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China's Road to the Korean War
The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation
New York
1994
4. Taiwan, Indochina, and Korea: Beijing's Confrontation with the U.S. Escalates
In late 1949 and early 1950, the Sino-American confrontation reached a pivotal point. As the PLA mopped up GMD stragglers on the mainland and occupied all important strategic regions except for Tibet and Taiwan, CCP leaders now believed that there was no immediate threat of an American invasion of the Chinese mainland. Sino-American relations, however, continued to deteriorate at deeper levels. The CCP's tough attitude toward the recognition problem, the anti-American propaganda tide following Mao's open criticism of the China White Paper,and the incarceration of American diplomats and requisition of former military barracks of the American diplomatic compound fully demonstrated the CCP's unyielding stand toward the United States. Washington's refusal to recognize Communist China and continuous support for Jiang's regime, on the other hand, further intensified the hostility between Beijing and Washington. Meanwhile U.S. policymakers had to face the reality of the buildup of a close relationship between China and the Soviet Union, reflected in the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty. Combined with the shock wave caused by Soviet explosion of an atomic bomb in summer 1949, these developments changed significantly the strategic balance in the Asian-Pacific area as well as the ways in which Beijing and Washington perceived each other. Consequently, on the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War, Beijing's policy toward the United States and Washington's policy toward China became increasingly hostile and aggressive.
The Concept of Confronting the U.S. on Three Fronts
In late 1949, Beijing leaders began to base their policy toward the United States on more complicated considerations than before. In the short run, they believed that the United States, restricted by its limited strength and confined by a variety of internal and external problems, was unable to invade the Chinese mainland or to engage in major military operations in East Asia. 1 From a long-term perspective, however, CCP leaders were firmly convinced that sooner or later revolutionary China had to face a direct military confrontation with the imperialist United States. Because of the growing international influence of the Chinese revolution, as the CCP leaders perceived it, revolutionary movements following the Chinese model would develop in other Asian countries. The United States, as the "head of the reactionary forces" in the world, would then resort to the most desperate means to prevent revolutionary changes in East Asia. As a result, a showdown between China and the United States would eventually occur. 2
China's domestic situation also contributed to its maintaining a tough policy toward the United States. With the establishment of the People's Republic, Mao and the CCP leadership needed to expend considerable energy on political consolidation and economic recovery. Meanwhile, driven by his perception of the nature of the Chinese revolution, Mao was eager to create among party members as well as the general population support for the CCP's grand plans of transforming Chinese society. Mao and the CCP leadership sought by emphasizing the historical significance and international influence of the Chinese revolution and by igniting the anti-American imperialist propaganda to mobilize that support.
Correspondingly, in late 1949 and early 1950, three ideas appeared consistently in Communist-controlled media in China. First, all CCP writers emphasized that the victory of the Chinese revolution represented a breakthrough in the struggle against international imperialism and would cause a rising tide of revolution in other Asian countries and regions. Second, they postulated that the model of the Chinese revolution would spread far beyond China and inspire the liberation of all oppressed peoples and nations, thus making China the center of revolutionary movements in the East. Last, they stressed that it was the duty of the Chinese people to assist in every way possible those peoples who were striving for their own liberation and independence. 3
Under these circumstances, the CCP's perception of the "American threat" and the PRC's strategy vis-à-vis the United States subtly evolved in late 1949 and early 1950. While CCP leaders previously had prepared for a direct American invasion of the mainland, now, they viewed Sino-American relations in the much broader perspective of a long-range Chinese-American confrontation in all of East Asia. Accordingly, a significant transition occurred in the emphasis of the CCP leadership's security strategy: the focus of Beijing leaders'concerns now moved from mainland China and problems concerning China's civil war to Taiwan, Vietnam, and Korea, and the three areas came to occupy a central position in Beijing's security strategy and foreign policy in late 1949 and early 1950. While putting Taiwan at the moment as the priority, especially because the "liberation of Taiwan" was a crucial step in completing the CCP's unification of China, 4 CCP leaders believed that developments in the three areas were interrelated. Zhou Enlai later referred to this "the concept of confronting the United States on three fronts." 5
In light of the need to prepare for a long-term confrontation with the U.S., the Beijing leadership started in late 1949 to restructure China's military forces and to establish a central reserve force. After months of deliberations, in the spring of 1950, the CCP leadership decided to start a large-scale demobilization of the PLA's vast ground force by cutting its size from 5.4 million to 4 million. 6 Many scholars, both in China and the West, have thus concluded that the CCP leadership hoped to focus on economic recovery and reconstruction and that Beijing's stand on the eve of the Korean War was much less belligerent than that of Washington's. A few scholars even use the CCP's demobilization plans to argue that the CCP leadership wished to improve relations with Western countries, including the United States. 7 A close examination of available sources about the CCP's demobilization plan, however, leads to a very different conclusion.
We need first to analyze carefully the causes underlying the CCP's demobilization plan. According to top CCP leaders and PLA commanders, the introduction of the plan was based on three considerations. First, the size of the PLA's land force had reached almost 5.7 million by the end of 1949, placing too heavy a financial burden for the newly established PRC. As fighting against the GMD forces on the mainland ended, there was no need to continue to maintain such a huge land force. 8 Second, a large portion of PLA soldiers were either former GMD prisoners or members of defecting GMD units. In order to enhance the PLA's strength and weaken the GMD's, as Nie Rongzhen put it, "Chairman Mao had instructed that they should all be absorbed into the PLA." And now, "rectification and demobilization were necessary so that the quality of our combat units could be improved." 9 Third, with the annihilation of the GMD's main force, the PRC needed to establish an air force and a navy to fulfill such tasks as the "liberation of Taiwan" and the defense of China's air and sea against, most probably, the "American threat." By reducing the size of the land force," emphasized Nie Rongzhen, "we can use our limited money to construct our air force and navy." 10
As CCP leaders viewed the demobilization plan as a step to restructure China's military power so that the PRC's military forces would be in a position to meet "the need of future wars," 11 they emphasized from the very beginning that while the size of the land force would be reduced through the demobilization, its quality should be improved, and that in the meantime both the air force and the navy would be significantly expanded. 12 The final goal of the demobilization plan, in Nie Rongzhen's words, was "neither to reduce nor to weaken our military forces; rather, it was designed to strengthen our military forces." 13 It is apparent that this plan was compatible with the CCP leadership's need to prepare for the long-range Sino-American confrontation, not the first stage in an attempt at diplomatic accommodation with the United States.
Not surprising at all, when top CCP leaders were considering the demobilization plan, they made another crucial decision in the winter and spring of 1949-1950: to establish a national central reserve force with the United States as the perceived primary enemy. After the 13th Army Corps under Lin Biao's Fourth Field Army, one of the PLA's best units, completed military operations in southern China at the end of 1949, the CCP's Central Military Commission (CMC)ordered them to move to Henan province in central China, deploying along railroads within easy reach of Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou. The CCP leadership instructed the central reserve force to maintain a high degree of mobility, so that it could be available to meet any crisis situation caused by the Americans in Taiwan, the Korean peninsula, or Indochina. 14
The real nature of the CCP's demobilization plan made it more of a restructuring of China's military forces. This restructuring, together with the establishment of the central reserve force, reflected Beijing leaders'concerns over a possible showdown with the United States.
The Taiwan Problem
In late 1949, as military operations ended on the Chinese mainland, Taiwan became increasingly important in the CCP leadership's perception of China's relationship with the United States. Taiwan, long a part of China, had become a Japanese colony after China's defeat in the 1894 Sino-Japanese War. After the Second World War, the island was returned to China. When the GMD lost the civil war, Jiang Jieshi moved his regime to Taiwan, converting the island into the GMD's last political and military bastion.
CCP leaders viewed the liberation of Taiwan as the "last campaign to end China's civil war." 15 In the eyes of CCP leaders, a successful Taiwan campaign would complete destruction of the GMD regime and conclude a century's political division and internal turmoil in China. A unified new China would then emerge as a significant actor in East Asia and the world.
From the beginning, CCP leaders feared that a hostile America might jeopardize their plans. In March 1949, before liberating Taiwan became a part of the CCP's immediate agenda, the Xinhua News Agency published an editorial criticizing the United States for its attempt to interfere with the Taiwan problem. The editorial observed that at the time "the colonial rule of U.S. imperialists and their GMD lackeys had approached its grave," and they were "envisioning holding Taiwan, part of China's territory, as the springboard for aggressive operations against mainland China in the future." The editorial called on the Chinese people to smash the plot of the U.S. imperialists, thus guaranteeing that Taiwan would "be liberated and returned to the hands of the Chinese people." 16
In late May 1949, soon after Shanghai fell into the hands of the PLA, Jiang Jieshi arrived in Taiwan. Almost immediately he ordered the GMD's naval and air forces to harass the coastal areas now occupied by the Communists. On June 21, the GMD regime announced a naval blockade of all CCP controlled coastal ports, and GMD air forces started bombing coastal cities, especially important industrial and commercial centers like Shanghai. CCP leaders viewed this as evidence of the GMD's "desperate resistance before death" and also the result of Washington's continuing support of the GMD. Otherwise, CCP leaders believed, the GMD would have neither the strength nor the courage to challenge the CCP on the mainland. 17
Mao and the CCP leadership decided to put the task of "liberating Taiwan" at the top of their agenda. On June 14, in a telegram to commanders of the Third Field Army and the CCP's East China Bureau, Mao urged his officers to "pay attention to the problem of seizing Taiwan immediately." Mao asked them to make suggestions on "whether Taiwan could be seized in a relatively short time, in which way Taiwan could be seized, and how the enemy troops in Taiwan could be divided and a part of them might switch to our side and cooperate with us from within." Stressing that "if we failed to solve the Taiwan problem in a short period, the safety of Shanghai and other coastal ports would be severely threatened," Mao instructed his officers to respond to his questions immediately. 18
A week later, before receiving a reply from the Third Field Army, Mao telegraphed to Su Yu and the CCP East China Bureau again, stressing the urgent importance of a quick settlement of the Taiwan problem. Mao pointed out that despite the crucial importance of Taiwan, "you have so far ignored it, but you must pay sufficient attention to it immediately." To clarify his reasoning Mao told his officers: "If Taiwan were not liberated and the GMD's naval and air bases not destroyed, Shanghai and other coastal areas would be menaced from time to time. If Taiwan were not liberated, we would not be able to seize hundreds of thousands of tons of vessels [still controlled by the GMD]. Our coastal and inland water transportation would thus be controlled by foreign merchants." Mao asked the Third Field Army to overcome the "pessimistic mood" that resulted from viewing "the Taiwan problem as difficult to be solved." Rather the commanders should take a positive view by "completing all preparations during summer and autumn and occupying Taiwan in the coming winter." 19
After carefully considering the problems involved in organizing a Taiwan campaign, Mao found that the summer of 1950 might be more reasonable a deadline. He understood that a successful Taiwan campaign depended on the CCP's ability to secure defection of GMD forces and sufficient Soviet naval and air support. In a letter to Zhou Enlai on July 10, 1949, Mao pointed out that to prepare for a successful Taiwan campaign, the CCP forces "needed to rely on internal cooperations and the support of an air force." Mao believed that "our plan would succeed if we could meet one of the two conditions, and our hope would be even greater if both conditions could be satisfied." Mao suggested that 300 to 400 PLA men be sent to study in Soviet air schools for six to eight months and to purchase 100 Soviet planes. He believed that the Soviet support would provide the CCP with "an offensive air unit to support the cross-strait campaign to seize Taiwan next summer." 20
During Liu Shaoqi's visit to the Soviet Union in July and August 1949, winning Soviet air and naval support had the highest priority on his agenda. Liu made it clear to the Soviets that the Chinese Communists needed to expand their air and naval forces quickly to make it possible to conduct a successful amphibious campaign against Taiwan in the near future. 21 The Soviets responded positively to the CCP's request. In August, a Chinese air force delegation and a naval delegation came to Moscow to discuss with the Soviets the details of Soviet air and naval support to China. As a result of the agreement reached at these talks, Soviet air and naval aid, which was at this moment largely designed to strengthen the PLA's amphibious combat power for the Taiwan campaign, began to arrive in September and October 1949. 22
Mao's eagerness to wage the Taiwan campaign in the shortest possible time was based on two fundamental assumptions. First, the PLA's expeditious victorious march after crossing the Yangzi River convinced Mao and the CCP leadership that the GMD forces were too weak to endure a single major blow. As the morale of GMD troops had virtually collapsed, CCP leaders and military planners believed that the PLA would be able to conquer the GMD-controlled islands, including Taiwan, without much difficulty. 23 Second, because the United States had not interfered militarily when the PLA crossed the Yangzi River and attacked Shanghai and other important coastal cities, Mao and other CCP leaders believed that, most probably, the Americans would not send in their troops if the PLA attacked GMD-controlled islands. Mao thus ordered the Third Field Army to accelerate its march toward coastal areas in Zhejiang and Fujian provinces and to complete preparations for the Taiwan campaign as soon as possible. 24
Much to the CCP leaders'surprise, the PLA suffered two significant defeats in their attempts to occupy Jinmen (Quemoy)and Dengbu, two small islands controlled by the GMD. These defeats made CCP leaders aware of the tremendous difficulties involved in attacking the offshore islands and Taiwan, and forced Mao and the CCP leadership to change their original schedule for the Taiwan campaign.
