Conclusion: War Legacy and New Strategic Concerns

Li, Xiaobing

doi:10.1007/978-981-32-9675-6_7

Xiaobing Li⁵

Part of the book series: New Directions in East Asian History ((NDEAH))

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Abstract

Mao judged China’s intervention a victory because it saved North Korea, shaped China’s relations with the Soviet Union, and secured China’s northeastern border by preventing North Korea from being conquered or controlled by America. Chinese military involvements in Korea had promoted the CCP’s international status and projected a powerful image of China as the vanguard of the communist countries against the United States. Peng stated that the Korean War began the transformation of the Chinese military into a modern force. Meanwhile, Mao converted China into a single-party communist state, nationalized industry and business under state ownership, and carried out socialist reforms in all areas of the Chinese society. Even if forgotten in America, the war in Korea is by no means forgotten in China.

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Notes

1.
Chen Hui, “Tracing the 180,000 Martyrs of WRUSAK,” in Kangmei yuanchao: 60 nianhou de huimou [Resist the U.S. and Aid Korea: Retrospect after 60 Years], ed. Zhang Xingxing (Beijing: Dangdai zhongguo chubanshe [Contemporary China Press], 2011), 127; Xu, “Chinese Forces and Their Casualties in the Korean War,” 56–57; Li, Zhiyuanjun yuanchao jishi [The CPVF Records of Aiding Korea], 13; Shuang, Kaiguo diyi zhan [The First War since the Founding of the State], 2: 836–37. The UNF intelligence statisticians put Chinese losses for higher: 1.5 million casualties in all categories including killed, in action, died or wounds, and disease, missing in action, and wounded in action. For example, see Hermes, Truce Tent and Fighting Front, 477–78.
2.
Military History Research Division, PLA-AMS, Zhongguo renmin zhiyuanjun kangmei yuanchao zhanshi [Combat Experience of the CPVF in WRUSAK], 233–34.
3.
Mao’s speech at the Twenty-fourth Plenary of the Central Government of the PRC, September 12, 1953, Mao’s Military Manuscript since 1949, 2: 173–76.
4.
Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004), 56.
5.
For example, Mao’s conclusion at the Second Plenary Session of the CCP Seventh Central Committee, March 13, 1949, and Mao’s speech, “Address to the Preparatory Meeting of the New Political Consultative Conference,” Selected Works of Mao, 4: 1464, 1470.
6.
Ellis Joffe, The Chinese Army after Mao (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 1.
7.
The PLA engineering troops were under the command of Wang Zibo, regiment commander of the Sixty Army; the artillery troops were from the Fourteenth Army; and AAA troops were under the command of Shi Guoqiang and Yuan Ye. For the information on some of these troops, see Han, Dangdai Zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo [Military Affairs of Contemporary China’s Armed Forces], 1: 532.
8.
Zhang, “CMAG Accomplished Its Mission in the Aiding Vietnam and Resisting French War,” in Zhongguo junshi guwentuan yuanyue kangfa shilu [The Records of the CMAG in Assisting Vietnam and Resisting France], ed. CMAG Compilation Team (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe [CCP Party History Press], 2002), 285.
9.
Compilation Committee, Zhongmei guanxi ziliao huibian [Collected Official Materials on Sino-American Relations] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe [World Knowledge Press], 1957), 2: 1385–86.
10.
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11.
Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam War, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 115–16.
12.
Joffe, The Chinese Army after Mao, 1.
13.
Xinhuashe [New China News Agency], Xinhuashe wenjian ziliao huibian [A Collection of Documentary Materials of the New China News Agency], 135, 137, 152.
14.
Chu, ‘20 Shiji 50 niandai zhongsu junshi guanxi yanjiu [The Sino-Soviet Military Relations in the 1950s]’, 71–72.
15.
