Literature and Archives] 5 (1993): 85, cited from Shen Zhihua “China Sends Troops to Korea: Beijing’s Policy-making Process” in China and the United States; A New Cold War History, eds. Xiaobing Li and Hongshan Li (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998), 20.
- 50.
“The Minutes of the Meeting between Stalin and Mao on December 16, 1949,” file no. 00255, Government Documents from the Soviet Archives, in the Research Center for the International Cold War History, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; “The Minutes of the Meeting between Stalin and Mao on December 16, 1949,” Dangshi yanjiu ziliao [Research Materials of the Party History] 5 (1998).
- 51.
“The Minutes of the Meeting between Stalin and Mao on December 16, 1949,” 4–5.
- 52.
Zhou, “The Statement of Protesting against American Armed Invasion of Chinese Territory Taiwan,” in Jianguo yilai Zhou Enlai wengao, 1949–1950 [Zhou Enlai’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the State, 1949–1950] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe [CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Press], 2008), 4: 29–31. Hereafter cited as Zhou’s Manuscripts since 1949. It is also quoted in Li Changjiu and Shi Lujia, eds., Zhongmei guanxi erbainian [History of the Sino-American Relations] (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe [New China Press], 1984), 170; CCP Archival and Manuscript Research Division, Zhou Enlai nianpu, 1949–1976 [A Chronological Record of Zhou Enlai, 1949–1976], 1: 51.
- 53.
Liu’s report to Stalin and Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party on August 14, 1949, in Liu’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 51.
- 54.
Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 23–24.
- 55.
During their second meeting on December 24, for example, “Stalin did not mention the treaty at all,” but, instead, mainly discussed with Mao “the activities of the Communist Parties in Asian countries….” The quotation is from Pei Jianzhang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, 1949–1956 [Diplomatic History of the PRC, 1949–1956], 18.
- 56.
Chen, China’s Road to the Korean War, 3.
- 57.
Shen Zhihua, “Mao Zedong and the Eastern Cominform: Changing Leadership Role in Revolutions in Asia,” Huadong shifan daxue xuebao [Journal of East China Normal University] (no. 6, 2011), 27–38.
- 58.
Chen Jian, “Far Short of a ‘Glorious Victory’: Revisiting China’s Changing Strategies to Manage the Korean War,” The Chinese Historical Review 25 (no. 1, 2018): 1–22.
- 59.
General Xiong Guangkai, Deputy Chief of the PLA General Staff, “The Characteristics and Impact of China’s Defense Policy,” in Guoji zhanlue yu xin junshi biange [International Strategy and Revolution in Military Affairs] (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe [Tsinghua University Press], 2003), 215–16.
- 60.
Major General Xu Yan, Junshijia Mao Zedong [Mao Zedong as a Military Leader] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe [CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Press], 1995), 178.
- 61.
CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Research Division, Liu Shaoqi nianpu, 1898–1969 [A Chronological Record of Liu Shaoqi, 1898–1969] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe [CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Press], 1996), 2: 245.
- 62.
Zhang Guanghua, “The Secret Records of China’s Important Decisions to Assist Vietnam and Resist France,” in Zhongguo junshi guwentuan yuanyue kangfa shilu: dangshiren de huiyi [The Records of the Chinese Military Advisory Group (CMAG) in the War to Aid Vietnam and Resist France: Personal Accounts of the Veterans], ed. CMAG Compilation Team, PLA Academy of Military Science (AMS) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe [CCP Party History Press], 2002), 29.
- 63.
Guo Zhigang, “A Foreign Military Assistance after the Founding of the New Republic,” in Junqi piaopiao; xinzhongguo 50 nian junshi dashi shushi [PLA Flag Fluttering; Facts of China’s Major Military Events in the Past 50 Years], ed. Military History Research Division, PLA-AMS (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 1999), 1: 146.
- 64.
“Zhongnanhai,” translated as the “middle and southern seas,” was the home of Mao, Zhu, Zhou, and several other top CCP leaders after 1949.
- 65.
Yu Huachen, “Comrade Wei Guoqing in the War to Aid Vietnam and Resist France,” in Zhongguo junshi guwentuan yuanyue kangfa shilu [The Records of the CMAG in the War to Aid Vietnam and Resist France], PLA-MAG Compilation Team, comp., 38.
- 66.
Colonel Lee Jong Kan (NKPA, ret.), interview by the author in Harbin, Heilongjiang, in July 2002. Also see Lee, “A North Korean Officer’s Story,” in Peters and Li, Voices from the Korean War, 76–84.
- 67.
Xu, Mao Zedong yu kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and WRUSAK], 52.
- 68.
