Contemporary China Center, Australian National University
The Sino-Soviet Confrontation: Its Roots in the International Background of the Korean War Author(s): Mineo Nakajima
Source: The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 1 (Jan., 1979), pp. 19-47 Published by: Contemporary China Center, Australian National University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.Org/stable/2159072
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THE SINO-SOVIET CONFRONTATION: ITS ROOTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL BACKGROUND OF THE KOREAN WAR
Mineo Nakajima
I. THE KOREAN WAR AS HISTORICAL EVIDENCE: US Miscalculations
The Korean War was an "international civil war" reflecting the tragic fate and historic grievances of the Korean people. On the one hand, it resulted in a regrettably divided Korea; on the other, it dictated the international environment in postwar Asia. For this reason, one scholar (Seizaburo Shinobu) terms it "an epoch-making point in modern history".1
From outbreak to truce, the entire course of the Korean War was a spectacular one. Both as an internal affair on the Korean Peninsula and as an international drama involving complex relations among all the powers that participated directly or indirectly in it, it incorporated all conceivable elements of international politics. At the same time, the war was full of mysteries which have given rise to an amazing variety of conflicting theories and evaluations. Indeed, the Korean War can be said to reflect the ailing condition of the times.
During the quarter century that has elapsed since then, the aetiology of the war has gradually been analysed, and the basic framework of events has become more or less discernible in the context of history. As more and more full-scale studies have been undertaken by researchers in international politics and international relations,2 tangible results have accumulated. At the same time, occasional glimpses of the conventionally hidden area of developments in the Soviet Union and China have been gained through the accusations Moscow and Peking have been hurling at each other in their current wrangle.
These circumstances have been enhanced by another favourable factor, which perhaps stands witness to the soundness of American democracy: batches of secret US documents dating from the early cold war period after World War II have been released by Washington. These, in conjunction with
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the previously published memoirs of high-level policy-planners and decision-makers (such as Truman, Acheson, and George Kennan), shed light on the still largely nebulous history of the cold war and postwar international relations. They also provide historical evidence that upsets or challenges the conventional hypotheses and hitherto established theories.
Above all, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. VII: Korea* a selection of diplomatic papers of the US Department of State concerning the Korean War released on 26 February 1977, contains a vast store of valuable data and information (most of which was originally classified "top secret", "secret", or "confidential") on the vital course of events from the outbreak of the war to the Chinese intervention. It is of absorbing interest in that it provides clues to this great enigma in modern history and enables one to see in an undisguised, raw form, the attitudes and responses of the US at that time.4
From this rich source of information, we will first select pertinent facts about the outbreak of the Korean War and attempt to reconstruct the situation then prevailing.
Prevailing circumstances on the eve of the conflagration
As we previously considered in detail,5 Stalin and Mao Ze-dong were increasingly distrustful of each other in Moscow when Washington came out with a series of important measures for Asia on the basis of its "China White Paper". The Truman statement of 5 January 1950, as is well known, made clear that the US did not intend to interfere in the Taiwan affair. Secretary of State Acheson's speech at the National Press Club on 12 January indicated that the US defence line in Asia ran from the Aleutians through Japan and Okinawa to the Philippines, thus excluding the Republic of Korea and Taiwan from the area of vital strategic importance to the US. This official stand revealed by Washington naturally brought considerable dissatisfaction and irritation to the Syngman Rhee regime in Seoul.
It is now known that, while these guidelines of US policy in Asia were being revealed, people in the policy-making machinery in Washington, confronted with the major circumstantial changes of the three losses ("the loss of nuclear monopoly" in August 1949, "the loss of China" in October 1949, and "the loss of Chinese Titoism" after the conclusion of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance in February 1950) were beginning to work out a new Asian policy. Changes in US policy in Asia as reflected in the National Security Council documents ranging from NSC-48/1 and NSC-48/2 of December 1949, to NSC-68 of April 1950, have already been analysed in detailed studies.6 In Washington, policy-makers were preparing for the shift from NSC-48/1 to NSC-48/2 and further for the changeover to a global military expansion policy of anti-communism or the concept of the "globalization of containment"
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apparent in NSC-68. It is significant that although these documents show the basic orientation in US Asian policy, as Dean Acheson recalled in retrospect,7 NSC-68 was designed as a blueprint and material for brainstorming among the staff in top government circles; the President had not made any decision on it. On the eve of the hostilities, none of the NSC documents8 recognized any need for US military intervention in Korea. In this respect they were in agreement with the officially announced policy of Washington.