The Soviet Navy transferred most of their vessels and equipment to the Chinese navy, including 12 frigates, 39 torpedo boats, 18 support ships, 64 torpedo bombers, 14 training airplanes, 66 heavy coast artillery pieces (180 mm and 130 mm), 122 AAA guns, 3,250,000 artillery shells, 2642 tons of explosives and bombs, 412 torpedoes and naval mines, 35 radar sets, and 1684 vehicles. The PLAN also received shipyards, coast defense works, research labs, hospitals, warehouses, and additional naval equipment. The PLA army also received 1113 heavy artillery pieces and 357 tanks, while the PLA air force received 328 airplanes and nine airfields.
16.
Yang, Dangdai zhongguo haijun [Contemporary Chinese Navy], 83.
17.
Deng Lifeng, “A Historic Meeting of the PLA,” in Junqi piaopiao; xinzhongguo 50 nian junshi dashi shushi, 1949–1999 [PLA Flag Fluttering; Facts of China’s Major Military Events in the Past Fifty Years, 1949–1999], ed. Military History Research Division, PLA-Academy of Military Science (PLA-AMS) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 1999), 1: 180.
18.
Peng, “China’s Military Experience in the Past Four Years and the Fundamental Issues for Our Future Military Development,” speech at an enlarged CMC meeting in December 1953, Selected Military Papers of Peng, 468–69.
19.
Fravel, Active Defense, 72–73.
20.
Li, China’s Battle for Korea, 242–43.
21.
Military History Research Division, PLA-AMS, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun de qishinian [Seventy Years of the PLA], 455, 461.
22.
Major Guo, Haiyun (PLA, ret.), interviews by the author in Chengde, Hebei province, in July 2006. Guo served as the chief of staff of the 2nd Battalion, 611th Regiment, 64th AAA Division in 1967–1969.
23.
Zhang, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun [The PLA], 1: 540.
24.
Mao Zedong, ‘When the Naval and Air Forces Get Stronger, [We] Can Take over Taiwan’, Mao’s Military Manuscript since 1949, 2: 227–28.
25.
Xu, Mao Zedong yu kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and WRUSAK], 397; Zhang, “Air Combat for the People’s Republic,” 278.
26.
Wang Dinglie, Dongdai Zhongguo kongjun [Contemporary Chinese Air Force] (Beijing: shehui kexue chubanshe [Social Sciences Press], 1989), 68, 82; Military History Research Division, PLA-CAM, Zhongguo renmin zhiyuanjun kangmei yuanchao zhanshi [Combat Experience of the CPVF in WRUSAK], 461.
27.
Jeanne L. Wilson, Strategic Partners: Russian-Chinese Relations in the Post-Soviet Era (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), 70.
28.
Ming-Yen Tsai, From Adversaries to Partners: Chinese and Russian Military Cooperation after the Cold War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 25–27.
29.
The air force bases in east coast cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Ningbo were also used by Nie’s jets in the air campaigns.
30.
Ma Guansan, deputy commander of the ZFC naval force, “Remember the Combat Years in the East China Sea,” in PLAAF General Nie Fengzhi, Sunjun huige zhan donghai [Three Services Wield Weapons in East China Sea Combat] (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 1985), 29.
31.
Han, Dangdai Zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo [Contemporary Chinese Military Affairs], 1: 215–216.
32.
Dong Fanghe, Zhang Aiping zhuan [Biography of Zhang Aiping] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe [People’s Press], 2000), 2: 674–5; Han, Dangdai Zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo [Contemporary Chinese Military Affairs], 1: 216–217; Xiaobing Li, “PLA Attacks and Amphibious Operations during the Taiwan Straits Crises of 1954–1955 and 1958,” in Chinese Warfighting; the PLA Experience since 1949, eds. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2003), 152.
33.
Li, “PLA Attacks and Amphibious Operations during the Taiwan Straits Crises of 1954–1955 and 1958,” 156–57.
34.
Nie Rongzhen, “A Rough Start of China’s Nuclear and Missile Programs,” in Liangdan yixing; zhongguo hewuqi daodan weixing yu feichuan quanjishi [The Bomb, Missile, and Satellite: A Detailed Record of China’s Nuclear, Missile, Satellite, and Space Programs], ed. Political Department, PLA General Armaments Department (GAD) (Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe [Golden Continental Publishing], 2001), 5.