Late in October 1949, when three regiments of the PLA's 28th Army of the 10th Army Corps tried to occupy Jinmen, located east of Xiamen, about five and half miles from the mainland, they encountered fierce resistance from GMD forces, who were equipped with American-made artillery, airplanes, and gunboats. The PLA troops succeeded in landing on Jinmen island on October 24, but the GMD forces, controlling both sea and air, quickly separated the PLA landing force from their supplies and surrounded them on Jinmen Island. After three days of bloody fighting, about 10,000 PLA troops were either destroyed or captured. 25
Before CCP military planners could fully assess the meaning of the Jinmen defeat, the 61st Division of the PLA's Seventh Army Corps suffered another setback in its attempt to seize Dengbu Island in early November. Dengbu Island is part of the Zhoushan Islands off Zhejiang Province. On the evening of November 3, as part of the efforts to attack Zhoushan, three battalions of the PLA's 61st Division landed on Dengbu. After fierce fighting, by early next morning, these troops had occupied almost the entire island. The situation, however, suddenly changed. The GMD, still in control of the air and the sea, sent in four regiments of troops. Meanwhile, hindered by the changing ocean tide, the PLA was unable to reinforce its troops. As a result, the PLA had to retreat from Dengbu during the evening of November 5. 26
These setbacks, especially that of Jinmen, were the worst defeats of the PLA in China's civil war. They shocked Mao and the CCP leadership. On October 29, 1949, Mao, in the name of the CMC, issued a circular suggesting that his commanders should "overcome the tendency of taking the enemy lightly and doing things impatiently" by drawing "deep lessons from the Jinmen defeat." 27
The Jinmen and Dengbu defeats influenced the CCP's Taiwan strategy in at least three respects. First, these operational failures made clear to the CCP leadership the difficulties involved in amphibious operations. In a telegram to Su Yu and other commanders of the Third Field Army on November 4, Mao asked them to take a "more cautious approach" in organizing further campaigns aimed at GMD-controlled offshore islands. They should, in Mao's opinion, "concentrate a superior force, make sufficient preparations in advance, and overcome the tendency of assessing the enemy lightly." 28 Ten days later, Mao instructed Su Yu in another telegram to further consider "the lessons of the Jinmen defeat and the recent setback in Laidao [Dengbu] Island nearby Dinghai [the capital of the Zhoushan Islands]." Mao believed that Su had "to pay close attention to such problems as military deployment, preparedness, and timing for starting the attack while waging operations aimed at Dinghai." And if Su found that preparations had not been completed, Mao emphasized, he should "postpone the deadline for operations." 29
In early December, before his trip to the Soviet Union, Mao conferred with Xiao Jinguang to obtain a more detailed knowledge of the naval and air needs for a major cross-strait campaign. 30 During Mao's two month visit to the Soviet Union, he did his best to win more Soviet naval and air support for the forthcoming Taiwan campaign. Even during the busy days of dealing with Stalin and other top Soviet leaders in Moscow, Mao remained concerned about the PLA's amphibious operations against offshore islands in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. In telegrams of December 18 and 31 to Lin Biao, who was then in charge of a major amphibious campaign aimed at Hainan Island, Mao asked Lin to study carefully the lessons of the Jinmen defeat, reminding him of the importance of following "the principle of taking action only after full preparation and victory being certain." 31 With the change of Mao's and top CCP leaders'attitudes, PLA commanders in coastal areas began to take a more cautious approach in planning amphibious operations aimed at GMD-controlled offshore islands. In a telegram to Mao and the CMC on November 22, Su Yu reported that the Third Field Army would not conduct the attack against Dinghai until January or February of 1950, so that they would have more time to prepare for the campaign. 32
A second result of the Jinmen and Dengbu defeats was a change in the CCP policymakers'original assumption that the PLA could seize Taiwan in a single major effort. On November 22, 1949, Su Yu summarized a new Taiwan campaign plan in a telegram to Mao and the CMC. He predicted that the Jiang regime, encouraged by the GMD forces'success in Jinmen and Dengbu, would further strengthen their position in Zhoushan, Jinmen, and other offshore islands. While this would inevitably increase the difficulties involved in attacking these islands, it also provided an opportunity for the PLA to eliminate substantial enemy forces by concentrating on these relatively easier targets, and thus creating favorable military and political conditions for the Taiwan campaign in the future. 33 Mao and the CMC quickly approved this new plan. 34 tary operations focused on Hainan, Zhoushan, and several other offshore islands with Taiwan as the ultimate target. Accordingly, the deadline for carrying out the Taiwan campaign was postponed several times. On the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War, the CCP leadership had already decided that the Taiwan campaign would not be implemented until the spring and summer of 1951. 35 Meanwhile, Mao reconsidered the Taiwan problem, sending General Zhang Zhizhong, a former high-ranking GMD official who had switched to the Communists shortly before the PLA's Yangzi River campaign, directions to explore "liberating Taiwan in peaceful ways." 36
Third, the aftermath of the Jinmen and Dengbu battles also influenced CCP leaders'judgment of America's hostility toward the new China. CCP leaders could see that one of the most important reasons for the PLA's defeat was that the GMD forces, supported by American-made airplanes and gunboats, dominated the sea and the air. Without American support, CCP leaders believed, GMD could not survive the PLA's offensive operations. 37 This experience, combined with GMD naval and air forces using American-made bombers and warships to bomb Shanghai and other coastal areas and to blockade major mainland ports, further convinced CCP leaders that the United States was their primary enemy. They now viewed the liberation of Taiwan from the perspective of a long-range Sino-American confrontation in East Asia, and the CCP-GMD struggle in the Taiwan Strait became a part of the broad Sino-American confrontation. 38
While the CCP leaders could not ignore Washington's hostility toward Communist China, they were still convinced that the United States was strategically too vulnerable to send in American troops to stop the PLA's attack against Taiwan. Two of Su Yu's reports are extremely revealing in this regard. In a report to a military conference held on January 5, 1950, Su Yu argued that it was unlikely that the United States would provide its troops to protect the GMD. In a diplomatic sense, Su emphasized, the United States had recognized Taiwan to be part of China and thus had no ground to interfere militarily if the PLA attacked Taiwan. Politically, according to Su, policymakers in Washington would meet great difficulty in reaching a consensus with their allies in Great Britain, the Philippines, and Japan, if the United States were to enter "the last campaign of China's civil war." From a military perspective, Su saw a vulnerable America. He believed that the United States needed at least five years to mobilize enough troops to enter a major military confrontation in the Far East. Su's conclusion was that "in terms of their attitude toward Taiwan, the Americans would not send troops to Taiwan but might send in planes, artillery, and tanks." 39
Washington offered further evidence to confirm this assessment. On January 5, 1950, President Truman proclaimed that the United States would not challenge the notion that Taiwan was part of China. One week later, Secretary of State Acheson openly excluded Taiwan and South Korea from the U.S. western Pacific defensive perimeter. CCP leaders paid heed to both statements. In a report to a conference discussing the Taiwan campaign plan on January 27, 1950, Su Yu was now confident that Washington would not risk a third world war by sending its military forces to protect Taiwan. 40
Viewing the United States as simultaneously a hostile enemy and a "paper tiger," Mao and the CCP leadership adopted a more aggressive strategy vis-a`-vis the United States in East Asia, to challenge the existing international order in the Asian-Pacific area in which China had little voice, as well as to expand the influence of the Chinese revolution. Such an approach became the background of Beijing's policies toward Indochina and Korea in late 1949 and early 1950.
Indochina as a Test Case
Immediately after the establishment of the PRC, Beijing leaders began to give special attention to Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). The CCP and Vietnamese Communists had historically enjoyed close connections. Early in the 1920s, Ho Chi Minh and other Vietnamese Communists initiated contacts with their Chinese comrades. Ho himself often came to China and spoke fluent Chinese. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, he was even a member of the CCP-led Eighth Route Army. 41 After the end of the Second World War, Ho's Indochina Communist Party 42 led a national uprising and established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)with Ho as president. When the French returned to reestablish control, Ho and his cohorts moved to mountainous areas to fight for independence with little outside assistance between 1946 and early 1950.