It should be noted that Washington was at this time seriously disappointed with the political status quo in the Republic of Korea. It was beginning to despair of the country under Syngman Rhee and was consequently losing enthusiasm about defending it. This sobering fact is discernible from documents of the testimonies given in Washington in the period and from the official telegrams exchanged between US Ambassador Muccio in Seoul and the State Department in Washington.9
It may be said that this US view of the Republic of Korea closely resembles the way President Carter's Administration now looks at that country after the lapse of a quarter century. Washington then was increasingly disillusioned by President Rhee's inability to curb inflation and even doubtful of his suitability as a ruler. Another annoyance was his version of "democracy" which apparently did not prevent him from arbitrarily putting off general elections.10
Washington's low evaluation of the President of the Republic of Korea is clearly seen from President Truman's candid statement in his memoir: "I did not care for the methods used by Rhee's police to break up political meetings and control political enemies, and I was deeply concerned over the Rhee government's lack of concern about the serious inflation that swept the country. Yet we had no choice but to support Rhee".11
Under these circumstances, Ambassador Muccio, who was keenly aware of his responsiblity to make the best of the situation for the Republic of Korea, strongly urged the need for military assistance to the country when he was called back to Washington. But he found General Lemnitzer (in charge of military aid at the Department of Defence) and the rest of the Pentagon surprisingly cool and unenthusiastic. General Lemnitzer went so far as to say, "the question of military assistance to the Republic of Korea at the present time, is essentially a political one, in as much as South Korea is not regarded as of any particular value to overall American strategic position in the Far East",12 thus refusing to attach any strategic importance to that country.13 Indeed, on 23 June, two days before the hostilities began, plans for reducing the US military advisors in Korea from 472 to 242 by January 1951, were being discussed between the State Department in Washington and the US Embassy in Seoul.14
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Thus, immediately before the hostilities, Washington was making light of the crisis in Korea and completely ignoring its urgency from the viewpoint of military strategy. This fact is basic to our reconstruction of an appropriate overall image of the Korean War.
Not only did the State Department, then headed by Secretary Dean Acheson, hold a generally liberal view of the world; so did the Pentagon and the armed services generally so far as Korea was concerned. This is very suggestive, in a paradoxical way, when one attempts to divine the cause of the war.
Of course, as the numerous "first attack" disputes15 over the cause of the Korean War illustrate, the limited issue of which side opened fire first — North or South — still leaves room for debate, and even today the military history of the Korean War as a whole involves many doubts yet to be resolved.
The recently published State Department Diplomatic Papers have thrown light on another event that occurred right before the outbreak of the war: on 10 and 11 June, secret envoys from North Korea were sent north of the 38th Parallel for negotiations about peaceful reunification. They had an initial meeting with John P. Girard, Deputy Chief of the Secretariat of the UN Commission on Korea (UNCOK) on 10 June, and on the following day they were expecting to get in touch with him again south of the 38th Parallel. As soon as the three envoys crossed the Parallel, however, they were arrested by the ROK authorities, who claimed to have discovered documentary evidence of their subversive activities in the south. This development was reported by Ambassador Muccio in Seoul in a secret telegram to Secretary of State Acheson.16 Whether the peaceful reunification move was an attempt by Pyongyang to camouflage preparations for an all-out attack on the South, or whether the arrest of the envoys by Seoul provoked such an attack from the North, is still an open question.
Despite these unanswered questions, it now seems evident that an intense offensive from the North into the South turned the hostilities into a full-scale war.
What then was the philosophical basis underlying Washington's policy of Korea, or on Asia as a whole, before the Korean War?
One should remember that the United States had had a policy of encouraging Chinese Titoism since the "China White Paper" published in the summer of 1949, and was even thinking of recognizing the newly established People's Republic of China. There is no denying that, as a consequence of this view of the Peking regime, Washington was always careful not to provoke China in the implementation of American policy in Asia generally.
This basic philosophy, while causing some disputes within the US, was essentially maintained thereafter, but it did involve a double problem.
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Initially, as we have seen, Washington was explicit until the outbreak of the war that there would be no armed interference in Korea by the US even if a critical situation occurred there. In his previously mentioned National Press Club speech, Acheson said prudently: "Should such an attack occur . . . the initial reliance must be on the people attacked to resist it and then on the commitments of the entire civilized world under the Charter of the United Nations".17 On this point, both the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were in agreement.18 Even the Senate Republican Policy Committee, which was critical of the Truman Administration's policy, resolved that the responsibility of the US to the Republic of Korea was a "moral" one and never a "military" one.19 Thus, it may be said that the consensus for not using US military strength on the Korean Peninsula represented the policy of the US in June, 1950. Once the war broke out, however, "the actual decisions proved to be the opposite of those calculated in advance".20 For, as is well known, the US undertook increasing military intervention in Korea by falling back on the UN. But as was demonstrated by the whole process of the Korean War, and particularly by the "Truman-MacArthur controversy" on strategy,21 the US was consistently mindful of China, and acted on the basic principle that the war should remain localized in Korea.