35.
Li, A History of the Modern Chinese Army, 148.
36.
Peng, “Telegram to the Central Committee, May 22, 1955,” File# 109–00555-01 (1), 13 (13 pages), Foreign Ministry Archives.
37.
Wang Bingnan, Chinese Ambassador to Poland, “Report to Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Peng Dehuai’s Visit of Poland,” File# 109–00555-01 (1), ibid., 2–3.
38.
For example, Peng’s speech at the “Eight Countries’ Conference of the Warsaw Pact, May 13, 1955” and his conversations with Polish and Soviet leaders, May 16–22, 1955. Peng, “Telegrams to the Central Committee, May 14, 16, and 22, 1955,” File# 109–00556-01 (1), 6–7, 13–14, and 15–19 (36 pages), Foreign Ministry Archives.
39.
Military History Research Division, PLA-AMS, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun de qishinian [Seventy Years of the PLA], 462.
40.
Deng, “A Historic Meeting of the PLA,” 1: 179.
41.
PLA-AMS, Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun de qishinian [Seventy Years of the PLA], 457–58.
42.
Mao’s instruction on General Xiao Xiangrong’s report on the PLA officers’ relations with the Soviet advisors, ibid., 1–2.
43.
There were heated debates in the high command about whether the PLA should learn from the Soviet Union and how to learn from the Soviet Union through the 1950s. There was no consensus in the military. Peng issued several instructions and said many times at the CMC and other high command meetings that “We must learn from the Soviet Union.” The quotation and meeting minutes of June 5, 1953; January 26, 1954; and August 16, 1955, are from the footnotes in Wang, Peng Dehuai zhuan [Biography of Peng Dehuai], 523, 541, 552.
44.
Shen, Mao Zedong, Sidalin he chaoxian zhanzheng [Mao Zedong, Stalin, and the Korean War], 371. Shen found the information in the archives of the Second Division, ROC Defense Ministry, defense intelligence agency in Taiwan. He believes that the numbers collected by the intelligence agents in the 1950s were incomplete.
45.
Yang, Dangdai Zhongguo haijun [Contemporary Chinese Navy], 48–49.
46.
Shen Zhihua, Mao Zedong, Sidalin he chaoxian zhanzheng [Mao Zedong, Stalin, and the Korean War], 372.
47.
Frederick C. Teiwes, “Establishment and Consolidation of the New Regime,” in Cambridge History of China, vol. 14, The People’s Republic, part 1: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1949–1965 (Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press, 1967), 89.
48.
For studies of Mao Zedong, see Pantsov and Levine, Mao: The Real Story; Chang and Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story; Ross Terrill, Mao: A Biography (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999); Short, Mao: A Life; Jonathan D. Spence, Mao Zedong (New York: Viking, 1999); Shaun Breslin, Mao: Profiles in Power (New York: Longman, 1998); Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician (New York and London, UK: Random House, 1994).
49.
Yi Sun and Xiaobing Li, “Mao Zedong and the CCP: Adaptation, Centralization, and Succession,” in Evolution of Power: China’s Struggle, Survival, and Success, eds. Xiaobing Li and Xiansheng Tian (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), 38.
50.
Li, Millett, and Yu trans. and eds., Mao’s Generals Remember Korea, 3–5.
51.
Li, Civil Liberties in China, 5–7.
52.
Ibid., 11–12.
53.
Spence, The Search for Modern China, 3rd ed., 512.
54.
Former Soviet major (Red Army, ret.) and KGB agents, interviews by the co-author in 2004–2009. See also Major T., “Russian Missile Officers in Vietnam” and Russian Agent (KGB), “Russian Spies in Hanoi,” in Voices from the Vietnam War: Stories from American, Asian, and Russian Veterans, Xiaobing Li (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 65–72, 93–100.
55.
Yang Kuisong, “Origins of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War and Its Impact on China’s Revolution,” in Zhang Baijia and Niu Jun eds., Lengzhan yu zhongguo [The Cold War and China] (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe, 2002): 51–88; Chen Jian and Xiaobing Li, “China and the End of the Cold War,” in The Cold War: From Détente to the Soviet Collapse, ed. Malcolm Muir, Jr. (Lexington: Virginia Military Institute Press, 2006), 4–5.