The Chinese Communist victory in 1949 offered Vietnamese Communists backing. Both sides were eager to establish close cooperation. In late 1949, the Indochina Communist Party sent Hoang Van Hoan, a member of its central committee, to China to strengthen ties between the two parties. 43 In early January 1950, Liu Shaoqi, then in charge of the CCP's relations with the Indochina Communist Party, decided to send Luo Guibo, director of the CMC's Administration Office, to be the CCP's liaison in Vietnam. Liu made it clear that Luo's appointment had been approved by Mao and the CCP Central Committee. His task in Vietnam was to establish good communications between the two parties as well as to provide the CCP Central Committee with first-hand information on how to assist the Vietnamese Communists in their struggle for independence. Liu stressed to Luo that "it is the duty of those countries which have achieved the victory of their own revolution to support peoples who are still conducting the just struggle for liberation," and that "it is our international obligation to support the anti-French struggle of the Vietnamese people." 44 In mid-January 1950, the PRC granted formal diplomatic recognition to the DRV so that it could participate in international society. CCP leaders, who understood that recognition of Ho's government would inevitably make an early French recognition of the Chinese Communist regime unlikely, still believed that establishing relations with the DRV was in the fundamental interests of revolutionary China. Following the example of China, the Soviet Union and other Communist countries quickly recognized the DRV, which would later name January 18 as the day of "diplomatic victory." 45
Before Luo arrived in Vietnam, however, Ho Chi Minh, after walking for seventeen days, secretly arrived in China in late January 1950. 46 Liu Shaoqi immediately received him and reported his visit to Mao Zedong, who was then in Moscow. Meanwhile, the CCP Central Committee established an ad hoc commission composed of Zhu De, Nie Rongzhen, and Li Weihan, director of the United Front Department of the CCP Central Committee, to discuss with Ho his mission in China. 47 Ho made it clear that he came to obtain a substantial Chinese commitment to support the Vietnamese Communists. 48 He also wished to meet Stalin and Mao in Moscow and obtain Soviet and Chinese military, political, and economic assistance. Through arrangements made by the CCP and the Soviet Communist Party, Ho arrived in Moscow in early February. 49
Ho's secret trip to Moscow brought mixed results. While the Soviet Union decided to recognize Ho's government, Stalin had international priorities in Europe and was unfamiliar with, and to a certain extent even suspicious of, Ho's intentions. He was therefore reluctant to commit the strength of the Soviet Union directly to the Vietnamese Communists and turned Ho to the Chinese. 50 To Ho's great satisfaction, Mao and Zhou, first in Moscow then Beijing (to where Ho returned), promised that the CCP would do its best "to offer every military assistance needed by Vietnam in its struggle against France." When Ho returned to Vietnam he was certain that he could now rely on China's support. 51
The CCP's attitude toward Vietnam was first and foremost the logical result of the Chinese Communist perception of an Asian revolution following the Chinese model. Because CCP leaders took the victory of the Chinese revolution as the beginning of "a new wave of revolutionary movements of oppressed peoples" in Asia and in the world, they felt obliged to assist Communist revolutionaries and national liberation movements elsewhere. The CCP's policy of supporting the Vietnamese Communists was also consistent with Mao's lean-to-one-side approach. When Liu and Mao visited the Soviet Union, the Chinese and the Soviets agreed that the promotion of revolutionary movements in East Asia was primarily China's duty. It is natural that Beijing leaders were willing to commit to the support of their comrades in Vietnam.
CCP leaders also believed that standing by their Vietnamese comrades would serve their goal of safeguarding China's security interests. Significantly, Mao, though a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, demonstrated an approach similar to many traditional Chinese rulers: the safety of the "Central Kingdom" could not be properly maintained if its neighboring areas fell into the hands of hostile "barbarian" forces. In 1949-50, this view was further strengthened by the fact that some Chinese Nationalist units who were still loyal to Jiang Jieshi had fled to the Chinese-Vietnamese border area, making it a source of trouble for the newly established CCP regime. 52 Mao and the CCP leadership concluded that a Communist Vietnam would enhance the security of China's southern borders.
When the CCP made the decision to support the Vietnamese Communists, it moved forward immediately. On March 13, 1950, Liu Shaoqi cabled Luo Guibo, who had arrived in the Viet Minh's bases in northern Vietnam four days earlier, instructing him to start his work in two stages. He was first to deal with urgent problems, including providing the CCP Central Committee with a clear idea about the way in which Chinese military, economic, and financial aid would be given to the Vietnamese and how the aid could reach Vietnam. Secondly, Luo was instructed to carefully investigate the overall situation in Vietnam so that he could offer the CCP Central Committee suggestions for the long-term goal of defeating the French colonists. 53 The CCP obviously took the cause of the Vietnamese Communists as if it were their own.
In April 1950, the Central Committee of the Indochina Communist Party formally asked for military advisers from the CCP. The CCP leadership responded immediately. On April 17, the CMC ordered each of the PLA's Second, Third, and Fourth Field Armies to provide advisers at battalion, regiment, and division levels for a Vietnamese division. The Third Field Army organized the headquarters of the Chinese Military Advisory Group (CMAG)while the Fourth Field Army set up a military school for the Vietnamese. On April 26, the CMC instructed the PLA Northwestern, Southwestern, Eastern, and South-central Military Regions to offer another thirteen cadres over battalion level to join the CMAG to work with the Vietnamese at the top commanding positions of their Communist forces. 54 The military advisers gathered in Beijing during May and received indoctrination courses for the CCP's international policy. They would also meet top CCP leaders to receive instructions. General Wei Guoqing, political commissar of the Tenth Army Corps of the Third Field Army, was put in charge of the preparation work. 55
By mid-1950, Beijing leaders had committed important military and financial resources to support their Vietnamese comrades. They fully understood that their intervention in Indochina would further intensify China's confrontation with the United States as well as complicate Beijing's relationship with Paris. But they were determined to go their own way, because Indochina was to them a test case for the promotion of the new China's international prestige and influence, as well as for inevitable confrontation between revolutionary forces and the imperialists in East Asia.
China and Korea: A Special Relationship
In accordance with the concept of confronting the United States on three fronts, Korea became another focus of the CCP's East Asian strategy in early 1950, and Mao and the CCP leadership demonstrated an intense interest in the Korean peninsula. 56 The Korean Communists were happy to have the backing of a Communist China, and relations between the CCP and its North Korean counterpart were generally intimate. Factors such as factionalism among the Korean Communists and Kim Il-sung's strong nationalism did create problems between the CCP and the North Koreans. Consequently, Chinese-North Korean relationships manifested a special dual character before and during the initial stage of the Korean War.
Historically, the Korean Communists had close ties with their Chinese comrades. In the 1920s, many Korean Communists began their revolutionary activities in China, and some even joined the newly established Chinese Communist Party. 57 During the 1930s, Kim Il-sung, who would later become the leader of Communist North Korea, joined the Anti-Japanese United Army and waged an anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle first in northeastern China, and then from the Soviet Union. Kim spoke fluent Chinese and was for a time a member of the Chinese Communist Party. In the late 1930s and early 1940s a group of Korean Communists, such as Pak Il-yu, who would become North Korea's vice prime minister, came to Yanan, the CCP's "Red Capital," to join China's War of Resistance against Japan. 58 In the last stage of the war against Japan and during China's civil war, around 100,000 Korean residents in China joined Chinese Communist forces, especially in the Northeast. In the late 1940s, the PLA's 156th, 164th and 166th Divisions, three of the best divisions of the Fourth Field Army, were mainly composed of Korean-Chinese soldiers. 59
During China's civil war from 1946 to 1949, Communist North Korea served as the strategic base for Chinese Communist forces in the Northeast. In September 1945, the CCP leadership adopted a grand strategy of "maintaining a defensive posture in the south while waging the offensive in the north" in its confrontation with the GMD. 60 Accordingly, the Northeast became the CCP's main theater in China's civil war. Mao and other CCP leaders made this decision because they believed that, with the Northeast bordering the Soviet Union to the North and North Korea to the East, the CCP would be in a more favorable position to counter the GMD in the Northeast than in China's other regions. 61
Jiang Jieshi and the GMD high command also understood Manchuria's strategic importance and committed the GMD's best troops to compete for it with the CCP. In late 1945 and early 1946, a series of fierce battles occurred between the CCP and GMD forces in Manchuria. Better equipped and outnumbering the Communists, the GMD troops occupied almost all important cities and transportation lines in central and southern Manchuria. When the full-scale warfare erupted in June 1946, Communist forces there were confined to a few small cities and rural areas. GMD forces succeeded in cutting the CCP's communication and supply lines within the Northeast as well as their connections with Communist bases in other parts of China. The CCP faced an extremely difficult situation in southern and central Manchuria. 62
Confronting these difficult circumstances, the CCP's Northeast Bureau decided in June 1946 to use North Korea as the strategic rear and supply bases for Communist forces in southern Manchuria and that with North Korea's help, they would try to maintain communication and transportation between southern and northern Manchuria as well as between Manchuria and the CCP Center. 63 In July 1946, Zhu Lizhi and Xiao Jinguang, two members of the CCP Northeast Bureau, traveled to Pyongyang and established the Northeast Bureau's special office in North Korea. The CCP Northeast Bureau assigned three main tasks to the office: "(1)To evacuate [CCP's] wounded and sick soldiers as well as to transfer strategically important materials to North Korea; (2)via North Korea, to maintain transportation and communication between CCP forces in southern and northern Manchuria as well as to establish connections with the Soviet military bases in Dalian and, through Dalian, with CCP bases in other parts of China; and (3)to gain assistance and to purchase war materials from North Korea." 64
The North Korean Communists cooperated in all three tasks. In addition to ideological considerations, they must have sensed, as Bruce Cumings points out, that by supporting the CCP they would eventually be able to enjoy "the immense strategic blessing of a Chinese Communist victory." 65 North Korean territory quickly changed into the strategic rear for Chinese Communist forces in the Northeast. In July 1946, CCP forces, under great pressure from GMD offensives, retreated from Andong and Tonghua, two of the last cities under their control in southern Manchuria. Thousands of wounded CCP soldiers, family members of CCP troops, and other noncombat personnel crossed the Yalu River to take refuge in North Korea. Several CCP combat units moved into North Korea to regroup. Meanwhile, the North Koreans helped the CCP forces to move more than 20,000 tons of strategic materials into their territory. Without the assistance of the North Korean Communists, CCP forces in southern Manchuria could have been totally destroyed by the GMD. 66
While the military confrontation between the CCP and the GMD in the Northeast continued, North Korea's role further increased. With the North Korean assistance, the CCP established two land transportation lines on North Korean territory, linking together Communist forces in southern and northern Manchuria. Through Rajin and Nampo, two Korean ports located on Korea's east and west coasts, the CCP established sea-communication with Soviet naval bases in Dalian, and then, through Dalian, with CCP-controlled areas in other parts of China. According to the statistics offered by two Chinese sources, in the first seven months of 1947, the CCP transported 210,000 tons of materials, including food, coal, salt, cloth, medicine, and industrial raw materials, along these routes; in 1948, the total weight of materials transported through North Korea reached more than 300,000 tons. 67 The North Korean help allowed the CCP forces in the Northeast to avoid being isolated.