Developments leading up to the US intervention
The second important fact seen from the documents is that the US, which had held the view of Korea described above and been grossly miscalculating the urgency of the crises, was much alarmed and confused when the war did break out, and attempted to save the grave situation with patchy measures without a proper perspective. Washington had to make a choice regarding intervention in Korea under these circumstances. As to the general process by which this policy decision was made — a process that contains many illustrative facts — we have Glenn D. Paige's detailed study, The Korean Decision [24-30 June 1950], and also Ernest R. May's painstaking work, 'Lessons' of the Past: the Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy. In the latter, May makes a case study of the Korean War to demonstrate that the US had a multiplicity of choices and argues convincingly that "lessons of the past" used by policy decision makers sometimes have decisive effects. Therefore, we will not dwell much on this point in the present paper. In short, the US then was in a situation in which "truth was intermingled with fiction at a hundred points, in which unjustified assumptions have attained the validity of premises, and in which there was no recognized and authoritative theory to hold on to".22
It is well known that, following the outbreak of the Korean War, Washington immediately began to work on the UN under the leadership of
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Secretary of State Acheson. It spoke of an unwarranted attack from the North to impress the world with the image of North Korea as an aggressor, had the Security Council in the absence of the Soviet Union adopt a series of resolutions accusing Pyongyang, and urged the UN to take resolute action.
These US actions in the UN have been considered too quick.23 I.F. Stone, for example, points out these "quick preparations" as circumstantial evidence that Washington knew something about the forthcoming conflagration before it broke out.24 Actually, Washington was taken off guard and made frantic efforts to win the UN and the public over to its side to forestall crossfire from many Republican solons who had been irritated by "the loss of China". Indeed, Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk testified on 7 August that Secretary Acheson had been anxious to have the news of the outbreak of the war and that of favourable UN response appear side by side in the morning papers that day.25
All this flurry and confusion in Washington, which the secret State Department documents reflect vividly through the course of events following the opening of the hostilities, was compounded by a lack of perspective over the war situation. Miscalculations around the time of the outbreak of the war were made not only by Washington but also by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Mac Arthur, who, soon after the beginning of the war, told Special Envoy Dulles and others, then visiting Japan, (a) that the attack was not an all-out effort, (b) that the Soviets were not necessarily behind the attack, and (c) that the Republic of Korea would gain victory, thus taking a very optimistic view of the future.26 It was beyond his imagination that China would intervene, and his optimism lasted until the Chinese People's Volunteers Army came on the scene in the fall of that year.
Admittedly, not everyone in Washington failed to recognize the crisis until the hostilities began, was shocked by the conflagration, and suddenly turned aggressive in attitude. For example, there was a different school of opinion represented by George F. Kennan in the State Department. A veteran in the US diplomatic service, Kennan was then a State Department Counselor after holding the important job of Chief of Policy Planning Staff for the Marshall Plan in the department. Even after the US intervention in Korea, he was consistently against a counter-offensive beyond the 38th Parallel.27 In a memorandum dated 12 August 1950, and addressed to Secretary of State Acheson, he went so far as to propose that the US should get Soviet cooperation, on condition of neutralizing and demilitarizing Japan, in having the North Korean forces withdraw from the South and putting the Korean Peninsula under UN control (to be maintained by the nationals and forces only of other Asian countries) for a year or two; the US should not insist on an anti-Soviet regime in Korea.  These and other
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noteworthy proposals of his,28 naturally had no chance of being adopted after the hostilities began.
Chinese intervention
The third fact of extreme importance that should be noted from the released documents, is that Washington was completely incapable of foreseeing, or was making light of, the possibility of Chinese intervention. As the war situation became graver, Washington, on 30 June 1950, authorized General MacArthur to use US ground troops in Korea, thus making a decisive policy change in favour of full-scale military intervention. Everybody knows that the overwhelming offensive launched by the North Koreans was then countered by the Inchon landing operation carried out on 15 September 1950, under the command of General MacArthur himself — a critical turning point in the course of the war. With the success of this operation, the situation was turning in favour of the US when, on 21 September, Washington received a telegram from US Ambassador Henderson containing the "top secret" information that Indian Ambassador Panikkar in Peking had met with Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou En-lai and had the impression that the Chinese might intervene in Korea if the UN forces advanced beyond the 38th Parallel.29
The implication picked up by the Indian Ambassador was brought to the attention of Washington by the British Government as well as by Panikkar himself. But Washington continued to ignore the possibility of Chinese intervention,30 and finally on 27 September, with President Truman's approval based on a National Security Council decision of 9 September (NSC-81/131), the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized General MacArthur to advance north across the 38th Parallel. Thus the US, gradually changing the objective of the war, now expanded it beyond the parallel, and the UN forces began to march north. It appeared that "official Washington had, in effect, for domestic-political reasons, consigned the fortunes of our country [the US] and of world peace to an agency, namely General MacArthur's headquarters, over which it had no effective authority".32 In China, meanwhile, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Zhou En-lai stated on 30 September: "The people of China can never tolerate foreign aggression nor connive at arbitrary aggression by the imperialists against our neighbours." [Underscoring by author.] Further, on 10 October, a Foreign Ministry spokesman spoke to the same effect, thus sounding a warning with implications of possible Chinese intervention.33 But MacArthur remained as optimistic and confident as ever about the future of the war. Even as late as 4 November, after the State Department ascertained the presence of the Chinese People's Volunteers Army through statements by Chinese prisoners on 1 November, MacArthur
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reported to the Pentagon that in his opinion full-scale Chinese intervention was unlikely.34 Based on these prospects, as is well known, MacArthur ordered on 24 November the so-called Home-by-Christmas Offensive; the result was a major blunder for US strategy in the Korean Peninsula.