Colonel Lee Jong Kan, interview by the author in Harbin, Heilongjiang, in July 2002; Lee, “A North Korean Officer’s Story,” in Peters and Li, Voices from the Korean War, 76–84; Nie, “Beijing’s Decision to Intervene,” 47–48; Xu Longnan, “Interview with Ethnic Korean Soldiers in China Who Joined the NKPA during the Korean War,” in Lengzhan guojishi yanjiu [Cold War International History Studies] 11 (2011): 117–46.
- 69.
The PLA Korean soldiers returned to North Korea with 12,000 rifles, 620 machine guns, and 240 artillery pieces. See Liu Shaoqi, “Telegram to Mao Zedong, January 22, 1950,” Liu’s Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 320–21.
- 70.
Major General Chai Junwu (Chai Chengwen), “Report by Chai Junwu, Charge of Chinese Embassy to North Korea, July 17, 1950,” File#106-00001-04 (1), 4 pages, PRC Diplomatic Archives, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Beijing. Hereafter cited as PRC Foreign Ministry Archives.
- 71.
“Memorandum, Zhou Enlai to North Korean Ambassador Lee; Establishing New Wired Telephone Lines between China and North Korea, July 29, 1950,” File#106-00023-02 (1), 15 pages (two pages in Korean), PRC Foreign Ministry Archives.
- 72.
Major General Chai Chengwen, interview by the author in Beijing in July 2000. Chai served as chargé d’ affaires of the PRC to North Korea from July 10 to August 12, 1950, when China opened its embassy at Pyongyang. Chai was then head of the PRC military mission to North Korea from August 1950 to January 1955. Between July 1951 and July 1953, he served in the Chinese-North Korean delegation to the Korean truce talks at Panmunjom as the secretary general and liaison officer of the CPVF, holding a rank equivalent to colonel. He became a senior colonel in 1955 and a major general in 1961. See also Tan, Zhongguo renmin zhiyuanjun renwulu [Veterans Profile of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Force], 529–30; Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jiangshuai minglu [Marshals and Generals of the PLA], 3: 368.
- 73.
Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs of Khrushchev, ed. Sergei Khrushchev (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006), 2: 91.
- 74.
Ibid.
- 75.
Ibid., 2: 92.
- 76.
Xu, Mao Zedong yu kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and the WRUSAK], 53–54.
- 77.
Ibid.
- 78.
Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), 335–40.
- 79.
Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 15–22, 58; Bevin Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost, revised ed. (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1998), 32–45.
- 80.
Mao was very dissatisfied with this and later confided, “They [North Koreans] are our next door neighbor, but they did not consult with us about the outbreak of the war.” Mao’s quote is in Li Haiwen, “When Did the CCP Central Committee Decide to Send the Volunteers to Fight Abroad?” Dang de Wenxian (Party Literature and Archives) 5 (1993): 85, cited from Shen, “China Sends Troops to Korea,” 20.
- 81.
Xiaobing Li, “Truman and Taiwan: A U.S. Policy Change from Face to Faith,” in Northeast Asia and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman: Japan, China, and the Two Koreas, ed. James I. Matray (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University, 2012), 127–28.
- 82.
David M. Finkelstein, Washington’s Taiwan Dilemma, 1949–50; From Abandonment to Salvation (Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press, 1993), 332–33.
- 83.
Chief General Hao Bocun (Hau Pei-stun) (GMD Army, retired), interviews by the author in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 23–24, 1994. Chief General Hao served as the commander of the GMD front artillery force on Jinmen (Quemoy) Island in 1950.
- 84.
Zhou, “The Statement of Protesting against American Armed Invasion of Chinese Territory Taiwan,” Zhou’s Manuscripts since 1949, 4: 29–31; also quoted in Li and Shi, eds., Zhongmei guanxi erbainian [History of the Sino-American Relations], 170; CCP Archival and Manuscript Research Division, Zhou Enlai nianpu, 1949–1976 [A Chronological Record of Zhou Enlai, 1949–1976], 1: 51.
- 85.
Mao, “Unite and Defeat Any Provocation of U.S. Imperialism,” speech at the Eighth Plenary Session of the Central People’s Governmental Council, June 28, 1950, in Mao’s Military Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 154–55; Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998), 106.
- 86.
Mao, “The Great Achievements of the Three Glorious Movements,” a speech at the Third Plenary Session of the First National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, October 23, 1951, Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 2: 481–86; Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 5: 50–52.
- 87.
Chief General Hao Bocun (Hau Pei-stun) (GMD Army, retired), interviews by the author in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 23–24, 1994. Hao, as the commander of the front artillery force on Jinmen (Quemoy) Island, felt relieved when he was informed of the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s patrol in the Taiwan Strait in June 1950. See also Xiao, Xiao Jinguang huiyilu [Memoirs of Xiao Jinguang], 2: 26.
- 88.
Hao Bocun, interviews by the author in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 23–24, 1994.
- 89.
