DOCSLIB.ORG

China's Intervention in the Korean War Revisited

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
China's Intervention in the Korean War Revisited donggil kim China’s Intervention in the Korean War Revisited The United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) staged a full-scale, undeclared war for two years and nine months, and a prolonged mutual political hostility ensued for decades afterwards. The PRC was declared an aggressor by the United Nations (UN) and was isolated from international diplomacy for a sub- stantial period of time. Mao Zedong’s decision to fight the United States, however, strengthened Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s trust in him immeasurably and dispelled his suspicions of China, forming the cornerstone for a strong Sino-Soviet alliance. In fact, the international order of the 1950sand1960s was largely forged within the framework of the Korean War. Consequently, the reason for China’s intervention in the Korean War has been an important topic in much scholarly research. Until the 1980s, interpretations of China’s involvement in the Korean War reflected the changing political and intellectual environments in the West in gen- eral, and the United States in particular, rather than the perspective of China itself. During the 1950s, Western scholars were influenced by the intensifying Cold War and argued that China’s entry into the Korean War was primarily due to Stalin’s 1 direction to expand Communism. On the other hand, in 1960 Allen S. Whiting, using Western intelligence sources, Chinese journals, newspapers, and Beijing’s radio broadcasts, insisted that China’s intervention was essentially a reluctant reaction to a perceived security threat. He stressed that it was only after MacArthur’s successful Incheon landing in mid-September and his subsequent advance toward the 38th parallel that the Chinese leadership began making the necessary military preparations, concluding 2 that an imminent threat to China’s border security compelled China to intervene. Whiting’s argument was widely accepted in the West and developed by other historians. Specifically, Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang argued that after the failure of Chinese efforts to deter UN forces from advancing beyond the 38th 3 parallel, PRC leaders began to push for large scale military intervention in Korea. 1. Philip E. Mosley, “Soviet Policy and the War,” Journal of International Affairs 6 (Spring 1952): 107-14; Alexander L. George, “American Policy Making and the North Korean Aggression,” World Politics 7,no.2 (1955): 209-32. 2. Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York, 1960), 126, 159-60. 3. Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, China Under Threat: The Politics of Strategy and Diplomacy (Baltimore, MD, 1980), 56. Diplomatic History, Vol. 40,No.5 (2016). ! The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. doi:10.1093/dh/dhv051 Advance Access publication on September 30, 2015 1002 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/dh/article-abstract/40/5/1002/2402998/China-s-Intervention-in-the-Korean-War-Revisited by Peking University user on 06 October 2017 China’s Intervention in the Korean War Revisited : 1003 Furthermore, Gerald Segal believed that U.S. troops crossing the 38th parallel, no matter how much they were accompanied by soothing words of honorable inten- 4 tions towards Chinese sovereignty, could not be tolerated in Beijing. There was virtually unanimous agreement among Western scholars that the U.S. decision to cross the 38th parallel triggered China’s intervention and that if UN forces had 5 stopped before the 38th parallel, China would not have intervened. With the declassification of Chinese documents and memoirs beginning in the early 1980s, however, Chinese scholars began to insist that the rapid U.S. engage- ment in the Korean War and Truman’s announcement of the dispatch of the 7th Fleet to the Taiwan Strait confirmed to Mao that a major direct Sino-U.S. con- frontation was imminent and inevitable. Therefore, Mao took the initiative and chose the most favorable time and battlefield for China—namely Korea—due to 6 its proximity to the Soviet Union and Northeast China, China’s industrial center. In 1994, Chen Jian considered the previous scholarship to be “Western impact, Chinese response” and “American-centered approaches.” He contended that “the Party’s revolutionary nationalism, its sense of responsibility toward an Asian-wide or worldwide revolution, and its determination to maintain