56.
Among other publications on these events, Chen, China’s Road to the Korean War; Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism; Li, Millett, and Yu, trans. and eds., Mao’s Generals Remember Korea; Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars.
57.
For more detailed discussions, see Chen, Mao’s China and the Cold War, introduction.
58.
For the publications in Vietnamese, see Lam Giang, Chien Cong Cua Nhung Nguoi Ahn Hung [My Story of the War] (Ho Chi Minh City: Nha Xuat Ban Tre, 2005); Nguyen Phuong Thao, Cho Mot Ngay Hoa Binh [For One Day Peace] (Ho Chi Minh City: Nha Xuat Ban Tre, 2004); Nhieu Tac Gia [Composition Group], Cuoc Khang Chien Chong My [Fighting the American War] (Ho Chi Minh City: Nha Xuat Ban Tre, 2005); Major General Vo Bam, Viet Nam Di Tien Phong [Struggle for Vietnam] (Ho Chi Minh City: Nha Xuat Ban Tre, 2004).
Chen and Li, “China and the End of the Cold War,” 120.
59.
Chen Jian and Xiaobing Li, “China and the End of the Cold War,” conference paper at the “Fifth Cold War Conference Series: From Détente to the Soviet Collapse” at the First Division Museum of Cantigny, Wheaton, IL, October 12, 2005: 2–3.
60.
For a chronological development of the Sino-Soviet split, see Song Enfan and Li Jiasong eds., Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiao dashiji, 1957–1964 [Chronicle of the People’s Republic of China’s Diplomacy, 1957–1964] (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe, 2001), vol. 2; Yang, Zouxiang polie [Road to the Split], chs. 13–14.
61.
Mao, “Speech at the Moscow Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties, November 16, 1957,” Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, 5: 625–44.
62.
Chen, Mao’s China and the Cold War, 71.
63.
Nie, Nie Rongzhen huiyilu [Memoir of Nie Rongzhen], 2: 804; Yang, Zouxiang polie [Toward the Split], 454.
64.
Nie, ibid., 806; Tang Xiuying, “A Sword Thrusting the Sky,” in Liangdan yixing; zhongguo hewuqi daodan weixing yu feichuan quanjishi [The Comprehensive Record of China’s Nuclear Bombs, Missiles, Satellites, and Space Programs], ed. Political Department of the PLA General Armaments Department (Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe [Jiuzhou Press], 2001), 366; World Military High-Tech Book Series Compilation Team, Daguo yizhi; Dakai heheixiang [Powers’ Will: Opening the Nuclear Black-box] (Beijing: Haichao chubanshe [Ocean Waves Publishing], 2000), 245.
65.
The first ideological conflict came in 1956 when new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev issued the “secret report” to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress, denouncing Stalin as a dictator. Other conflicts between the two Communist giants emerged on issues of foreign policy. The Chinese openly criticized the Soviets for being anti-Marxist-Leninist revisionists in 1960. For a chronological development of the Sino-Soviet split, see Song and Li, eds., Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiao dashiji, 1957–1964 [Chronicle of the People’s Republic of China’s Diplomacy, 1957–1964], vol. 2; Yang, Zouxiang polie [Toward the Split], chs. 13–14.
66.
Spencer C. Tucker, Vietnam (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 133.
67.
Xiao Shizhong, “Important Military Operations to Stop the War in Indochina: A Whole History of China’s Aiding Vietnam and Resisting America,” in Junqi piaopiao; xinzhongguo 50 nian junshi dashi shushi [PLA Flag Fluttering; Facts of China’s Major Military Events in the Past Fifty Years], ed. Military History Research Division, PLA Academy of Military Science (PLA-AMS) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe [PLA Press], 1999), 2: 450–51.
68.
Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, 59, 61–62.
69.
SNIE, “Probable Communist Reactions to a U.S. Course of Action, September 22, 1965,” in Estimative Products on Vietnam, 1948–1975, National Intelligence Council (NIC) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2005), 294–96.
70.