Despite this belief on the part of the US, the Chinese volunteers came in for all-out intervention in the widely advertised cause of "Resist America, Aid Korea", and the war situation turned once again — this time, against the US. Having failed to foresee the Chinese move, MacArthur now began to claim that the Chinese forces had Soviet backing. From this viewpoint, he said he needed greater military leverage, and called for an unlimited counter-offensive. This response by SCAP soon led to the "Truman-MacArthur controversy", and finally to the dramatic dismissal of the General. As early as 28 November, Defence Secretary Marshall and others on the National Security Council expressed scepticism over the MacArthur strategy, and even spoke of "an honourable withdrawal",35 thus widening the gap between Washington and SCAP. Meanwhile, the State Department was coolly analysing the situation with the Office of Chinese Affairs and the Policy Planning Committee taking the lead. On 14 November — the day on which MacArthur reported that full-scale Chinese intervention was unlikely — Director Clubb of the Office of Chinese Affairs sent a memorandum titled, "Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea: Estimate of Objectives" to Assistant Secretary of State Rusk. In this note he said: "In the event UN actions were carried over the Manchurian boundary [into China], this would be taken as an excuse for invoking the provisions of the Sino-Soviet Alliance with the charge that the Japanese had been involved in the fighting in Korea."36 Thus he strongly recommended that the UN forces limit their military action to Korea if for no other purpose than averting the danger of touching off a third world war. As is well known, General MacArthur wanted to venture into Manchuria, and was finally dismissed in a dramatic way. It is apparent that the State Department and the President were generally consistent in following the principle recommended by Clubb and exercised much self-restraint to keep the war from spreading.
Ironically enough, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was even more realistic than the State Department in foreseeing the course of events in Korea. Before the outbreak of the war, a CIA memorandum dated 19 June 1950, and titled "Current Capabilities of the Northern Korean Regime"37 presented a detailed analysis of the status quo in North Korea under five headings — Soviet position, political situation, economic situation, military situation, and operations against South Korea — in which the agency predicted that Seoul would be taken by the North Koreans in a short, decisive war. While trusting that there would be no direct participation of regular Soviet or Chinese Communist military units except as a last resort,
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the CIA in this memorandum were already anticipating Sino-Soviet discord over the Korean War in predicting that the USSR would be restrained from using its troops by the fear of general war. Its suspected desire to restrict and control Chinese influence in Northern Korea would militate against sanctioning the use of regular Chinese Communist units in Korea. As the CIA foresaw, China dispatched volunteers rather than regulars to the Korean theatre.
Thus, Washington's publication of the secret diplomatic documents, though not coupled with similar document releases by Peking, Moscow, or Pyongyang but completely unilateral, enables one rather unexpectedly to obtain an overall picture of the Korean War.
Through the above analysis, we have roughly seen the strategic miscalculations on the part of the US that underlay this vital historical event, the Korean War. It appears that one of the mainsprings of US action was the myth of Sino-Soviet monolithic unity. Now let us consider what problems were present on the side of the "Communist camp" — China, the Soviet Union and North Korea.
Before looking into this matter, we will first make a brief review of various theories that have been advanced on the origin of the Korean War.
II. VIEWS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE KOREAN WAR
We already have a nearly complete range of hypothetical views on the "whodunit" of the Korean War — some blaming everything on Stalin and others bent on demonstrating US imperialist aggression. While there have been numerous studies of the mysteries around the opening of the war as well as of US policy in Asia and the decision-making process in Washington, relations between Pyongyang, Moscow and Peking have been covered only by simplistic theories claiming Sino-Soviet collusion or tripartite Peking-Moscow-Pyongyang collusion. Few systematic studies have been made in this area.38
Attempting to find the origin of the war in US and ROK designs, I.F. Stone carefully went through published documents and Anglo-American newspaper stories, and advanced one typical view of the Korean War at an early stage.39 David Horowitz, a revisionist,40 has taken a view similar to Stone's, that one can see, to some extent, what was actually going on in Washington and East Asia just before the outbreak of the Korean War because a relatively large volume of information on the situation is available. But as far as Communist motivation is concerned, it is impossible to evaluate what was going on with so little information available.41
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Peking-Moscow-Pyongyang collusion theories
Of existing theories claiming Sino-Soviet collusion, the simplest is premised on the argument that Stalin and Mao must have had some discussion of the matter at their meetings in Moscow between December 1949 and February 1950 — several months before the Korean War.42 This conjecture has proved largely groundless now that it has become essentially clear through our analysis43 that their Moscow meetings, mainly aimed at negotiating the terms of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, occasioned considerable acrimony due to the serious differences already emerging between the two countries. The situation of the Moscow meetings was such that the conferees were hardly in a position to "collude" for the launching of a war in Korea that would vitally affect the interests of both their countries. They had a difficult time dealing with each other just on questions pending between them and they barely managed to effect a settlement in the end.