North Korean Communists also offered material and human support to CCP forces in the Northeast. According to Cumings's study, in early 1947, Kim Il-sung "began dispatching tens of thousands of Koreans to fight with Mao and to swell the existing Korean units to division size." 68 Chinese sources available now confirm that many Korean "volunteers" joined the CCP, fighting to "liberate China." 69 In the meantime, the North Korean Communists provided the CCP with a large quantity of material support. According to one Chinese source, during the two-year period 1946-1948, the North Koreans provided the CCP with more than 2,000 railway cars of war materials left by the Japanese. In most cases, the North Koreans did not charge the Chinese for these supplies, and in some cases, they allowed the Chinese to exchange Korean supplies for Chinese-manufactured goods. 70
North Korea's backing dramatically strengthened the CCP's strategic position in China's civil war. CCP leaders understood this and did not forget the "brotherly support" they had received from North Korean Communists. In fact, CCP leaders later used the North Korean support of the Chinese revolution to justify their decision to send Chinese troops to "resist America and assist Korea." 71 Cumings's statement certainly makes good sense here: "These ties [between Chinese and North Korean Communists] were strong enough such that, in retrospect, what a historian would have trouble explaining is why the Chinese did not intervene in the Korean War." 72
Between September and November 1948, the CCP forces destroyed the main body of GMD forces in the Northeast. The Communist victory in China, in turn, made the Northeast a safe strategic rear for the North Korean Communists, and encouraged the North Korean Communists to liberate the entire Korean peninsula through military means. American intelligence sources and the GMD and South Korean sources have long maintained that during the spring and summer of 1949, China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union conducted a series of secret exchanges on military cooperation in northeastern China and Korea. In January 1949, these sources allege, the CCP and the North Korean Communists, in the presence of Soviet military advisers, held a meeting in Harbin and discussed the problem of returning Korean soldiers in the PLA to North Korea. Reportedly, those participants included Defense Minister Choe Yong-gon, Artillery Commander Mu Chong, and others from the North Korean side, and Zhou Baozhong, Lin Feng, and Li Lisan from the Chinese side. Several Korean commanders in the PLA, such as Pang Ho-san, commander of the 166th Division, also attended the meeting. The result was a decision to send some 28,000 Korean soldiers in the Fourth Field Army back to Korea by the end of September 1949. 73 In mid-March 1949, according to one GMD source, the North Koreans and the Chinese signed a secret mutual defense pact, affirming that the CCP would send PLA soldiers of Korean nationality back to North Korea and that the Chinese and Korean Communists would coordinate their reactions to "imperialist aggression." 74
No Chinese sources can prove the existence of the January 1949 meeting or the alleged March 1949 pact. Yao Xu, a Chinese authority on the history of the Korean War, firmly denied the possibility of such a "mutual defense pact" as reported by the GMD source. 75 Two young Chinese military researchers whom I interviewed believed that the January 1949 meeting seemed to be more possible, although they could not confirm such a meeting by sources available to them. They did confirm, though, that "in the spring of 1949 China and North Korea held a series of contacts at different levels to discuss the problem of how China could support the Korean revolution, and they reached the agreement that PLA soldiers of Korean nationality would be sent back to Korea." 76
Against this background, in the summer and fall of 1949, two PLA divisions, the majority of whose soldiers were Koreans, returned to North Korea. In July 1949, the PLA's 166th Division, headed by Pang Ho-san, crossed the Yalu and was transformed into the Korean People's Army (KPA)'s Sixth Division. The same month, the PLA's 164th Division, also made up mostly of Korean soldiers, entered Korea and became the KPA's Fifth Division. Both divisions later played a crucial role in the North Korean invasion of the South. 77 Several other smaller groups of Korean PLA soldiers also returned to Korea during the same period, and by the end of 1949, the total number of returnees from China is estimated to be between 30,000-40,000. 78
In January 1950, when Mao and Zhou were visiting the Soviet Union, Kim Il-sung sent Kim Kwang-hyop to China to ask the return of all remaining Korean PLA soldiers together with their weapons. The Chinese quickly agreed to the North Koreans'request. Following the agreement between the Chinese and North Korean high commands, starting in February 1950, another 23,000 Korean PLA soldiers, mainly from the PLA's 156th Division and also other units of the former Fourth Field Army, returned to North Korea. They were later organized as the KPA's Seventh Division, which would be deployed in an advanced position near the 38th parallel and would become another of the KPA's main combat division in the early stage of the Korean War. The offensive capacity of North Korean Communists was thus tremendously increased. 79
All the above proves that the relationship between Chinese and North Korean Communists was close. The simple fact that the CCP leadership decided to send as many as 50,000-70,000 (if not more)Korean PLA soldiers back to Korea together with their military equipment from late 1949 to mid-1950 made it clear that CCP leaders would not forget the assistance they had received from their North Korean comrades during China's civil war, and that they were more than willing to reward the North Korean Communists with similar assistance.
This, however, does not necessarily suggest that problems, or even serious ones, did not exist between Beijing and Pyongyang. Cumings emphasizes in his study that the North Korean Communists followed basically the Chinese revolutionary model and that Beijing had more powerful influences on Pyongyang than Moscow did. This judgment becomes one of the cornerstones of Cumings's analysis of the origins of the Korean War. 80 Chinese evidence, however, challenges Cumings's argument in this regard, supporting the historian Roger Dingman's comment that Cumings may "have gone too far in magnifying Mao's and shrinking Stalin's contribution to what became the Korean War." 81
What Cumings has ignored, interestingly and ironically, is something he frequently discussed himself: the influence upon the North Koreans'external policy of the profound factional division among Korean Communists and of Kim Il-sung's strong nationalism. After decades of investigation (including Cumings's own study), it is a widely accepted consensus among scholars of the Korean War that the Korean Communist Party had been divided deeply prior to the outbreak of the Korean War. Kim Il-sung's authority within the party encountered challenges from both the southern section headed by Pak Hon-yong and, to a lesser degree, the Chinese section headed by Pak Il-yu, Kim Ung, and Mu Chong. 82 Under these circumstances, Kim would feel extremely reluctant to tie himself too tightly to the Chinese. Kim's uneasiness in dealing with the Chinese must have been further strengthened by his feelings as an intense Korean nationalist: the historical fact that the Korean peninsula had long been under the shadow of the "Central Kingdom" certainly made Kim aware that he could not give Beijing leaders his full trust. Kim needed Beijing's support, but he would not totally rely on Chinese goodwill.
As discussed in the previous chapter, throughout 1949 and early 1950, Kim Il-sung had been discussing his plans of invading South Korea with the Soviets. In April 1950, he secretly visited the Soviet Union to get Stalin's approval of his plans, and would not travel to Beijing to meet Mao until mid-May. 83
Why did Kim wait to visit Beijing until this moment? How was Kim's visit to Beijing related to his decision to attack the South in late June? Because of the sensitive nature of this question, no Chinese publication (even publication for "internal circulation only")has touched upon this visit. According to the study by Hao and Zhai, Kim "only informed Mao of his determination to reunify his country by military means during this visit, and released no details of his military plan, let alone the date of the action." 84 Interviews with Beijing's researchers with archival access, especially with Shi Zhe, allow me to draw a general outline about the background and contents of Kim's visit.
This visit was almost certainly Kim's only trip to Beijing before the outbreak of the Korean War. He did not come to Beijing again until early December 1950, when Chinese troops had not only entered the Korean War but had also completed their first two victorious campaigns against UN forces. 85 During Kim's stay in Beijing from May 13 to 16, he told Mao that Stalin had approved his plans to attack the South. 86 Mao solicited Kim's opinions of possible American response if North Korea attacked the South, stressing that as the Syngman Rhee regime had been propped up by the United States and that as Korea was close to Japan the possibility of an American intervention could not be totally excluded. Kim, however, seemed confident that the United States would not commit its troops, or at least, it would have no time to dispatch them, because the North Koreans would be able to finish fighting in two to three weeks. Mao did ask Kim if North Korea needed China's military support, and offered to deploy three Chinese armies along the Chinese-Korean border. Kim responded "arrogantly" (in Mao's own words, according to Shi Zhe)that with the North Koreans'own forces and the cooperation of Communist guerrillas in the South, they could solve the problem by themselves, and China's military involvement was therefore unnecessary. 87
In short, Kim came to Beijing largely because Stalin wanted him to get Beijing's support for his attack on the South. Although Mao seemed to have some reservations, he never seriously challenged Kim's plans. When Kim left China he thus had every reason to inform Stalin and his comrades in Pyongyang (and we have every reason to believe that he did)that he had the support of his Chinese comrades. In fact, after his visit to Moscow and Beijing Kim accelerated preparations to attack the South. With the help of Soviet military advisers, the North Korean military worked out the operational plans for the attack in late May and early June. 88 Thus Kim's visit to Beijing represented another crucial step toward the coming of the Korean War, and Beijing's Korea policy escalated further the potential confrontation between China and the United States in East Asia.
Washington's New Vision of "Communist Threat" in East Asia
While the CCP's policy toward the United States became increasingly hostile in late 1949 and 1950, Washington's East Asian strategy also underwent important changes. Not accidentally, Indochina, Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula received special attention from American policymakers. One of the immediate causes of this change was the signing of the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty.
Before late 1949, when Communist forces swept through China, policymakers in Washington based their global strategy on waging "a strategic offensive in the West and a strategic defensive in the East." 89 Accordingly, Secretary of State Acheson tried to drive a wedge between the Chinese Communists and the Soviets by imposing political and economic pressure on the CCP to contain the expansion of Soviet influence in East Asia. The Sino-Soviet alliance came at the time when Chinese-American relations were deteriorating and Senator Joseph McCarthy had started his verbal emasculation of the State Department. It was now clear to many advocates of the "wedge strategy" in Washington that the prospect of a Sino-Soviet split was remote and policymakers in Washington felt threatened by the emergence of the Beijing-Moscow revolutionary axis. 90 The United States had to reexamine its Far Eastern strategy.
In April 1950, the National Security Council approved NSC-68 as a response to Soviet possession of the atomic bomb and the Communist victory in China. Stressing that a "more rapid building up of political, economic, and military strength . . . than is now contemplated is the only course which is consistent with progress toward achieving our fundamental purpose," NSC-68 proposed a sharp increase in American military expenditure and armed forces. It also called for unprecedented American efforts in meeting the Communist threat anywhere it emerged. 91 In accordance with the spirit of NSC-68, America's Far Eastern strategy in general and China policy in particular evolved in the spring of 1950.