the inner dynamics of the Chinese revolution” constituted the three fundamental rationales dominating Beijing’s formulation of foreign policy and security strategy at the time. Noting that Mao pressed ahead with sending troops, irrespective of Stalin’s refusal on October 11, 1950 to offer prompt air cover, Chen Jian asserts that Mao persuaded Peng Dehuai not to resign as commander of the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV), believing that “Korea’s fate concerned both the vital security interests of 7 China and the destiny of an Eastern and world revolution.” Chen Jian believes that Mao’s primary motivation was the global expansion of Communism. Recently, Chinese scholar Shen Zhihua has argued that despite Stalin’s notifi- cation on October 14, 1950 that “the Soviet Air Force cannot enter Korea to participate in CPV ground operations even after two or two and a half months,” Mao proceeded to send troops to Korea because he ultimately wanted to obtain 8 Soviet security guarantees and economic assistance for the future. 4. Gerald Segal, Defending China (New York, 1985), 96. 5. Rosemary Foot, “Making Known the Unknown War,” Diplomatic History 15,no.3 (1991): 418-19; Simei Qing, “The U.S.-China Confrontation in Korea: Assessment of Intentions in Time of Crisis,” in Northeast Asia and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman: Japan, China, and the Two Koreas,ed. James I. Matray (Kirksville, MO, 2012), 93-118. 6.YaoXu,Cong Yalujiang dao Banmendian [From the Yalu River to Panmunjom] (Beijing, 1985), 21-22; Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai, “China’s Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited,” China Quarterly 121 (March 1990): 106-8. 7.ChenJian,China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York, 1994), 4, 201-14. 8. Shen Zhihua, “China and the Dispatch of the Soviet Air Force: The Formation of the Chinese-Soviet-Korean Alliance in the Early Stage of the Korean War,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 33,no.2 (2010): 211-30; Goncharov insists that, in the end, Mao decided to fight the Americans even without Soviet air support in order to protect China’s own security, fearing that non-intervention would give Stalin an excuse to ignore China in the event of war against the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/dh/article-abstract/40/5/1002/2402998/China-s-Intervention-in-the-Korean-War-Revisited by Peking University user on 06 October 2017 1004 : diplomatic history However, recent research, which has emphasized Mao’s proactive role in the military intervention, has not been able to fully address certain issues. For example, on October 3, 1950, Mao informed the Soviet Union and North Korea that China would not send troops. Second, Zhou Enlai, premier of the PRC, left China to meet with Stalin at the Black Sea with plans for both intervention and non- intervention, depending on the degree of Soviet military assistance that was pledged. Third, on October 11, 1950, Zhou, in this meeting with Stalin, agreed not to send troops. The following day, Mao informed Stalin of China’s non-intervention decision for a second time. Based on new documents and archival material recently declassified in China and Russia, as well as interview material, this study reconsiders the following issues: 1) the initial effect of the Korean War on Chinese domestic affairs; 2)whyMao wanted to send Chinese troops to Korea in July and August 1950;and3)whythe Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) emergency Politburo meeting on October 13, 1950 reversed Mao’s non-intervention decision of the previous day and committed to sending troops to Korea without Soviet air assistance and weaponry. This study argues that the Chinese leadership believed that “if China dispatches troops, then the enemy should stop its advance northward at the Pyongyang-Wonsan line [on the spot],” and therefore, that China could secure the northern part of North Korea without fighting. This was China’s chief objective in joining the Korean War. MAO ZEDONG’S DESIRE TO DISPATCH CHINESE TROOPS TO KOREA AND STALIN’S SILENCE Before the outbreak of the Korean War, both Stalin and Kim Il-sung predicted that 9 the Americans would not interfere. However, only two days after hostilities began, the United States passed a resolution at the UN calling for all members to offer assistance to the Republic of Korea (ROK) and authorizing U.S. naval and air forces 10 to support South Korea. Concurrently, President Harry Truman announced the dispatch of the 7th Fleet to the Taiwan Strait and declared, “the future status 11 of Formosa [Taiwan] must await the restoration of security in the Pacific.” China immediately denounced the deployment of the 7th Fleet to Taiwan as an “imperialistic move” and an “intervention in its internal affairs,” and a new theater United States. Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, CA, 1993), 216-17. 9. Anatoly Torkunov, The War in Korea 1950-1953: Its Origin, Bloodshed and Conclusion (Tokyo, 2000), 50-51. 10. President Harry S. Truman argued that “if South Korea was allowed to fall then com- munists would be emboldened to overrun the free nations,” and he maintained that the free world must meet North Korea’s invasion with firm opposition.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1992 a Glorious Model of Proletarian Internationalism: Mao Zedong and Helping Vietnam Resist France
    Digital Archive digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org International History Declassified 1992 A Glorious Model of Proletarian Internationalism: Mao Zedong and Helping Vietnam Resist France Citation: “A Glorious Model of Proletarian Internationalism: Mao Zedong and Helping Vietnam Resist France,” 1992, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Luo Guibo, "Wuchanjieji guojizhuyide guanghui dianfan: yi Mao Zedong he Yuan-Yue Kang-Fa" ("A Glorious Model of Proletarian Internationalism: Mao Zedong and Helping Vietnam Resist France"), in Mianhuai Mao Zedong (Remembering Mao Zedong), ed. Mianhuai Mao Zedong bianxiezhu (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian chubanshe, 1992) 286-299. Translated by Emily M. Hill http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/120359 Summary: Luo Guibo recounts China's involvement in the First Indochina War and its assistance to the Viet Minh. Credits: This document was made possible with support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Leon Levy Foundation. Original Language: Chinese Contents: English Translation One Late in 1949, soon after the establishment of New China, Chairman Ho Chi Minh and the Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) wrote to Chairman Mao and the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), asking for Chinese assistance. In January 1950, Ho made a secret visit to Beijing to request Chinaʼs assistance in Vietnamʼs struggle against France. Following Hoʼs visit, the CCP Central Committee made the decision, authorized by Chairman Mao, to send me on a secret mission to Vietnam. I was formally appointed as the Liaison Representative of the CCP Central Committee to the ICP Central Committee. Comrade [Liu] Shaoqi personally composed a letter of introduction, which stated: ʻI hereby recommend to your office Comrade Luo Guibo, who has been a provincial Party secretary and commissar, as the Liaison Representative of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
    [Show full text]
  • The Darkest Red Corner Matthew James Brazil
    The Darkest Red Corner Chinese Communist Intelligence and Its Place in the Party, 1926-1945 Matthew James Brazil A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy Department of Government and International Relations Business School University of Sydney 17 December 2012 Statement of Originality This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted previously, either in its entirety or substantially, for a higher degree or qualifications at any other university or institute of higher learning. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources has been acknowledged. Matthew James Brazil i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Before and during this project I met a number of people who, directly or otherwise, encouraged my belief that Chinese Communist intelligence was not too difficult a subject for academic study. Michael Dutton and Scot Tanner provided invaluable direction at the very beginning. James Mulvenon requires special thanks for regular encouragement over the years and generosity with his time, guidance, and library. Richard Corsa, Monte Bullard, Tom Andrukonis, Robert W. Rice, Bill Weinstein, Roderick MacFarquhar, the late Frank Holober, Dave Small, Moray Taylor Smith, David Shambaugh, Steven Wadley, Roger Faligot, Jean Hung and the staff at the Universities Service Centre in Hong Kong, and the kind personnel at the KMT Archives in Taipei are the others who can be named. Three former US diplomats cannot, though their generosity helped my understanding of links between modern PRC intelligence operations and those before 1949.
