Before reading this article, I sincerely invite you to click the "Follow" button, so that you can continue to push such articles in the future, and it is also convenient for you to discuss and share, your support is the driving force for us to insist on creating~
Text: Eat noodles and don't eat chicken
Edit|t
On October 25, 1950, the first batch of Chinese volunteers left for the Korean battlefield. After half a year and five large-scale battles, the Chinese People's Volunteers and the Korean People's Army successfully drove the "United Nations Army" composed of 17 troops back to the 38th parallel, saving the precarious socialist regime in Korea.
The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea laid the foundation for the future development of the People's Republic of China, but not everyone had a positive attitude towards the performance of the volunteers, and this view was especially common in the United States and other Western countries. In their view, New China took the initiative to go to other countries to oppose the whole world.
In fact, at the beginning of the Korean War, China tried to avoid getting into the dispute, but the US government and military pushed China into a corner.
Regardless of the positive impact of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea on China and the world, it is necessary for us to correct the name of the Volunteers and understand how much helplessness China was forced to participate in this war in the first place.
Crisis in the Taiwan Strait
On a Saturday on June 24, 1950, U.S. President Harry S. Truman was on vacation in Missouri, Secretary of State Acheson was experiencing rural life on a farm in Maryland, and other government officials, large and small, were enjoying the rare tranquility at home.
It was on this day that the war between the two Koreas began.
The attacking side at the beginning of the war was the North Korean People's Army. With the blessing of 150 Soviet-style tanks, more than 90,000 troops from seven assault divisions of the KPA attacked the city all the way to the Korean Peninsula, and the South Korean army was about to collapse at the touch of a button.
MacArthur, commander of the U.S. Far East Forces, sent an urgent report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Army, indicating that North Korean troops had moved into the suburbs of Seoul, and that if no further assistance was provided, the South Korean regime would soon collapse.
U.S. government officials who received reports of the start of the war were at a loss for a moment, and had no choice but to rush to put pressure on North Korea and the Soviet Union through the United Nations. While the world was in a panic, the Kuomintang government, which had retreated to Taiwan, appeared to be extremely active.
On June 27, 1950, the United States, in the absence of the Soviet Union, pushed the United Nations Security Council to adopt Resolution 83 on armed intervention in the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Just two days after the outbreak of the Korean War, China's sovereignty was blatantly violated.
There is naturally a reason why they are so enthusiastic about entering the Korean war.
From March to May of that year, the People's Liberation Army launched the Hainan Island Campaign, in which 100,000 troops rowed wooden boats to penetrate the remnants of the Kuomintang's "three-dimensional defense". Hainan Island was liberated in this battle, and the incompetence of the Kuomintang army once again made Truman shake his head.
After the battle, the KMT-controlled area was left with the island of Taiwan and the surrounding islands, and the US government began to evacuate officials in Taiwan and find places of exile for Chiang Kai-shek, waiting for the PLA to strike a final blow and the Kuomintang regime would be thrown into the dustbin of history.
However, the outbreak of the Korean War changed the situation. New China had to shift its focus to the northeast, and the remnants of the Kuomintang once again gained the support of the U.S. government by virtue of their geographical advantages and their ability to meet the Americans.
In the initial stage of provoking the confrontation, the US Government demanded that the Taiwan authorities assume the main defensive task, while the Taiwan authorities complained that their own strength was not enough to cope with the PLA's attack.
On July 24, 1950, the United States agreed that the Taiwan authorities should use the navy and air force to defend Taiwan's outer islands, and the Kuomintang army immediately built a blockade line at sea from Qingdao in the north to Shantou in the south.
On July 30, the Kuomintang army launched an offensive against the People's Liberation Army (PLA) massing along the coast, resulting in the sinking of 150 large and small ships. Acheson and other U.S. government officials did not support such a reckless approach to escalate the standoff, but the U.S. military, led by MacArthur, applauded the actions of the Kuomintang army.
Since the beginning of the Korean War, the US Government, the military, and the Taiwan authorities have done all the evil things in the direction of the Taiwan Strait alone, repeatedly ignoring China's territorial sovereignty over Taiwan in words and facts, and infringing on the interests of the Chinese people at the national defense, economic, and social levels.