First, America's politico-economic strategy toward China changed subtly along with the making of NSC-68. Since early 1949, the State Department had placed only moderate restrictions on Chinese-Western trade with the hope that the CCP would finally understand that an accommodation with Western countries was more valuable to them than cooperation with the Soviet Union. Now the State Department had second thoughts. Following a new estimation of the Soviet military threat to the United States, the State Department decided in April 1950 to restrict Chinese-Western trade relations severely. The former rule of "presumptive denial" of shipments of critical goods to China was replaced by the rule of "uniform denial," and shipments of important goods to Communist China were now "handled according to the criteria used in approving or denying shipments of such goods to the Eastern Europe." 92 This did not mean that Acheson and others in the State Department had abandoned the long-term goal of splitting the CCP and the Soviet Union; but now they were convinced that "if in taking a chance on the long future of China we affect the security of the U.S. at once, that is a bad bargain." 93
Changes in U.S. East Asian strategy were also reflected in Washington's policy toward Indochina. The Truman administration made containment of Communist expansion in the region an important goal of American foreign policy. Accordingly, there were signs of an active American involvement in the Indochina area.
Since the outbreak of the First Indochina War between the French and the Vietminh in 1946, the United States had kept a pro-French neutrality. The Chinese and Soviet recognition of Ho Chi Minh's government in January 1950 and the making of the Sino-Soviet alliance in the next month triggered a more aggressive American policy in Indochina. Early in February 1950, the French Parliament, in order to win international support, decided to give more autonomous rights to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. To bolster anti-Communist forces in Southeast Asia, the Truman administration immediately recognized the new governments in the three Indochina countries. At the end of the month, the State Department advised the National Security Council that Indochina was "under [the] immediate threat" of "Communist expansion" and that a program must be established promptly to protect American strategic interests there through "all practical measures," which became the accepted assumption of NSC-64. 94 Military planners in Washington shared this opinion and, in April 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proclaimed that "the mainland states of Southeast Asia also are at present of crucial strategic importance to the United States." 95 On April 24, 1950, Truman approved NSC-64, and instructed the State and Defense Departments to "prepare as a matter of priority a program of all practical measures designed to protect United States security interests in Indochina." 96 Finally, Acheson announced on May 8 in Paris that the United States would provide economic and military aid to the French in Indochina. 97 This was a decisive change which, in retrospect, symbolized the start of America's involvement in the "longest war" in its history.
The new U.S. policy toward Indochina was partly attributable to continuous pressure from the French government for assistance. Nevertheless, strategic and psychological considerations played a more important role in bringing about this new American attitude. The State Department and the JCS agreed that Indochina was strategically significant to the United States, and that its fall to Communism would eliminate those nations which were still friendly to the U.S. from the Asian continent. As a result, policymakers in Washington believed that the United States and Japan would be denied access to the raw materials of this region and American security interests in the Far East would be seriously damaged if Communist forces further expanded in Indochina. 98 Therefore, the new U.S. policy toward Indochina was part of the overall change in American Far Eastern strategy.
The change in U.S. Far Eastern strategy was also reflected by the new stress of Washington's policy toward Taiwan. Having previously excluded Taiwan from the American "defensive perimeter" in the western Pacific region, many policymakers and military planners in Washington were now more inclined to keep Taiwan out of the CCP control.
Many in Washington had long emphasized Taiwan's importance to American security in Asia. As early as November 1948, when the Truman administration reexamined America's China policy, the JCS concluded in a memo entitled "Strategic Importance of Formosa" that the prospect of a Taiwan controlled by "Kremlin-directed Communists" would be "very seriously detrimental to our national security" because this would allow the Communists to dominate sea lanes between Japan and Malaya, thus threatening the Philippines, the Ryukyus, and ultimately Japan itself. The memo suggested the use of "diplomatic and economic steps as may be appropriate to insure a Formosan administration friendly to the United States." 99 A State Department draft report to the National Security Council in January 1949 agreed with the general conclusions of the JCS's memo and further stated that "the basic aim of the U.S. should be to deny Formosa and the Pescadores to the Communists." 100 General Douglas MacArthur, the Far Eastern commander, also shared this view. In a conversation with Max W. Bishop, chief of the State Department's Division of Northeastern Asian Affairs, MacArthur stressed that "if Formosa went to the Chinese Communists our whole defensive position in the Far East [would be] definitely lost." 101
However, given America's strategic emphasis at the time on the West and the limited military capacity of the United States in East Asia, neither the State Department nor the JCS favored the use of military means to protect Taiwan. In a report to the president in early February 1949, the JCS made it clear that considering "the current disparity between our military strength and our many global obligations," active American military operations in Taiwan would result in "the necessity for relatively major effort there, thus making it impossible then to meet more important emergencies elsewhere." 102 The State Department shared this view and, moreover, believed that American military involvement in Taiwan might arouse Chinese sentiment against "American imperialism," thus undermining the Department's comprehensive politico-economic strategy of detaching Communist China from the Soviet Union. 103 Although pressured by congressional supporters of Jiang, who endorsed the use of military force if necessary to deny Taiwan to the Communists, the general consensus in Washington was not to use military force to protect Taiwan.
After the Chinese Communists won control of the mainland, and after the failure of an attempt to promote a Taiwan autonomy movement to deny the island to both the CCP and the GMD, the State Department further considered the acceptability of giving up Taiwan. On December 29, 1949, Acheson met with General Omar N. Bradley, chairman of the JCS, General J. Lawton Collins, chief of staff of the Army, and General Lauris Norstad, chief of staff of the Air Force. Although the military planners stressed the importance of Taiwan to the security interests of the United States, Acheson still questioned Taiwan's real strategic significance. He worried that the price of defending Taiwan could be too high, that Washington's direct intervention in Taiwan could "bring upon ourselves the united Chinese hatred of foreigners," and that U.S. prestige would eventually suffer. 104
In the context of these discussions President Truman stated on January 5, 1950 that "the United States has no desire to obtain special rights or privileges or to establish military bases on Formosa at this time." One week later, Acheson announced in his speech at the National Press Club that the U.S. West Pacific defensive perimeter would cover the Aleutians, to Japan, to the Ryukyus, and ultimately, to the Philippines, excluding Taiwan and South Korea. 105 The continuous deterioration of Sino-American relations and the establishment of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, however, caused the stress of American attitudes toward Taiwan to change.
The driving force behind the change was the Pentagon. On January 25, 1950, General Bradley indicated in off-the-record testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the JCS fully understood the danger posed to the American position in the Pacific if a potential enemy were to control Taiwan. The next day, the JCS made it clear that an emergency war plan to prevent Taiwan from Communist control in case of war should remain in effect through the middle of 1951. 106 On February 14, the same day of the signing of the Sino-Soviet alliance, Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson wrote to Acheson to discuss the principles of further military aid to Taiwan. 107 With the making of NSC-68, the pressure for committing more American strength to the defense of Taiwan became stronger. On May 6, Secretary Johnson wrote to Acheson to suggest a reexamination of the Taiwan policy and, before such a review was completed, to continue assistance to the GMD. 108
The Pentagon's initiatives were now echoed by John Foster Dulles, Dean Rusk, and others in the State Department. After a series of discussions, Rusk and Dulles handed a memo (drafted by Dulles for Rusk) to Acheson on May 30, requesting a reconsideration of the implications of the Taiwan problem for U.S. Far Eastern strategy. Dulles and Rusk believed that the United States faced "a new and critical period in its world position" because "the loss of China to Communists" would have "repercussion throughout the world" as well as mark "a shift in the balance of power in favor of Soviet Russia and to the disfavor of the United States." They stressed that if the U.S. indicated "a continuing disposition to fall back and allow doubtful areas to fall under Soviet Communist control," then American influence would rapidly deteriorate in other parts of the world and Communism would be viewed as "the wave of the future." Therefore, Washington should adopt "a dramatic and strong stand that shows our confidence and resolution." Dulles and Rusk believed that Taiwan had "advantages superior to any other [areas]" in taking such a stand. They suggested a neutrality plan for Taiwan by "not permitting it either to be taken by Communists or to be used as a base of military operations against the mainland." They admitted that such a new policy toward Taiwan had risks, such as "complications with the Nationalist Government" and "spreading our military force"; but they emphasized that "sometimes such a risk has to be taken in order to preserve peace in the world and to keep the national prestige required if we are to play our indispensable part in sustaining a free world." 109
Meanwhile, General MacArthur conveyed two memorandums on the Taiwan problem to the Pentagon, stressing the importance of Taiwan for America's strategic interests. In the memorandum dated May 29 MacArthur noted that Soviet jets had been sent to China and that Sino-Soviet cooperation had developed rapidly in the Shanghai and Peiping [Beijing] areas. He emphasized that the problem of Taiwan had become an urgent matter. If Taiwan were captured by Communist forces, the Soviet Union could use Taiwan to cut the Malay-Philippine-Japan shipping lanes and isolate Japan, thus giving the Soviets the capability for operating against the central and southern flanks of the existing American strategic frontier of the littoral island chain from Hokkaido through to the Philippines. He argued that "in the event of war between the United States and the USSR, Formosa's value to the Communists is the equivalent of an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender, ideally located to accomplish Soviet strategy as well as to checkmate the offensive capabilities of the central and southern positions of the FEC [Far East Command] front line." He believed that in no circumstances should Taiwan be easily given up. 110
In another memorandum, dated June 14, MacArthur reemphasized his main points on Taiwan. He further requested the authorization from Washington "to initiate without delay a survey of the military, economic and political requirements to prevent the domination of Formosa by a Communist power and that the results of such a survey be analyzed and acted upon as a basis for United States national policy with respect to Formosa." 111
It is apparent that even before the outbreak of the Korea War there were strong pressures in Washington for adopting a new Taiwan policy, consistent with the spirit of NSC-68 and the new situation in Asia created by the formation of the Sino-Soviet alliance. The keynote of this policy was the use of American military forces to "neutralize" Taiwan to prevent its loss to the Communists. The main driving force for this policy change came from the military. In terms of its impact on Sino-American relations, such policy pressures would certainly create a new "hot-spot" between Communist China and the United States, thus further complicating the prospect of Sino-American relations.