A second school of thought assumes collusion among Moscow, Peking and Pyongyang. Opponents of this view have been well represented by Seizaburo Shinobu,44 who considers that the Korean War was provoked by Syngman Rhee, and that Kim II Sung then turned from defensive to offensive and launched a war for Korean reunification by military, revolutionary means. In short, Shinobu believes that the Korean War as a civil conflict began in the form of Kim II Sung's military, revolutionary fight for national reunification. Shinobu's theory, based on a detailed, shrewd study of available information, may be challenged by the counter evidence45 that, while Mao was in Moscow, a delegation from Pyongyang led by Chairman Kim Tu-bong, the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, a friend of Mao's and the leader of the North Korean "Yan'an faction", was visiting Moscow to congratulate Stalin on his seventieth birthday. But even this fact does not convince one that there was enough trust among Stalin, Mao, and the North Korean delegates for "colluding" in a war in Korea, particularly considering the general tone of the Moscow meetings and the fact that the then very unstable Moscow-Peking-Pyongyang "alliance carried within itself, the severe strains which led to its disintegration".46
Some "collusion" theorists47 point out that in and after February 1950, Korean troops that had belonged to the Chinese People's Liberation Army were transferred to the North Korean Army. But the explanation that these Korean soldiers had completed their mission as collaborators in the Chinese Revolution and took the natural course of returning to the army of their own country is still persuasive.48
Another noteworthy view advanced by proponents of Sino-Soviet collusion is that the Moscow conferees may have made a secret agreement assigning to the Soviet Union the task of providing arms, and to China that
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of providing men in Korea.49 This job assignment theory likewise becomes highly questionable when one considers the nature of the Mao-Stalin negotiations reviewed above. As will be noted later, China today makes the criticism that in the Korean War, the Soviets did nothing but sell weapons. Peking would not be making this complaint had there been an agreement on a division of labour.
Others, noting that the Cominform and the CCP criticized the Japanese Communist Party in January 1950, suggest that there may have been Sino-Soviet collusion on Korea as part of a proposed internationalization of the policy of armed liberation struggle.50 Allowing that Stalin and Mao did discuss world revolutionary strategy outside the framework of Sino-Soviet relations, it is most likely that they did nothing more than have the Cominform recognize at long last the legitimacy of the Liu Shao-qi thesis51 (calling for armed revolutions in Asia) that the "way of Mao Ze-dong" was the appropriate course for revolutionary movements to follow.
Also, it should not be overlooked that the "way of Mao Ze-dong" involves principles favouring not only armed revolution but also cooperation with the national bourgeoisie, as may be seen from what Liu said in his famous work, "Internationalism and Nationalism" (1948), which provided the basis for the "Liu Shao-qi thesis". Indeed, in March 1950, the Cominform demanded self-criticism of Chief Secretary B.T. Ranadive and other members of the Indian Communist Party who had criticized the "way of Mao Ze-dong" as Titoism and had called for a more radical armed struggle policy.52
Thus, the various views asserting Sino-Soviet collusion, Peking-Moscow-Pyongyang collusion, and a Sino-Soviet division of labour must be considered rather forced just as the simple dogma claiming US imperialist aggression was seen to be very flimsy in the previous subsection.
The Korean War as a liberation struggle
Having made a critical review of the various theories regarding the Korean War, we should now indicate our own view of the affair. At present, we hold to the hypothesis that the Korean War broke out as an inevitable "war of national liberation" touched off by the north-south conflict that had been growing dangerously in Korea; at the same time, the Korean War was part of Stalin's overall international strategy, especially as it related to Stalin's postwar Asian policy and his international strategy vis-a-vis China following the establishment of the People's Republic. As a "war of national liberation", the Korean War has already been discussed in the laborious work by Seizaburo Shinobu, who believes that it was launched as an armed, revolutionary reunification struggle by Kim II Sung;53 and as a "civil war", it has been analysed by Robert R. Simmons and Masao Okonogi54 who make reference to various circumstances then present in North and South
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Korea. It may well be argued, though rather paradoxically, that in the international cold war environment then prevailing, the cold war found an opportunity to become hot in Korea because a sort of "vacuum" existed there where none of the big powers interested took the prevailing crisis seriously. With reference to revolutionary prospects in Korea at that time, it may also be said that, to the North Korean Communists, the very loss of the possibility of a South Korean revolution seemed to mean the maturation of conditions for a war."