    [Show full text]
  • Pacific Theater of the Cold War 1949 — China Chair: Luyi Peng JHUMUNC 2018
    Quadrumvirate: Pacific Theater of the Cold War 1949 — China Chair: Luyi Peng JHUMUNC 2018 Quadrumvirate: Pacific Theater of the Cold War- China Topic A: Defeating the Nationalists and Consolidating a New Communist Government Topic B: Establishing China’s Place as a Regional Power Committee Overview four tools listed in order to promptly implement solutions. It is extremely important to remember It is June 1949, and the withdrawal of the that each and every delegate represents a Japanese after World War II has left the fate of character, or historical individual, rather than a China in the balance. The Chinese Communist specific country. Every directive, communiqué, Party under Mao Zedong has evolved from press release, and portfolio request must disorganized guerrilla militias into an organized accurately reflect the viewpoints of the character. fighting force capable of turning the tide against Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party. The Communist Party must now make the final push Quadrumvirate to gain control of a unified China and defeat the Organization rival Nationalists once and for all. However, even as the end is in sight for a decades-long civil war, China, Japan, South Korea, and USSR will new powers are rising in the region under an even be functioning as a group of four committees, with more precarious conflict: the Cold War. Will interconnected crisis elements, in which all China become one of these new powers, and will debate in the individual committee rooms will it do so with the help of potential Communist impact the other three committees. While there allies in the USSR? Or, as Korea threatens to split are specific concerns that affect each room in half permanently and the Japanese begin to individually and with which delegates must rebuild with the help of the Americans, will the concern themselves, just as important is the new China crack under the pressure of facing too international politicking and debate behind the many rivals at once? Only you, the delegates, will closed doors of the other three committee rooms.
    [Show full text]
  • The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–49
    Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–49 This book examines the Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War of 1945–49, which resulted in the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over Chiang Kaishek and the Guomindang (GMD) and the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. It provides a military and strategic history of how the CCP waged and ultimately won the war, the transformation of its armed forces, and how the Communist leaders interacted with each other. Whereas most explanations of the CCP’s eventual victory focus on the Sino- Japanese War of 1937–45, when the revolution was supposedly won as a result of the Communists’ invention of “peasant nationalism,” this book shows that the outcome of the revolution was not a foregone conclusion in 1945. It explains how the eventual victory of the Communists resulted from important strategic decisions taken on both sides, in particular the remarkable transformation of the Communist army from an insurgent / guerrilla force into a conventional army. The book also explores how the hierarchy of the People’s Republic of China developed during the war. It shows how Mao’s power was based as much on his military acumen as his political thought, above all his role in formulating and implementing a successful military strategy in the war of 1945–49. It also describes how other important figures, such as Lin Biao, Deng Xiaoping, Nie Rongzhen, Liu Shaoqi, and Chen Yi, made their reputations during the conflict, and reveals the inner workings of the First generation political-military elite of the PRC.
    [Show full text]
  • Symbolic Capital, Existential Insecurity, and Industrial Policies: a Neo-Bourdieusian