The influence of the changing American Far Eastern strategy on Korea was more subtle. In his speech of January 12, 1950, Acheson excluded South Korea from the American defense perimeter in the Pacific. His statement was certainly consistent with the general tendency of American policy toward this area at the time. Considering that American global strategic emphasis lay in the West and that Japan was the core of American security interests in the Asian-Pacific area, President Truman, on the NSC's advice, had ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea in March 1949, which was completed in June the same year. 112
Even though policymakers in Washington did not see South Korea as vital to American strategic interests, they widely accepted that maintaining a pro-Western South Korea enhanced American prestige. As early as April 1947, the Joint Strategic Security Committee pointed out that Korea was "the one country within which we alone have for almost two years carried on ideological warfare in direct contact with our ideological opponents"; and that the American loss in this battle "would be gravely detrimental to United States prestige, and therefore security, throughout the world." 113 In March 1949, an NSC document, approved by President Truman, further stated that "The overthrow by Soviet-dominated forces of a government established in South Korea under the aegis of the UN would . . . constitute a severe blow to the prestige and influence of the latter; in this respect the interests of the U.S. must be regarded as parallel to, if not identical with, those of the UN." 114
Acheson virtually shared this sense of maintaining American prestige in his January 12 speech. While leaving South Korea out of American defense perimeter, he claimed that an invasion of South Korea would invoke "the commitments of the entire civilized world under the Charter of the United Nations." 115 Acheson's reservation provided a clue about future American intervention in the Korean War.
With U.S. Far Eastern strategy placing more emphasis on containing Communist expansion in East Asia, policymakers in Washington wanted to strengthen South Korea as a stronghold against the Communist threat. Because South Korea faced economic difficulties, Acheson worked for a Korean Aid Bill. Originally introduced in 1947, the bill was narrowly defeated by the House of Representatives in January 1950, a week after Acheson's January 12 speech. Acheson immediately wrote to Truman to stress that the bill's defeat would have "the most far-reaching adverse effects upon our foreign policy." With Truman's active support, Acheson worked out a compromise bill slightly reducing the first year aid to Korea. When the House received the revised bill in February, Acheson stressed the importance of supporting a pro-Western South Korea. The Korean Aid Bill was approved by Congress in mid-February and signed immediately by President Truman. Acheson, however, did not stop here. He pushed through additional economic aid to South Korea of $100 116 116
In order to show American concern about South Korea, John Foster Dulles visited Seoul in mid-June. In private talks with Syngman Rhee, the South Korean president, he encouraged the South Koreans to "create a stable economy and a government which deserved the support of its people." In his public rhetoric, he expressed clearly America's determination to stand by South Korea. 117 South Korea, although not included in America's defense perimeter, represented now "major interests," as Russell Buhite defined them, of U.S. strategic interests in Asia. 118
America's growing emphasis on East Asia, especially its increasing concerns about Indochina, Taiwan, and the Korean peninsula, further strengthened Beijing's sense of insecurity. Not coincidentally, throughout the spring of 1950, Chinese propaganda continuously broadened its accusations against America's "military encirclement and economic blockade" of China, criticizing sternly the "U.S. imperialist ambition of aggression" toward China and East Asia. Zhou Enlai, on one occasion, even openly charged that the final aim of American policy was to control all of Asia, including the liberated China. 119 Apparently, the interaction of Chinese and American policies resulted in further escalation of hostilities between the two countries.
By mid-1950, Beijing and Washington had firmly perceived each other as a dangerous enemy. Beijing leaders believed that the United States lacked the capacity to involve itself in major military operations in East Asia at the current stage, but that in the long-run, a Chinese-American confrontation, most likely in Taiwan, Indochina, or Korea, was inevitable. This fundamental perception of the "American threat," combined with the buildup of the Sino-Soviet alliance, served as the basis for Beijing leaders'concept "to confront the United States on three fronts," and caused Beijing to adopt a more aggressive strategy vis-à-vis the United Sates. Policymakers in Washington were alarmed by the making of the Sino-Soviet alliance, as well as by the perceived danger of Communist expansion in East Asia. In the wake of the making of NSC-68, they began to reexamine America's Far Eastern strategy in order to increase American commitment to contain the "Communist threat" in Indochina, Taiwan, and, in a more subtle sense, Korea.
All of this was happening when the last group of American diplomats were leaving China and, as a result, Beijing and Washington lost any channel of direct communication. Consequently, even before the outbreak of the Korean War, the fundamental differences in political ideology and perceived national interests had set up a stage for further confrontation between Communist China and the United States: policymakers in Beijing and Washington now gave more weight to the deepening conflict of interests between their countries, making the two's relationship increasingly dangerous- even a small spark could ignite an enormous explosion.
Notes
Note 1: Su Yu, "Instructions on East China Military Region's Political Affairs in 1950," cited in Xu Yan, Jinmen zhizhan (The battles of Jinmen, Beijing: Chinese Broadcasting and Television Press, 1992), p. 117; Su Yu, "Report on the Problem of Liberating Taiwan," January 5, 1950, and "Report on Liberating Taiwan and Establishing Military Forces," January 27, 1950, CCA; Zhou Enlai, "International situation and Diplomatic Tasks after the Signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty," ZWJWX, pp. 12-14. Back.
Note 2: Yao Xu, Cong yalujiang dao banmendian, p. 21; He Long, "Speech at Battalion-level Officers of the 60th Army," He Long junshi wenxuan (Selected Military Papers of He Long, Beijing: People's Liberation Army Press, 1989), p. 473; and Zhou Enlai, "International Situation and Diplomatic Tasks after the Signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty," ZWJWX, pp. 14, 16. Back.
Note 3: See, for examples, Du Ruo, "China's Liberation and the Southeast Asia"; "China's Revolution and the Struggle against Colonialism," People's China, February 16, 1950, pp. 4-5; Huang Caoliang, Zhanhou shijie xinxingshi (New Situation of the Postwar World, Shanghai, 1950); and Lu Dingyi, "The Worldwide significance of the Chinese Revolution," Lu Dingyi wenji, pp. 432-439. Back.
Note 4: For a good discussion, see He Di, "The Last Campaign to Unify China: The CCP's Unmaterialized Plan to Liberate Taiwan, 1949-1950," Chinese Historians, 5, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 1-2. Back.
Note 5: See Yao Xu, Cong yalujiang dao banmendian, pp. 21-22. Back.
Note 6: Deng Lifeng, Xin Zhongguo junshi huodong jishi, 1949-1959 (A Factual Record of the New China's Military Affairs, Beijing: CCP Historical Materials Press, 1989), p. 97; The CCP Central Committee's instructions on the demobilization of military forces, April 21, 1950, MWG, 1: 310-311; Nie Rongzhen, "Report on Military Affairs to the Second Session of the First People's Consultative Council," June 1950, Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao, 19: 163; see also discussions in Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, pp. 17-18. Back.
Note 7: See, for example, Qi Dexue, Chaoxian zhanzheng juece neimu, p. 21; and Xu Yan, Diyici jiaoliang, pp. 12-13; and Goncharov et al., Uncertain Patners, pp. 148-149.. Back.
Note 8: Nie Rongzhen, "Report on the Restructuring and Demobilization of the Military forces," Nie Rongzhen junshi wenxuan (Selected Military Works of Nie Rongzhen, Beijing: People's Liberation Army Press, 1992), p. 340; see also Xu Yan, Diyici jiaoliang,p. 13. Back.
Note 9: Nie Rongzhen, "Report on the Restructuring and Demobilization of the Military forces," Nie Rongzhen junshi wenxuan, p. 340. Back.
Note 10: Ibid., pp. 340-341; see also Deng Lifeng, Xin Zhongguo junshi huodong jishi, p. 101. Back.
Note 11: Zhu De's speech at the PLA's staff conference, May 16, 1950, Wang Xianli and Li Ping, et al, Zhu De nianpu (A Chronology of Zhu De, Beijing: People's Press, 1986), p. 344; see also Deng Lifeng, Xin Zhongguo junshi huodong jishi, p. 101. Back.
Note 12: In fact, in the winter and spring of 1949-1950, the CCP leadership made great efforts to develop the PRC's newly established air force and navy. See, for examples, Wang Dinglie et al., Dangdai zhongguo kongjun, pp. 78-79; and Yang Guoyu, Dangdai zhongguo haijun, chapter 2. Back.
Note 13: Nie Rongzhen, "Report on the Restructuring and Demobilization of the Military forces," Nie Rongzhen junshi wenxuan, p. 341; see also Zhu De's speech at the PLA's staff conference on May 16, 1950, Zhu De nianpu, p. 344. Back.
Note 14: Du Ping, Zai zhiyuanjun zongbu, pp. 7, 11-12; Jiang Yonghui, 38jun zai chaoxian (The 38th Army in Korea, Shenyang: Liaoning People's Press, 1989), p. 1; Chen Xiaolu, "China's Policy toward the United States, 1949-1955," p. 186; and Yao Xu, "The Brilliant Decision to Resist America and Assist Korea," Dangshi yanjiu, no. 5, 1980, p. 7. Back.
Note 15: See He Di, "The Last Campaign to Unify China, " p. 2; and Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, p. 21. Back.
Note 16: "Chinese People are Determined to Liberate Taiwan," Renmin ribao, March 15, 1949. Back.
Note 17: Xu Yan, Jinmen zhizhan, pp. 91-92; Yang Dezhi, Weile heping, pp. 5-6. Back.
Note 18: Mao Zedong to Su Yu, Zhang Zhen, Zhou Jingming, and the CCP East China Bureau, June 14, 1949, Dangde wenxian, no. 2 (1990): 48-49. Back.
Note 19: Mao Zedong to Su Yu, Zhang Zhen, Zhou Jingming, and the CCP East China Bureau, June 21, 1949, cited from He Di, "The Last Campaign to Unify China," pp. 1-2; see also MNP, 3: 519.. Back.
Note 20: Mao Zedong to Zhou Enlai, July 10, 1949, cited from Wang Dinglie et al., Dangdai zhongguo kongjun, p. 35. See also Li and Fang et al., Zhou Enlai nianpu, p. 833 Back.
Note 21: Lü Liping, Tongtian zhilu, p. 143; Wang Dinglie et al., Dangdai zhongguo kongjun, p. 35. Back.
Note 22: Lü Liping, Tongtian zhilu, pp. 156-159; Han and Tan et al., Dangdai zhongguo jundui, 2: 160-161; Yang Guoyu et al., Dangdai zhongguo haijun, p. 48. Back.
Note 23: Xu Yan, Jinmen zhizhan, pp. 39-40, 42; Ye Fei, Ye Fei huiyilu (Ye Fei's Memoirs, Beijing: People's Liberation Army Press, 1988), pp. 588-589. Back.
Note 24: Mao Zedong and the CMC to all Field Armies, May 23, 1949, MJWX, pp. 337-338; and MJWJ, 5:591; see also Ye Fei, Ye Fei huiyilu, pp. 571-572; Xu Yan, Jinmen zhizhan, pp. 20-23. Back.