It is certainly appropriate and important to take an unprejudiced view of these realities in the Korea of those days.56 At the same time, however, considering that North Korea was then closely and inseparably linked with the Soviet Union,57 it would be unrealistic to assume that Pyongyang could have been unaffected by or completely independent of Stalin's strategy. Of course, it is impossible to obtain positive documentary evidence of a relationship between Stalin's East Asian Strategy and the position of North Korea. But Khrushchev's testimony, though in the form of a rough recollection, provides a noteworthy clue in this matter:
About the time I was transferred from the Ukraine to Moscow at the end of 1949, Kim Il-sung arrived with his delegation to hold consultations with Stalin. The North Koreans wanted to prod South Korea with the point of a bayonet. Kim Il-sung said that the first poke would touch off an internal explosion in South Korea and that the power of the people would prevail — that is, the power which ruled in North Korea. Naturally, Stalin couldn't oppose this idea. It appealed to his convictions as a Communist all the more because the struggle would be an internal matter which the Koreans would be settling among themselves.  . . . Stalin persuaded Kim Il-sung that he should think it over, make some calculations, and then come back with a concrete plan. Kim went home and then returned to Moscow when he had worked everything out. He told Stalin he was absolutely certain of success. ... He was worried that the Americans would jump in, but we were inclined to think that if the war were fought swiftly — and Kim Il-sung was sure that it could be won swiftly — then intervention by the USA could be avoided.
Nevertheless, Stalin decided to ask Mao Ze-dong's opinion about Kim Il-sung's suggestion. I must stress that the war wasn't Stalin's idea, but Kim Il-sung's. Kim was the initiator. Stalin, of course, didn't try to dissuade him.
Mao Ze-dong also answered affirmatively. He approved Kim Il-sung's suggestion and put forward the opinion that the USA
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would not intervene since the war would be an internal matter which the Korean people would decide for themselves.58
This recollection by Khrushchev should perhaps be viewed as a rather sketchy observation by an outsider, which he was at that time, so far as this incident was concerned. Khrushchev himself says:
My memories of the Korean War are unavoidably sketchy. I didn't see any of the documents in which the question of military-technical aid to the North Koreans was discussed.59
For that reason, however, it may also be considered an accurate reflection of what the Kremlin leadership thought of the background of the Korean War. As may be seen from these remarks, Stalin must have considered Kim II Sung's proposed "adventure"60 from various angles, and sounded out China (Mao) on it in due course. But all this cannot be construed to mean practical "collusion" among Moscow, Peking, and Pyongyang. In Mao's eyes, perhaps, the whole affair, like other matters concerning revolutions elsewhere in Asia, meant nothing but a reaffirmation of the general principle in favour of "wars of national liberation". For that very reason, Stalin had to make a variety of calculations while generally being agreeable to the proposed North Korean "adventure". In this connection, George F. Kennan, reviewing the international environment then prevailing, argues:
The definitive historical study of the background in Soviet policy of the decision to authorize the Korean attack has yet to be made, and this is not the place to make it. But it is clear that among the various considerations which motivated Stalin in his decision to take this step, along with some that had no relation to our [US] behaviour (recent frustration in Europe, the Communist takeover in China, etc.), were several that represented direct reactions to moves of our own. This could be said with relation to our recent withdrawal of American forces from South Korea, the public statement that South Korea did not fall within the area of our vital strategic interest, and above all our recent decison to proceed at once with the negotiation of a separate peace treaty settlement with Japan, to which the Russians would not be a party, and to accompany that settlement with the indefinite retention of American garrisons and military facilities on Japanese soil.61
There can be no denying that the international environment in East Asia reviewed by Kennan above must have had a great deal of influence on Stalin's decision-making.  In addition, we must also note the view advanced
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by Adam B. Ulam, a distinguished researcher on Soviet foreign policy. According to him, Stalin apparently thought the US, under its current Asian policy, had abandoned continental Asia, that the poorly equipped and ill-trained forces of the Republic of Korea would be wiped out in a single operation, that an adventurous attempt under these circumstances would mean little risk to the Soviet Union, that a war in Korea would cause the Chinese to agree to the Soviets' postponement of the evacuation of Port Arthur and that an expanded American presence in Japan would inevitably lead to virtual military control of Manchuria. Ulam points out these and other factors as logically conceivable reasons.62
The hypothesis we presented in this section still needs corroboration. For this purpose, it is necessary to consider what China today thinks of the Korean War, in which it participated at a tremendous cost.
III. CHINA'S DISSATISFACTION AND MOTIVES FOR INTERVENTION
In what position did China find itself at the time of the outbreak of the Korean War? In the following pages, we will consider this question on the basis of all available information.