Hao, interviews by the author in Taipei, on May 23–24, 1994. Xiao, Xiao Jinguang huiyilu [Memoirs of Xiao Jinguang], 2: 26.
- 90.
Marshal Chen Yi was one of the most brilliant military leaders of the CCP. He participated in the Nanchang Uprising on August 1, 1927, and joined forces with Zhu De in April 1928. Chen Yi served as party representative of the First Division and then commander of the 12th Division of the Fourth Red Army. During the Anti-Japanese War of 1937–1945, Chen was vice commissar in 1939, then deputy commander and chief staff in 1940, and acting commander of the New Fourth Army in 1941. Under his command, the New Fourth Army increased from four divisions to seven divisions in 1945. During the Chinese Civil War of 1946–1949, Chen Yi was appointed commander of the East China Field Army in 1947. A year later, he became the commander and political commissar of the Third Field Army, totaling one million troops, which took over Nanjing, Shanghai, and many cities in southeast China. After the founding of the PRC, Chen was appointed mayor of Shanghai and commander and political commissar of the East China Regional Command. In 1954, he was appointed vice premier of the PRC and vice chairman of the CMC. In 1955, he became one of the ten marshals in China. In 1958, Chen became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was purged by Mao in 1966 and died in 1972 during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). See Liu Shufa, Chen Yi nianpu, 1901–1972 [A Chronological Record of Chen Yi, 1901–1972] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe [People’s Press], 1995), 2: 632–33; Xinghuo liaoyuan Composition Department, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jiangshuai minglu [Marshals and Generals of the PLA], 1: 8–9.
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Mao’s instruction on Nie Rongzhen’s report, “Temporarily Postpone the Attacking Campaign on Jinmen,” November 11, 1950, Mao’s Military Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 344; Ye, Ye Fei huiyilu [Memoirs of Ye Fei], 613–14.
- 92.
MacArthur’s words are quoted in General Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 37.
- 93.
Major General William C. Chase arrived in Taiwan on May 1, 1951, to establish JUSMAAG-China. For more details, see Finkelstein, Washington’s Taiwan Dilemma, 336.
- 94.
U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981), 6: 414. Thereafter, cited as FRUS.
- 95.
MacArthur’s words quoted in Ridgway, The Korean War, 37–38.
- 96.
Li, “Truman and Taiwan,” 119–20.
- 97.
Xu, Mao Zedong yu kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and the WRUSAK], 59.
- 98.
Mao’s conversations with Wang Jifan and Zhou Shizhao on October 27, 1950, from the recollections of Wang Yuqing, grandson of Wang Jifan, in Junshi lishi [Military History]: 88–93; Guandong zhuojia [Authors from Northeast China] 9 (2003); and Zhiqingzhe shuo [The Inside Stories] 2 (2005): 3–4. See also Xu, Mao Zedong yu kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and WRUSAK], 146.
- 99.
Zhou’ speech at the CPVF commanders meeting on February 17, 1958, in Zhou Enlai junshi wenxun [Selected Military Works of Zhou Enlai] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe [People’s Press], 1997), 4: 394–96. Hereafter cited as Selected Military Works of Zhou.
- 100.
After received Rochshin’s telegram to Moscow, Stalin confirmed Chinese leaders’ concerns of a possible UNF invasion of North Korea. In his telegram to Zhou Enlai on July 5, 1950, Stalin agreed, “We consider it correct to concentrate immediately 9 Chinese divisions on the Chinese-Korean border for volunteer actions in North Korea in case the enemy crosses the 38th parallel. We will try to provide air cover for these units.” “Filippov (Stalin) to Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai (via Soviet ambassador to the PRC N. V. Rochshin),” Ciphered telegram No. 3172, Archives of the President of the Russian Federation (hereafter APRF), Fond 45, Opis 1, Delo 331, List 79, in “New Russian Documents on the Korean War,” Weathersby trans. and ed., Bulletin: Cold War International History Project 6–7 (Winter 1995/1996): 43.
- 101.
Zhou’s telegram to Gao Gang and Yu Guangsheng on July 9, 1950,
- 102.
“The CMC National Defense Report to Mao from Nie Rongzhen, July 7, 1950,” Mao’s manuscripts since 1949, 1: 428; Mao’s Military Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 159n1; Zhang and Chen, Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia, 156; Nie, “Beijing’s Decision to Intervene,” 39–40.
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Mao, “Approval of the CMC National Defense Report, July 8, 1950,” Mao’s Military Manuscripts since 1949, 1: 158–59; Xu, Mao Zedong yu kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and WRUSAK), 65.
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Xu, Mao Zedong yu kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and WRUSAK], 59.
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Li, X. (2019). Postwar Geopolitics and Self-Reliant Defense. In: China’s War in Korea. New Directions in East Asian History. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9675-6_3
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