Note 25: For the CCP's accounts of the PLA's Jinmen defeat, see Ye Fei, Ye Fei huiyilu, pp. 597-609; Han and Tan et al., Dangdai zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo, 1: 233-237; Mo and Yao et al., Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi, 3: 340-341; Deng Lifeng, Xin zhongguo junshi huodong jishi, p. 10; for a Nationalist account of the Jinmen battle, see Di Zongheng, Toushi taihai zhanshi (Battles in the Taiwan Strait, Taipei: Lianfeng Book Store, 1985), pp. 41-80. Back.
Note 26: For the CCP's accounts of the Dengbu battle, see Han and Tan et al., Dangdai zhongguo jundui, 1: 249-251; Mo and Yao et al., Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi, 3: 341; for a Nationalist account of the Dengbu battle, see Di Zongheng, Toushi taihai zhanshi, pp. 81-100. Back.
Note 27: Mao Zedong, "A Circular by the CMC about the Lessons of the Jinmen Defeat," October 29, 1949, MWG, 1: 100-101. Back.
Note 28: Mao Zedong to Su Yu, Tang Liang, Zhang Zhen, Zhou Jingming and others, November 3, 1949, ibid., p. 118. Back.
Note 29: Mao Zedong to Su Yu, November 14, 1949, ibid., p. 137. Back.
Note 30: Xiao Jinguang, Xiao Jinguang huiyilu, 2 vols. (The Memoirs of Xiao Jinguang, Beijing: People's Liberation Army Press, 1988 and 1989), 2: 2-3. Back.
Note 31: Mao Zedong to Lin Biao, December 18 and December 31, 1949, MWG, 1: 190-191, 203. Back.
Note 32: Zhou Jun, "A Preliminary Exploration of Reasons for the People's Liberation Army's Abortive Plan to Attack Taiwan after the Formation of the People's Republic," Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, no. 1 (1991): 68. Back.
Note 33: Ibid., p. 68; see also He Di, "The Last Campaign to Unify China," p. 7. Back.
Note 34: Mao Zedong to Su Yu, December 5, 1949, MWG, 1: 179. Back.
Note 35: For detailed discussions of the CCP's changing attitudes toward setting up a deadline for the Taiwan campaign in the winter and spring of 1950, see He Di, "The Last Campaign to Unify China," pp. 7-12; and Xu Yan, Jinmen zhizhan, pp. 117-128. Back.
Note 36: Mao Zedong to Zhang Zhizhong, March 11, 1950, MWG, 1: 271. Back.
Note 37: Xu Yan, Jinmen zhizhan, pp. 135-136; Yang Dezhi, Weile heping, pp. 5-6 Back.
Note 38: Xiao Jinguang, Xiao Jinguang huiyilu, 2: 8-9, 26-27. Back.
Note 39: Su Yu, "Report on the Problem of Liberating Taiwan," January 5, 1950, CCA; see also He Di, "The Last Campaign to Unify China," pp. 7-8. Back.
Note 40: Su Yu, "Report on the Problem of Liberating Taiwan and Establishing Military Forces," January 27, 1950, CCA; see also He Di, "The Last Campaign to Unify China," p. 8. Back.
Note 41: For a Chinese account of Ho Chi Minh's connection with the Chinese Communist revolution from the 1920s to early 1940s, see Huang Zheng, Hu Zhiming he zhongguo (Ho Chi Minh and China, Beijing: People's Liberation Army Press, 1987), chapters 1-4; see also Hoang Van Hoan, Canghai yisu: Hoang Van Hoan geming huiyilu (A Drop in the Ocean: Hoang Van Hoan's Revolutionary Reminiscences, Beijing: People's Liberation Army Press, 1987), chapters 3 and 4. Back.
Note 42: The Indochina Communist Party was established in 1930 but after February 1951 its name was changed to Vietnamese Workers' Party. Back.
Note 43: Hoang, Canghai yisu, pp. 247-253. Hoang later became the first DRV ambassador to the PRC, defected to China in the late 1970s and died there in 1991. Back.
Note 44: Luo Guibo, "Comrade Liu Shaoqi Sent Me to Vietnam," in He Jingxiu and others, eds., Mianhuai Liu Shaoqi (In Commemoration of Liu Shaoqi, Beijing: The Central Press of Historical Documents, 1988), pp. 233-234; interview with Luo Guibo, August 22, 1992. Back.
Note 45: Mao Zedong to Liu Shaoqi, January 17 and 18, 1950, MWG, 1: 238-239; see also Zhou Enlai's statement of recognizing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, January 18, 1950, Xinhua yuebao, 2, no. 2 (1950): 847; Hoang, Canghai yisu, pp. 255-256; Renmin ribao, February 7, 1950. Back.
Note 46: According to Luo Guibo, the Vietnamese Communists were unable to maintain regular telegraphic communication with the CCP Central Committee before Luo's arrival in Vietnam in March 1950 because their radio transmitter was too weak. Interview with Luo Guibo, August 22, 1992. Back.
Note 47: Luo Guibo, "Comrade Liu Shaoqi Sent Me to Vietnam," pp. 234-235; Qian Jiang, Zai Shenmi de zhanzheng zhong: Zhongguo junshi guwentuan fu yuenan zhengzhan ji (In the Course of a Mysterious War: Chinese Military Advisory Group in Vietnam, Zhengzhou: Henan People's Press, 1992), pp. 14-16; see also Hoang, Canghai yisu, pp. 254-256 (In his memoir, Hoang recalls that Mao held a banquet in Ho's honor after Ho reached Beijing. As Mao was then in Moscow, it was impossible for Mao to do this. Hoang's memory is confusing here); the Editorial Group of the History of the Chinese Military Advisory Group, Zhongguo guwentuan yuanyue kangmei douzheng shishi (A Factual History of the Chinese Military Advisory Group in the Struggle of Assisting Vietnam and Resisting France, Beijing: People's Liberation Army Press, 1990), pp. 1-2; Han Nianlong et al., Dangdai zhongguo waijiao, p. 55. Back.
Note 48: Hoang, Canghai yisu, pp. 254-255; Huang Zheng, Ho Chi Minh and China, p. 125. Back.
Note 49: Luo Guibo, "Comrade Liu Shaoqi Sent Me to Vietnam," p. 235; Hoang, Canghai yisu, pp. 254-255. Back.
Note 50: For a summarized analysis of Stalin's attitude toward Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh in the early period of the First Indochina War, see Gary Hess, Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy of War (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990), p. 37. For Stalin's attitude toward Ho during Ho's visit to Moscow, see Li Ke, "Chinese Military Advisors in the War to Assist Vietnam and Resist France," Junshi lishi (Military History), no. 3, 1989, p. 27; Qian Jiang, Zai Shenmi de zhanzheng zhong, pp. 16-18; Wu Xiuquan, Huiyi yu huainian (Recollections and Commemorations, Beijing: CCP Central Academy Press, 1991), pp. 242-243; and Xu Yan, "An Outstanding History of Extinguishing the War Flame in Indochina," Dangde wenxian, no. 5, (1992): 20. Back.
Note 51: Huang Zheng, Ho Chi Minh and China, pp. 125-126; Hoang, Canghai yisu, pp. 254-255; Han and Tan et al., Dangdai zhongguo jundui, 1: 520, 576. Back.
Note 52: From late 1949 to early 1951, Mao and Chinese military planners paid close attention to the annihilation of remnant Nationalist troops in areas adjacent to the Vietnamese border. See Mo and Yao et al., Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi, 3: 394-398. Back.
Note 53: Luo Guibo, "Comrade Liu Shaoqi Sent Me to Vietnam," p. 238; interview with Luo Guibo, August 22, 1992. Back.
Note 54: Han and Tan et al., Dangdai zhongguo jundui, 1: 518-519; the Editorial Group, Zhongguo guwentuan yuanyue kangmei douzheng shishi, p. 3. Back.
Note 55: The Editorial Group, Zhongguo guwentuan yuanyue kangmei douzheng shishi, p. 3. Back.
Note 56: The CCP's earlier interests in Korea were demonstrated by an order issued by Zhu De, commander-in-chief of CCP military forces, at the end of the Second World War. On August 11, 1945, Zhu De ordered "the Korean Volunteer Army, which were now fighting against the Japanese in Northern China, to follow the Eighth Route Army and units of former Northeast Army to march toward the Northeast." See "The Sixth Order of the Yanan Headquarters," August 11, 1945, ZYWJXJ, 13: 121. Back.
Note 57: For a recent Chinese account of Korean Communists in China in the 1920s, see Yang Zhaoquan, Zhongchao guanxi lunwenji (Essays on Sino-Korean Relations, Beijing: World Affairs Press, 1988), pp. 220-231. Back.
Note 58: For a Chinese account of Kim Il-sung's connection with the Chinese Anti-Japanese United Army in the 1930s and early 1940s, see Ibid., pp. 392-428; see also Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 351-352. Back.
Note 59: Zhao Nanqi and Wen Zhengyi, "The Korean Nationality People's Contribution to the War of Liberation in the Northeast," in Wu Xiuquan et al., Liaoshen zhanyi, 2 vols. (The Liaoshen Campaign, Beijing: People's Press, 1992), 2: 384-405; Xu Yan, Diyici jiaoliang,p. 21; see also Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 358-359, 363. Back.
Note 60: The CCP Central Committee's order on "Maintaining Defensive in the South and Waging Offensive in the North," September 19, 1945, ZYWJXJ (internal version), 13: 147-148. This document is not included in ZYWJXJ's 18-volume open version. Back.
Note 61: The CMC to the CCP Northeast Bureau, September 28, 1945; The CCP Central Committee to the CCP Northeast Bureau, October 2, 1945, CCA; see also Ding Xuesong et al., "Recalling the Northeast Bureau's Special Office in North Korea During the War of Liberation in the Northeast," Zhonggong dangshi ziliao, no. 17 (March 1986): 198. Back.
Note 62: Mo and Yao et al., Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi, 3: 92-93; Liu Wenxin and Li Yueqing, Zhou Baozhong zhuan (The Biography of Zhou Baozhong, Harbin: Helongjiang People's Press, 1987), pp. 282-283. Back.
Note 63: Ding Xuesong et al., "Recalling the Northeast Bureau's Special Office in North Korea," pp. 198, 201. Back.
Note 64: Ibid., p. 198; and Chen Mu and Zhang Wenjia, "Zhu Lizhi," in Hu Hua, et al., Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan, 50 vols. (A Collection of Biographies of CCP Historical Figures, Xian: Shaanxi People's Press, 1991), 48: 235-236. Back.
Note 65: Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 358. Back.
Note 66: Ding Xuesong et al., "Recalling the Northeast Bureau's Special Office in North Korea," p. 201. Back.
Note 67: Ibid., pp. 202-203; and Chen and Zhang, "Zhu Lizhi," p. 236. Back.