    Symbolic Capital, Existential Insecurity, and Industrial Policies: A Neo-Bourdieusian Theory of the Leninist State in China (1927-1982) Yuting Chen Advisor: Prof. George Steinmetz Second Reader: Prof. Andrei S. Markovits A THESIS Submitted to The University of Michigan Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honor Bachelor of Arts March 2021 1 Dedication This study is dedicated to my mentors: Prof. George Steinmetz, Prof. Andrei S. Markovits, Prof. Krisztina Fehervary, and Prof. Qixuan Huang. Thank you for the guidance, strength, and skills. 2 Contents List of Abbreviations 3 Acknowledgments 4 Abstract 7 Introduction 9 Chapter 1. The Games of Old Bolsheviks 20 Chapter 2. Existential Insecurity as the Producer of the Militarized Socialist State 38 Chapter 3.The Becoming of the Third Front: Macro-Structural Change, Reformulated Socialist Statecraft, and the Militarized Logic of Big Push Industrialization 69 Chapter 4. The Beginning of State Capital Differentiation: Power Struggles, Subfield Autonomy, and Delegation of Political Will 97 Conclusion: State Strategies and Zeitgeist 148 Bibliography 155 3 List of Abbreviations Intercontinental ballistic missiles – ICBM The Central Military Commission – CMC [中央军事委员会] The Chief Directorate of Automobile Industry – CDAI (It was a subordinate unit of the First Ministry of Machine Building till 1982) [汽车总局] The Chinese Communist Party – CCP [中国共产党] The Chinese State Automobile Corporation – CSAC (The successor agency of the Chief Directorate of
    [Show full text]
  • IN Tileinory of SOONG CHING IING 1893-198T
    IN TilEINORY OF SOONG CHING IING 1893-198t Chino Reconslructs Soong Ching L-ing in the kindergarten of the Yunn:rn Frovince C)igarette Plant in 1955 H irEM0RY 0F $00ilG GlililG LttG Distributed with September 1981 Regulor lssue CONTENTS The Great Life of Soong Ching Ling Released bA Xir,hun Neus Agency 2 o Salute to Comrade Soong Ching Ling Deng Yingchao U Call Me 'Comrade Ching Ling' l2 Tribute anci Farewell Liao Chengzhi 74 Press Statement by Soong Ching Ling's Relatives 16 "Great, Honest and Sincere" - Recollections by Family Members 16 From Soong Ching Ling's Articles in "China Reconstructs" 18 To Comrade Soong Ching Ling Frorn a Poem by Xino San (Emi Si,ao) 19 Poets should Sing Your Praises - To Soong Ching Ling during Her Illness Ding Ling 20 The last Da5r of Her Life Paul T. K. Li,n 2T Great Figure, Warm Friend Ma Haide (Dr. George Hatem) 23 Recollections and Thoughts Reui Alleg 2B The Great and Glorious Life ofi Soong Ching Ling (Pictorial) 29 Honorary President Soong Ching Ling's Home (Pictorial) 42 Great Internationalist Fighter Qian Junrui 45 Heroic Battler for Democracy Ch,en Han-seng 47 So Great Yet So Simple Shen Cuizhen 49 Soong Ching Ling and Our Magazine lsrael Epstein 52, She Stood for the ?radition of Truth Li Boti 54 Recalling Work at Her Side Zhang Jue 56 An Outstanding Woman of Our Time Talitha Gerlach 57 Under Her Leadership in the China Welfare Institute Chen Weibo 58 She Is Unforgettable Trudy Rosenberg 60 Advancer of Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Download the Publication
    NEWCOL D WEAR IVIDENCENTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT ON BULLETIN 207 MAO ZEDONG’S HANDLING OF THE TAIWAN STRAITS CRISIS OF 1958: CHINESE RECOLLECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS Translated and Annotated by Li Xiaobing, Chen Jian, and David L. Wilson Translators’ Note: On 23 August 1958, as abruptly as it initiated it? For a long time, Guang Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Cul- Chinese Communist forces in the Fujian scholars have been forced to resort to “edu- ture: Chinese-American Confrontations, area along the People’s Republic of China’s cated guesses” to answer these questions. 1949-1958 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Pacific Coast began an intensive artillery The materials in the following pages, Press, 1992), 225-267; Qiang Zhai, The bombardment of the Nationalist-controlled translated from Chinese, provide new in- Dragon, the Lion, and the Eagle: Chinese- Jinmen Island. In the following two months, sights for understanding Beijing’s handling British-American Relations, 1949-1958 several hundred thousand artillery shells of the Taiwan crisis. They are divided into (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, exploded on Jinmen and in the waters around two parts. The first part is a memoir by Wu 1994), 178-207; and a forthcoming study by it. At one point, a Chinese Communist Lengxi, then the director of the New China Thomas Christensen to be published by invasion of the Nationalist-controlled off- News Agency and editor-in-chief of Renmin Princeton University Press.] shore islands, especially Jinmen (Quemoy) ribao (People’s Daily). Wu was personally Rendering Chinese- or English-lan- and Mazu (Matsu), seemed imminent. In involved in the decision-making process in guage materials into the other language is response to the rapidly escalating Commu- Beijing during the 1958 Taiwan crisis and difficult because the two languages have no nist threat in the Taiwan Straits, the attended several Politburo Standing Com- common linguistic roots.
