Field trip to a mining equipment factory in Jinzhou City (锦州市) in Northeast China. Massive worker lay-offs and closures of state-owned enterprises devastated this “rust belt” region throughout the 1990s and early 2000s: this factory had been no exception. The company’s senior management sat with students and faculty and described its current reincarnation as a private shareholding company. They also opened up about their difficulties of attracting talent, local tax rates and land use fees, and their inability to enforce contracts and redress payment defaults.

Group photo in front of the old railroad tracks in Dandong (丹东), Liaoning Province, that helped transport Chinese troops into North Korea during the Korean War. Nearly 3 million People’s Liberation Army troops overwhelmed the allies in the 1950s, and China tragically lost anywhere from 149,000 to 400,000 soldiers in the war.

Dandong’s small “railroad museum” displayed images, quotes and photos from the Korean War – better known as the “War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea” in China. Students heard the Chinese perspective on the war, which focused on U.S. aggression and China’s rightful defense. The museum’s public tour included an anti- American sing-along that praised China’s bravery and denounced U.S. imperialism, offering afresh the fact that history is, indeed, political.

Prof. Scott Rozelle, Senior Fellow at FSI and faculty member for China Studies in Beijing, engaged in a heated debate with the local guide from Dandong who claimed that North Korea’s decision to start the Korean War was to defend its motherland against U.S. military intervention. As the students discovered, the Korean War, a.k.a., the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, is still a highly charged, politicized topic in China.