Among the total were 447,900 tons of aids sent to Vietnam by sea, and the rest was shipped over railroads through China. For the details of the Soviet aid, see Li Danhui, “The Sino-Soviet Dispute over Assistance for Vietnam’s Anti-American War, 1965–1972,”4–5. Her source is from Foreign Trade Bureau, “Minutes of Meeting between Chinese and Vietnamese Transportation Delegates,” July 26, 1965, International Liaison Division Records, PRC Ministry of Railway Administration Archives.
71.
Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, 59.
72.
Guo Ming, Zhongyue guanxi yanbian 40 nian [Deterioration of the Sino-Vietnam Relations in the Past Forty Years] (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe [Guangxi People’s Press], 1992), 103.
73.
Lieutenant Wang Xiangcai, interviews by the author in Harbin, Heilongjiang, on August 20–21, 2003. Wang served in the First Battalion, Third Regiment, 61st AAA Division. Also see Xu, “The Purchase of Arms from Moscow,” 143–46.
74.
Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, 16–18, 34–37.
75.
Niu Jun, “Historical Change in China’s Policy toward the United States in the late 1960s,” in Zhongguo yu yindu zhina zhanzheng [China and the Indochina Wars], ed. Li Danhui (Hong Kong: Tiandi Tushu [Heaven and Earth Books], 2000), 103.
76.
Nicholas Khoo, Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 3.
77.
Xiaobing Li, “Sino-Soviet Border Disputes,” in Powell, MaGill’s Guide to Military History, 4: 1424.
78.
Yang Kuisong, “From the Zhenbao Island Incident to Sino-American Rapprochement,” Dangshi yanjiu ziliao [Party History Research Materials], no. 12 (1997), 7–8; Thomas Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969; New Evidence Three Decades Later,” 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), 198–216.
79.
For more on the “principal enemy” theory, see Robert S. Ross, The Indochina Tangle: China’s Vietnam Policy, 1975–1979 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 12, 254; Eugene Lawson, The Sino-Vietnamese Conflict (New York: Praeger, 1984), 6; Gordon H. Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 240–46.
80.
Chen and Li, “China and the End of the Cold War,” 122–24.
81.
Ibid., 124.
82.
Deng became the second generation of the CCP political and military leadership. See Cheng Li, China’s Leaders: The New Generation (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 7–9.
83.
Deng, “Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts, and Unite as One in Looking to the Future, December 13, 1978,” speech as the closing session of the CCP Central Conference. This speech was prepared for the Third Plenary Session of the CCP Eleventh Central Committee. In fact, this speech served as the keynote address for the Third Plenary Session. See Deng Xiaoping, Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1994), 2: 150–63; CCP Central Committee, “Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the CCP Eleventh Central Committee,” adopted on December 22, 1978. The Party document is included in Party Literature Research Department, CCP Central Committee ed., Major Documents of the People’s Republic of China—Selected Important Documents since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CCP Central Committee (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), 20–22.
84.
Warren I. Cohen, America’s Response to China; A History of Sino-American Relations, 5th ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 206–207.
85.
Deng, “Streamline the Army and Raise Its Combat Effectiveness,” a speech at an enlarged meeting of CMC Standing Committee on March 12, 1980, Selected Works of Deng, 2: 284–87.
86.
Deng’s comments quoted in Song, Hujiang Song Shilun [A Tiger General: Song Shilun], 233.
87.
Xi’s speech at the “Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration of the CPVF’s Participation in the War to Resist the US and Aid Korea,” Renmin ribao [People’s Daily], October 26, 2010.

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Li, X. (2019). Conclusion: War Legacy and New Strategic Concerns. 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_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9675-6_7
Published: 06 November 2019
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