And the impact of this war on China is not limited to the Taiwan Strait.
Border security: The U.S. military ignores the sovereignty of the People's Republic of China
Since the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Korean Peninsula has been more than just a foreign land, it has often been used as a springboard for hostile forces to invade China, and the United States' involvement in the Korean War also contains the same meaning.
Although the leaders of the People's Republic of China knew about the possibility of war through the Soviet Union, North Korea, and other channels, in June 1950, when the Korean War broke out, the Communist Party of China had just set the goal of "striving to achieve a fundamental improvement in the country's financial and economic situation in about three years." It can be seen that the leaders of New China at that time never had the idea of participating in the Cold War or intervening in other countries' civil wars.
However, in the face of the United States' step-by-step pressure, the Chinese government has also had to react.
In July 1950, the Central Military Commission promulgated the "Decision on Defending the Northeast Frontier Defense", and transferred a total of 255,000 people from the 13th Corps, the 42nd Army, 3 artillery divisions, and some other arms to form the Northeast Frontier Army.
With the change of the situation, the establishment of the Northeast Frontier Army has undergone many changes, which laid the foundation for the later creation of the Volunteer Army. But at the beginning of the war, the main task of this force was only to defend the northeast from the war.
At the same time as the military mobilization, the industrial layout of the Northeast has also undergone large-scale adjustments.
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Northeast region concentrated 71% of the country's iron-making capacity, 91% of the steel-making capacity, 50% of the steel-rolling capacity, 30% of the power generation capacity and a large number of chemical productivity, and after 1949, it was still the most important heavy chemical base in the country.
However, the Northeast is directly connected to the war-torn Korean Peninsula, and most of the factories are concentrated in a few cities in Liaoning, such as Shenyang and Dalian, so if there is no industrial transfer, hostile forces can easily deal a blow to the industrial facilities here, and then affect the economic construction of the whole country.
At the suggestion of the Northeast Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the leaders of the new China decided to spend a year or two to establish a new industrial base in North Manchuria, relatively far from the Korean Peninsula, and at the same time to move the factories to the new base in batches according to the situation. From 1950 to 1952, the state's investment in Northeast China accounted for more than half of the country's total capital construction investment.
But even though the Chinese government only made some moves to avoid the war, the Northeast was not immune to invasion in the war.
MacArthur and the U.S. military under his command never took the poor and white New China regime seriously, and the Chinese government's restraint on the Taiwan Strait issue in June and August further exacerbated their contempt for the PLA.
At 10:04 a.m. on August 27, 1950, US planes entered the airspace of Northeast China for the first time, and two B-29 bombers circled over Ji'an County (now Ji'an City) in Jilin Province for 10 minutes.
At 10:05, three Mustang fighter-bombers and one Mosquito bomber appeared in Linjiang County, Jilin Province, and they strafed the ground along the railway line and station, causing damage to one locomotive. An hour later, the four planes attacked the station again, wounding two civilians and destroying several vehicles.
At 14:30 p.m., a B–29 bomber invaded Andong City (present-day Dandong City) in Liaoning Province, circled in the air and left. Two hours later, two Mustang fighter-bombers opened fire on the local airfield, killing three airport workers, injuring 19 others and damaging two vehicles.
In just six hours, two northeastern provinces and three places were invaded by US planes, and the number of invading planes reached 5 batches and 13 sorties, and three Chinese were brutally killed on their own territory, and as many as 21 people were injured.
Later, the Americans interpreted these tragic incidents as accidental injuries.
Two days later, US planes attacked again, this time targeting fishing boats on the river, and the fishermen in the water had no choice but to let the devil in the air slaughter them. On the same day, four planes flew to Andong and Kuandian to carry out the massacre mission, and seven fishermen were unfortunately killed, and another seven were injured to varying degrees.
After two successive waves of air strikes, the US military suspended its attacks on civilians in China, but the suspension does not mean that it has ended. On 21 September, U.S. warships chased Chinese merchant ships on the high seas, brazenly firing at them, a process that lasted half an hour.
At 22:01 on September 22, a US military plane invaded Andong again and was driven away by the border guard air defense forces. 14 minutes later, a B-29 bomber again entered the sky over Anton. Unlike the previous artillery strafing, this time the US military plane directly carried a heavy bomb. The bomber dropped 13 bombs on the countryside of Anton, destroying a total of 28 houses and a large number of vegetable patches, and injuring two villagers.