    [Show full text]
  • Murder of Gu Shunzhang Family
    Murder of Gu Shunzhang Family by Ah Xiang [Excerpts from “Red Terror & White Terror” ] When Gu Shunzhang was captured by KMT and consequently surrendered to KMT in April 1931, CCP Central special task forces underwent a re-organization, with Chen Yun, Kang Sheng and Pan Hannian etc to lead a "CCP Central Special Task Committee" overseeing the activities of special task forces. Gu Shunzhang was a veteran CCP member who led the workers' uprising with Zhou Enlai in 1927, while Kang Sheng [i.e., Zhao Rong] enrolled in CCP in 1925 and later participated in the 1927 uprisings. Gu Shunzhang left Shanghai on March 31st 1931 for arranging underground tunnel so that Zhang Guotao and Chen Changhao could enter Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet enclave. After seeing Zhang Guotao and Chen Changhao board the bus for Macheng on April 8th 1931, Gu Shunzhang indulged himself in joining the magician shows in Wuhan. CCP traitor You Chongxin, sent to the downtown streets by Cai Mengting, recognized Gu Shunzhang from an advertising and subsequently caught Gu on the street. Gu Shunzhang immediately surrendered to KMT authorities. Before Cai Mengting sent Gu Shunzhang to Nanking, Cai Mengting transmitted six telegraphs to Xu Enceng for personal decoding. Unfortunately, Xu Enceng went to Shanghai with the sister of his mistress while CCP top mole Qian Zhuangfei deciphered the wires and immediately notified Shanghai's CCP Central of Gu Shunzhang betrayal. (Xu Enceng, a returnee of US college, was hired by Chen brothers as a crony of Wuxing native town of Zhejiang Prov, while Qian Zhuangfei obtained the trust of Xu Enceng as a crony of Huzhou native town of Zhejiang Province.
    [Show full text]
  • Xiaoyuan Liu on Mao's Military Romanticism: China and The
    Shu Guang Zhang. Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. xiii + 338 pp. $45.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7006-0723-5. Reviewed by Xiaoyuan Liu Published on H-Diplo (June, 1997) Like any complex international event, the his‐ on the Korean War, indicating its "cultural ap‐ tory of the Korean War is a three-dimensional proach" to studying China's intervention (p. 9). puzzle of many sides. Since Allen S. Whiting's clas‐ Chapter Two then sets the historical and intellec‐ sic study, China Crosses the Yalu (1960), a signifi‐ tual background for the Chinese strategy in the cant number of scholarly works have considered war by offering a concise depiction of Mao Ze‐ China's adventurous intervention in the Korean dong's military philosophy, characterized by its War. In the last few years the "forgotten war" has emphasis on the potential of human capabilities. not only been remembered afresh, but has also Chapters Three and Four describe China's defen‐ been rendered a hot topic in the feld by an sive posture before the Korean War and how that emerging new historiography based on new Rus‐ posture changed after Beijing decided to fex its sian and Chinese sources. The book under review military muscle in the Korean Peninsula. Zhang's is a salient example of the new history of the Ko‐ brisk and rich discussion of the shifting military rean War. Its careful examination of the Chinese fortunes of the Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV) People's Republic's military behavior throughout between October 1950 and the summer of 1952, the Korean conflict picks up the narrative left by the subject of Chapters Five through Seven, is Chen Jian's China's Road to the Korean War first-rate military history.
    [Show full text]
  • People's Liberation Army
    Encyclopedia of Modern China, Volume 3 – Finals/ 6/8/2009 19:56 Page 95 People’s Liberation Army: Overview KOREAN WAR When the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, Peng In 1950 Peng backed Mao’s decision to invade Korea, while was arrested and taken to Beijing. In one of numerous other military leaders urged the conquest of Taiwan. Con- struggle sessions, he was forced to kneel before forty thou- sequently, in September 1950 Peng arrived in Shenyang, sand people and was savagely kicked and beaten. Peng was tasked with the enormous problem of assembling an army kept in a prison cell, where he was not permitted to sit or of a quarter of a million with field officers who had no use the toilet. He was interrogated more than two hundred experience fighting a conventional war. By mid-October, times, and finally died in prison in 1974 after an eight-year the first troops crossed the Yalu River, and soon Peng was ordeal. He was cremated in secrecy. Peng was rehabilitated ’ commanding 380,000 troops. His forces eventually suffered in 1979, three years after Mao s death. a million casualties in a three-year war, which ended in SEE ALSO Communist Party; Cultural Revolution, 1966– stalemate and an armistice. Peng had difficulties dealing 1969; Korean War, 1950–1953; Mao Zedong; People’s not only with Mao but also with Joseph Stalin (1879– Liberation Army; Rural Development, 1949–1978: 1953) and Kim Il Sung (1912–1994), and on several occa- Great Leap Forward. sions Peng offered to resign. In 1954, in recognition of his success in fighting the BIBLIOGRAPHY United Nations forces to a standstill in Korea, Peng was Becker, Jasper.