First of all, we should take note of the fact that Peking is now beginning to openly criticize the Soviet position in the Korean War in relation to that of China. These attacks clearly indicate how repugnant the Soviet attitude in the war was in the eyes of the Chinese.
Chinese criticism can be found as early as July 1957, when a National People's Congress was convened following a sudden policy turn in Peking from the hundred flowers campaign to the anti-rightist campaign. At this session, many leaders of democratic parties had to make "self-criticism" about their "free speech" during the hundred flowers campaign. The myth of the monolithic unity of Moscow and Peking was still prevalent at that time, but Vice Chairman Long Yun of the National Defence Council had been daring enough to speak freely and criticize Peking's then pro-Soviet policy by pointing out among other things that it was unreasonable for China alone to bear the cost of fighting America and aiding Korea. Although he had to apologize for this sharp criticism by criticizing himself on 13 July 1957, the fact itself demonstrated that some leaders in China were keenly critical of the Soviet role in the Korean War.63 After a temporary downfall due to his criticism of the Soviet Union, Long Yun made a quick comeback as a member of the Defence Council in December 1958, after a decisive internal deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations. This suggests that Peking had come to approve of Long Yun's position against Moscow.
In the Sino-Soviet dispute in 1963, the Chinese position toward the Soviets during the Korean War was made public in an official article: "We have always made the necessary sacrifices and stood at the front-line in the
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defence of socialism so that the Soviet Union can remain at the second line." 64 The "Letter of the Central Committee of the CCP to the Central Committee of the CPSU", dated 29 February 1964, states that, "We made tremendous sacrifices and spent enormous sums of money for military purposes . . . we have paid all principal and interest on the Soviet loans we obtained at that time, and they account for a major proportion of our exports to the Soviet Union. In other words, the military supplies provided China during the 'Resist America, Aid Korea' war were not free aid." 65 What Long Yun had said before was now officially told by Peking to Moscow.
Among similar subsequent statements, the one made by an official of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Association to a Sohyo (General Council of Trade Unions of Japan )-Chur it su Roren (Federation of Independent Unions) delegation from Japan in January 1972, is still fresh in our memory: "The Soviet Union is a merchant of death. While China was sending volunteers and shedding blood in the Korean War, the Soviets stayed behind and merely sold weapons. They got payments for them with interest."66
Another instance is found in the statements of Chinese leaders to a US congressional delegation to Peking consisting of members of the House Armed Services Committee and the Committee on International Relations in April 1976, by way of assuring them that even if hostilities should break out again in Korea, China would provide military assistance to Pyongyang but would not send any troops there. According to Representative Lester L. Wolfe, Democrat of New York, the Chinese admitted that their dispatch of troops to Korea in 1950 was a "mistake".67
These Chinese statements show that, with their volunteers fighting in Korea, the Chinese were profoundly dissatisfied with the Soviet role in the war. Surveying the contemporary official reports in China, one notes that the Chinese leadership said nothing but good about the Soviet Union on Army Day (1 August) in 1950 but no longer praised the Soviets on that anniversary of the People's Liberation Army in 1951 — that is, after the Chinese intervention in the Korean War. 68 From this fact, it is easy to imagine what China was thinking of the Soviet Union while fighting the war.
Thus it appears that China harboured a great deal of dissatisfaction and mistrust in its dealings with the Soviet Union from the very beginning of the"Resist America, Aid Korea" war.
With respect to possible motives for the Chinese volunteers' participation in the fighting; i.e., China's all-out intervention in the Korean War, a Rand Corporation study published in 1960 advances the view that the Chinese intervention was not based on any previous collusion with North Korea nor due to any pressure from Moscow but was precipitated by the well-known MacArthur strategy which even contemplated an attack on China itself (Dongbei).69
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On the vital issue of what caused the Chinese to intervene, available information has been so limited that one can only hazard a guess as to their real motive. Admittedly, as Peking's own statements already cited suggest, the Chinese naturally must have been strongly obsessed by their sense of responsibility for the defence of the global socialist system since they were then still full of revolutionary enthusiasm and faithful to the internationalist spirit of socialism following the foundation of the new republic.