Since October of that year, US military planes have violated China's airspace more and more frequently. Before the Chinese volunteers entered the DPRK, US planes entered China at least 17 times, causing serious damage to the lives and property safety of the Chinese people.
As a matter of fact, during the period when the Chinese Volunteers secretly entered the DPRK to fight, US military planes violated China's airspace on the same number of occasions. After the Volunteers turned to open combat, the U.S. military blew up the Yalu River Bridge without any scruples.
If the US military is allowed to occupy Korea, the bombing of China by US military planes will become the norm for reconnaissance, strafing, and bombing.
Foreign policy: China argues with reason, while the United States insists on going its own way
It is not difficult to find from an analysis of what the United States has done in the Taiwan Strait and Northeast China that it is not that China has to enter the war, but that the US Government and military are determined to drag China into the water, and this can be seen by other countries and even US allies.
Naturally, peace-loving countries do not want the United States to do this, and even members of the "United Nations Forces" will feel shameless and incomprehensible about the United States' behavior of making enemies.
Mao Zedong, the leader of the People's Republic of China, later gave a reasonable explanation for the Chinese Volunteers' entry into Korea at the CPPCC meeting:
"If it were not for the US troops occupying Taiwan on the mainland, invading the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and hitting the northeastern border of the mainland, the Chinese people would not have fought against the US army. However, since the US aggressors have already attacked us, we cannot but raise the banner of anti-aggression, which is completely necessary and totally just, and the people of the whole country have understood this necessity and justice. ”
Before the decision to go to war, the leaders of the People's Republic of China had repeatedly tried to resolve these issues through diplomatic channels.
If it were not for the Korean War, 1950 would have been a bumper year in the diplomatic history of the new China, as India, one of the leaders of the Third World, and Britain, the former world hegemon, recognized the legitimacy of the new China at the end of the previous year and the beginning of that year, respectively.
Later, British Prime Minister Attlee brought the United States and France together for a meeting, and US Secretary of State Acheson repeatedly stated that the United States had no intention of provoking a civil war in China, but Britain and France insisted that the United States had other plans.
In the face of overwhelming criticism, the US Government can only deliberately downplay its stance on the Taiwan Strait issue. Later, Truman, in his own document NSC 73/4, repeatedly stressed the need not to participate in the civil war between the Communists and the Kuomintang.
At the beginning of July 1950, Zhou Enlai, through India's ambassador to China, Panniga, proposed to the US government a solution to the Taiwan Strait issue and the Sino-North Korean border security issue: to agree to the entry of New China into the United Nations, and to let the Korean people vote to decide their own belonging under the supervision of the United Nations.
This is a reasonable solution for both North and South Korea and for the world. But in this way, the United States will not find a reason to cross the 38th parallel, and Truman will naturally not agree to such a proposal.
Later, the fact that the Chinese volunteers were fighting against the "United Nations Army" was made public, and the countries did not change their understanding of China's position. In November 1950, Britain took the lead in inviting China to the United Nations Security Council.
Although China later rejected the invitation of the United Nations, the First Committee of the United Nations adopted the "three-person proposal" proposed by India.
The various diplomatic measures taken by the new China during the Korean War showed that China was ready to resolve the contradictions through peaceful means, and the real culprit in this war was not China, but the anti-communist politicians and fanatical military personnel of the United States.
Resources
Wang Dong,Xie Wei.Korean War and the adjustment of industrial layout in Northeast China[J].Zhongzhou Academic Journal,2013,(03):153-157.)
Zhang Enqiang.Evacuation of state-owned enterprises in anti-US air raids in Northeast China[J].Party History Expo,2023,(08):65-69.)
The Formation of the U.S. Military Intervention Policy in Taiwan: The Strategic Cognition and Its Influence of the Truman Administration (1948-1950)[J].Research on the History of the Communist Party of China,2020,(01):64-84.
Wang Lena.Taiwan authorities and the Korean War[D].Zhejiang University,2017.
Hou Zhongjun.Taiwan's response and its impact during the Korean War[J].Research on the History of the Communist Party of China,2020,(04):70-86.)