    [Show full text]
  • A Founding Father's Lonely Burial: Political Theater, Dramatic History and the Question of Representation
    Fifty Years of Staging A Founding Father: Political Theater, Dramatic History and the Question of Representation (A Chapter in Representing the Past: Essays on the Historiography of Performance) Xiaomei Chen On 1942, Chen Duxiu, a fifty-three year old man in poverty was buried in a lonely mount in a small town in Sichuan. Chen died of poisoning from Chinese herbs with which he had tried to treat his illness, without professional help and much money. By this side was his third wife, twenty years younger, who had followed him through his declining years. Judging from the small group of family members and friends, who donated a piece of land and a coffin for his burial, few people would know that this newly buried man was a founding father of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its first Secretary General from 1921 to 1927, who presided over the first five party congresses. During this period, the CCP grew from a small group of 57 intellectuals and students at its first party congress in 1921 to a major political actor in modern Chinese history. At the time, it was in alliance with the KMT (Kuomintang, established by Sun Yat-sen and later led by Chiang Kai-shek) to wage a nation-wide war against the Japanese army. In 1949, the CCP defeated the KMT and established the People‟s Republic of China (PRC). This ordinary burial of an old man seemed insignificant at a time of an extraordinary national drama of resisting Japanese invaders in 1942. Chen Duxiu looms large, however, in the formation of the Chinese Communist revolutionary history both in the public memory and in theatrical representations to define political powers, construct party authorities, and connect a seemingly irrelevant past with the present in national and global contexts.
    [Show full text]
  • Scanned Using Book Scancenter 5033
    APPENDIXES A. Songshi Biographies of Zhongyi Men {SS 446-55). SS Loyalists (1273-1300) Other Loyal Men Total 446 0 20 20 447 0 14 14 448 0 25 25 449 0 38 38 450 16 1 17 451 11 0 11 452 7 43 50 453 0 45 45 454 41 5 46 455 2 10 12 Total 77 201 278 % 28 72 100 Note that the 77 loyalists at the end of the Song appear in random order among loyal men of other periods in the Song. B. Zhongyi Biographies Throughout the Dynasties. The figures are tabulated from Chen Menglei et al., Gujin tushu jicheng, juan 706-763, vols. 311-316. Chen and his associates gleaned from various official and local sources the following numbers of biographical sketches of loyal men grouped according to the dynasties to which they directed their Shang 2 Liang 18 Zhou 77 Chen 7 Qin 4 Northern Wei 29 Former Han 23 Southern Qi 18 Latter Han 87 Northern Qi 9 Wei 19 Northern Zhou 9 Shu-Han 0 Sui 41 Wu 14 Tang 181 Tsin 154 Latter Liang 5 Liu-Song 27 Latter Thng 5 265 Appendixes Latter Tsin 9 Song 684 Hou Han 2 Jin 179 Latter Zhou 27 Yuan 322 Liao 15 Ming 5074 C. Wen Tianxiang's Career Before the Resistance (SS 418). Year Position 1256 ranked first in list of jinshi 1259 chengshi lang prestigious title) 8A 1260 supervisor of Jianchang jun 1263 assistant staff author 8A 1264 judicial intendant of Jiangxi 1267 secretary of the right (rev.
    [Show full text]