Note 68: Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 358. Back.
Note 69: Interviews with Hu Guangzheng, a researcher at Beijing's Academy of Military Science, May 1991. Back.
Note 70: Ding Xuesong, "Recalling the Northeast Bureau's Special Office in North Korea," p. 204; and Chen and Zhang, "Zhu Lizhi," pp. 236-237. Cumings's study, which is largely based on American intelligence reports, points out that North Korean rail network was devoted to the movement of CCP troops and that "most of the output of the big Hungnam explosive plant was shipped to China." See Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 358-359. Back.
Note 71: In Chai Chengwen's memoirs, he mentions that when he was sent by Zhou Enlai to North Korea in July 1950, Zhou specifically emphasized that the North Korean Communists offered tremendous support to the Chinese Communist forces in the Northeast during China's civil war, so that the CCP "would do our best to support the Korean comrades if they so ask." See Chai and Zhao, Banmendian tanpan, p. 40. Back.
Note 72: Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 350. Back.
Note 73: The Editorial Committee of the War History under the Ministry of Defense of Korea, comp., History of the Korean War (in Korean), 1: 689; Piou Doufu (Pak Tu-bok), Zhonggong canjia chaozhan yuanying zhi yanjiu (A Study of the CCP's Participation in the Korean War, Taipei, publisher unclear, 1975), pp. 65-66; for a brief biographical note of Pang Ho-san, see Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 361. Back.
Note 74: Zhongyang ribao (The Central Daily, official newspaper of the GMD government), May 5, 1949; Pak Tu-bok, Zhonggong canjia chaozhan yuanying zhi yanjiu, pp. 60-61. See also Simmons, The Strained Alliance, p. 32; Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 359. Back.
Note 75: Yao Xu, a former intelligence officer of the Chinese Volunteers in the Korean War, is the author of Cong yalujiang dao banmendian, the first Chinese monograph on China's participation in the Korean War, and several other articles about the Korean War. In my telephone interview with him on May 27, 1991, he stated that he had never heard of the existence of this agreement; he also claimed that Zhou Baozhong, one alleged participant of the discussion leading to the agreement according to GMD sources, was then not in the Northwest but in the South. However, other sources indicate that Zhou did not leave the Northeast until September 1949. Back.
Note 76: Interviews with Hu Guangzheng and Xu Yan, May 1991. Back.
Note 77: South Korean and American intelligence sources have long maintained that between 30,000 and 40,000 Korean PLA soldiers were sent back to Korea from July to October 1949 (for a good summary of South Korean and American sources covering this movement, see Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 363, 838, n. 33). The account about the two PLA divisions' return follows the Military Library of the Academy of Military Science, eds., Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zuzhi he geji lingdao chengyuan minglu (A List of the Historical Evolution of Organizations and Leading Members of the People's Liberation Army, Beijing: Military Science Press, 1990), p. 878. Back.
Note 78: The number here follows interviews with Hu Guangzheng and Xu Yan in May 1991, which, interestingly, is compatible with Cumings's account based on studies of American intelligence reports. See The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 363. Back.
Note 79: For a detailed account of Kim Kwang-hyop's visit, see Nie Rongzhen, Nie Rongzhen huiyilu, p. 748; see also Yao Xu, Cong yalujiang dao banmendian, p. 10. In my interviews with Hu Guangzheng and Xu Yan in May 1991, and with Qi Dexue in August 1993, they all pointed out that the total number of Korean soldiers returned to Korea in spring 1950 was around 23,000, much higher than the number (14,000) offered by Nie Rongzhen. Their number is also much closer to that offered by Bruce Cumings in The Origins of the Korean War (see Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 363). For reorganization of these troops in Korea, see Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, p. 44. Back.
Note 80: Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. 2, chapters 11 and 12. Back.
Note 81: Roger Dingman, "Korea at Forty-Plus: The Origins of the Korean War Reconsidered," The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 1, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 142. Back.
Note 82: For discussions of the factionalism within the Korean Communists, see Simmons, The Strained Alliance, chapter 2; Lim Un, The Founding of a Dynasty in North Korea: An Authentic Biography of Kim Il-sung (Tokyo, 1982), chapters 2 and 4; and Merrill, Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War, pp. 44-48. Lim Un (pseud.) was a well-informed North Korean dissident living in Moscow. Back.
Note 83: Reportedly, in March 1950, Pak Chong-ae, a member of the Central Standing Committee of the Korean Labor Party and one of the Central Committee's secretaries, secretly visited Beijing and informed CCP leaders that the North Koreans were about to attack the South. See Zhu, Mao Zedong's Korean War, pp. 30-31. No other Chinese source, though, can confirm this report. Back.
Note 84: Hao and Zhai, "China's Decision to Enter the Korean War," p. 100. Back.
Note 85: For Kim's visit to Beijing in early December 1950, see Chen Jian, "China's Changing Aims during the Korean War," The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 1, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 29. Cumings, following U.S. intelligence sources, mentions that Kim visited Beijing in late October 1950 (Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2: 740-741). No available Chinese source confirms this. Back.
Note 86: In my interviews with Shi Zhe in August 1992, he particularly emphasized that Mao did not know what Stalin had discussed with Kim and that Kim gave Mao the impression that he had Stalin's full support. According to Russian sources, Mao even cabled to Stalin to confirm if Stalin had given approval to Kim's plans, and Stalin's response was affirmative. Interviews with Russian historian Sergei Goncharov, March 15-17, 1993. Back.
Note 87: These accounts are based on my interviews with Shi Zhe and several other well-informed Chinese researchers in May 1991 and August 1992. Russian sources available now are generally compatible with these accounts. See Goncharov, "Origins and the Outbreak of the Korean War," pp. 38-41; The Staff of Soviet Foreign Ministry, "Background Report on the Korean War," The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 2, no. 4 (Fall 1993): 442. Back.
Note 88: According to the recently released testimony by Yu Song-Chol, the North Koreans, with the direct assistance of the Soviets, completed the detailed operational plan to attack the South in May and June 1950, or in other words, after Kim's visit to Beijing. Yu makes it clear, though, that Kim might not have informed Beijing leaders of this final plan. Yu, "My Testimony," FBIS, December 27, 1990, p. 26; see also the Staff of Soviet Foreign Ministry, "Background Report on the Korean War," p. 442. Back.
Note 89: NSC 48/1, "The Position of the United States with Respect to Asia," December 23, 1949, U.S. Department of Defense, United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967 (Washington, 1971), 8: 257-258. Back.
Note 90: See, for examples, Editorial Note, FRUS (1950), 6: 21-22; Back.
Note 91: For the text of NSC-68, see FRUS (1950) 1: 237-292; for the making of NSC-68, see Warner Schilling, Paul Hammond and Glenn Snyder, Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 287-344; and Gaddis, Strategy of Containment, chapter 4. Back.
Note 92: Memo, "Summary of Discussion on China Trade Control," April 10, 1950, CA, Box 20, NA; Dean Rusk to Acheson, April 20, 1950, CA, Box 20, NA. For a plausible discussion of the subtle change of American trade policy toward China in the spring of 1950, see Qing Simei, "America's Economic Strategy toward China before the Korean War: Its Formation, Implementation, and Chinese Communists' Response" (a paper delivered at a conference on Sino-American relations, 1945-1959, Ohio University, September 1989), especially pp. 17-18. Back.
Note 93: Acheson to Lewis Johnson, April 28, 1950, Acheson Papers, Box 66, HST. Back.
Note 94: NSC 64, "The Position of the United States with Respect to Indochina," February 27, 1950, FRUS (1950) 6: 745-747. Back.
Note 95: Johnson [Secretary of Defense] to Acheson, April 14, 1950, ibid., p. 781. Back.
Note 96: Gaddis, The Long Peace, p. 90. Back.
Note 97: New York Times, May 9, 1950, p. 1. Back.
Note 98: NSC 64, "The Position of the United States with Respect to Indochina," FRUS (1950) 6: 744-747. Back.
Note 99: NSC 37, "The Strategic Importance of Formosa," November 24, 1948, FRUS (1949) 9: 261-262. Back.
Note 100: State Department draft report, NSC 37/1, "The Position of the United States with Respect to Formosa," January 19, 1949, ibid., pp. 271-275. Back.
Note 101: Bishop memorandum, conversation with MacArthur, February 16, 1949, FRUS (1949) 7: 656-657. Back.
Note 102: NSC 37/3, "The Strategic Importance of Formosa," February 10, 1949, FRUS (1949) 9: 284-286. Back.
Note 103: Livingston Merchant to Acheson, March 23, 1949; Acheson's statement at National Security Council meeting, March 1, 1949, ibid., pp. 302-303, 294-296. Back.
Note 104: Memorandum of Conversation by the Secretary of State, December 19, 1949, ibid., pp. 463-467. Back.
Note 105: It is important to note that Truman used the phrase "at this time." Acheson explained that this "is a recognition of the fact that, in the unlikely and unhappy event that our forces might be attacked in the Far East, the United States must be completely free to take whatever action in whatever area is necessary for its own security." Acheson press conference, January 5, 1950, Department of State Bulletin, January 16, 1950, p. 81. Back.
Note 106: Gaddis, The Long Peace, p. 84. Back.
Note 107: Johnson to Acheson, February 14, 1950, Records of the Army Staff, Plans and Operations, RG 319, NA. Back.
Note 108: Johnson to Acheson, May 6, 1950, FRUS (1950) 6: 339. Back.
Note 109: A draft memorandum by Rusk to the Secretary of State, May 30, 1950, FRUS (1950) 6: 349-351. Back.
Note 110: MacArthur to Department of Army, May 29, 1950, cited in Peter Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War (Londong: Longman, 1986), p. 152. Back.
Note 111: Memorandum on Formosa by MacArthur, June 14, 1950, FRUS (1950) 7: 161-165. Back.
Note 112: FRUS (1949), 7: 969. Back.
Note 113: JCS 1769/1, April 29, 1947, ibid. (1947) 6: 744. Back.
Note 114: NSC 8/2, "The Position of the United States with Respect to Korea," March 23, 1949, ibid. (1949), 7: 975. Back.
Note 115: Department of State Bulletin, January 23, 1950, p. Back.
Note 116: 116. Ronald McGlothlen, "Acheson, Economics, and the American Commitment in Korea, 1947-1950," Pacific Historical Review 58, no. 1 (February 1989): 45-46. Back.
Note 117: Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War, pp. 158-159. Back.
Note 118: Russell Buhite, "Major Interests: American Policy toward China, Taiwan, and Korea, 1945-1950," Pacific Historical Review 47, no. 3 (August 1978). Back.
Note 119: Zhou Enlai, "Asia's Affairs Should be Controlled by Asian Peoples Themselves," Renmin ribao, March 19, 1950; see also People's China, 1, no. 7 (1950): 5. Back.
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