However, a more essential reason may have been that the Chinese had real fears that, without their participation in the war, the Soviets might again storm into Dongbei (Manchuria), then under the rule of the pro-Stalin leader Gao Gang70 — a situation different from that prevailing immediately after World War II, when the Chinese Communists narrowly managed to have the Soviet forces withdraw from the Three Eastern Provinces (Manchuria). In the international environment of East Asia following the northward march of the UN forces across the 38th Parallel, "defence" of Dongbei had become even more urgent and important than liberation of Taiwan in Peking's eyes — "defence" probably from a Soviet attempt at reoccupation rather than from MacArthur's strategy. It should be noted in addition that, under the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance already concluded, there was a good possibility that, if the Chinese hesitated, the Soviets might take the lead and, using the treaty as an excuse, propose to send their troops to Dongbei.71
Whatever the reason, as Edgar Snow observes, the participation of the Chinese volunteers in the war in Korea caused China to be branded as an aggressor by the UN and to rely increasingly on the Soviet Union in the military area.72 Moreover, the Soviet Union was in a position to operate as a "merchant of death" without having any direct hand in the fighting. All this apparently redoubled Peking's antipathy toward Moscow. One should also point out here the important fact that Peking had to postpone its objective of liberating Taiwan indefinitely because of the Truman statement of 27 June 1950, which declared that the participation of US forces in the hostilities in Korea incorporated a strategy for "neutralizing" the Taiwan Strait.73
Thus, the Korean War meant a great deal of sacrifice for China. It is true, of course, that the increased preparedness in China due to the "Resist America, Aid Korea" war expedited the unification of the country and strengthened the sense of national unity following the foundation of the People's Republic of China. This effect, however, should be viewed as an incidental "by-product".
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IV. CHINA'S POSITION AND THE KOREAN WAR
The above analysis suggest that Peking, far from being involved substantially in any attempt to start a war in Korea, was caught rather unawares when the hostilities broke out on the early morning of 25 June 1950. Circumstantial evidence also supports this finding.
First, it should be noted that a Land Reform Law, conceived as one of the main pillars of the Chinese Revolution, was promulgated in China on 30 June 1950 — only five days after the Korean War began. Considering the long, assiduous efforts the Chinese Communists had been making for land reform and its tremendous importance for internal construction in China, it is almost inconceivable that Peking would have wanted a war at that particular moment. Indeed, as G. Paloczi-Horvath sharply points out, "the entire Party and State apparatus were preparing for the promulgation of the Land Reform Law on 30 June. ... In fact, for Mao, this war could not have come at a worse time".74
Secondly, it was for the purpose of such internal construction that Mao called for the demobilization (reversion to peacetime production and construction duties) of part of the People's Liberation Army in a report entitled, "Let's Fight for a Basic Improvement in the Nation's Financial and Economic Conditions" delivered at the Third Central Committee Meeting of the Seventh CCP Congress on 6 June 1950.75
Subsequently on 23 June — two days before the outbreak of the war — Mao addressed the National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference at the close of its session,76 and expressly stated that, of the two barriers — war and land reform — presenting trials to all individuals and groups in China in the historical period of new democracy, the trial presented by the first, war, had essentially become a thing of the past.77
Thirdly, China at that time still had two important domestic problems to solve as part of the final goals of the Revolution — liberation of Tibet and Taiwan. After taking over Hainan in April 1950, and the Chusan Islands in May, the People's Liberation Army had yet to take hold of Tibet and Taiwan. The liberation of Tibet was started in October that year after the hostilities broke out in Korea, and there is a great deal of clear evidence that the invasion of Taiwan had been slated for that summer.78 The US knew that Peking had apparently completed its invasion preparations before the beginning of the war. "Reference to the US State Department's 'top secret' memorandum of 23 December 1949 (leaked in early January), stating that the 'fall of Taiwan was widely anticipated' has already been noted."79 In China, meanwhile, "the invasion was definitely scheduled for 1950, and it was described as the 'principle task' for that year. In March [1950], Chu Teh claimed that it was 'not far off, army commanders of Ch'en Yi's Third Field Army had already begun to study amphibious techniques in January."80
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This view of Chinese plans seems readily acceptable. That China's intervention in Korea, which began in late October that year, was opposed by some leaders of the People's Liberation Army is evidenced by the fact that the Renmin ribao (People's Daily) said in the latter half of an editorial81 on 6 November 1950 that some Chinese were in favour of proceeding with peaceful internal construction in the immediate future unless the enemy attacked the Chinese mainland, and strongly reiterated that "such views were wrong". Apparently, there had been a dispute over whether or not China should intervene in Korea.
To override the opinion of these sceptics inside and outside the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Ze-dong argued that China would win the "Resist America, Aid Korea" war because the US had son duan yi chang (three disadvantages and one advantage) (a long supply line, low morale and little combat strength within its rank and file, and a lack of unity within the UN forces as disadvantages, and superior weaponry as an advantage) whereas China had san chang yi duan (three advantages and one disadvantage) (a short supply line, high morale and a great deal of fighting power among the People's Volunteers, and freedom from dissension in China and Soviet backing as advantages, and fairly old weaponry as a disadvantage). With this argument he led the nation into intervening in Korea, according to the recollection of a democrat who was then in China.82 His statement sounds very realistic, particularly because "freedom from dissension in China and Soviet backing" was stressed as a favourable condition at that moment.
As noted in Section I, Peking sounded a series of warnings to the US in late September and early October, prior to the intervention of the People's Volunteers. According to John W. Spanier, known for his study of the Truman-Mac Arthur controversy, "According to one interpretation of this diplomatic offensive, Peking was warning the United States not to cross the parallel".83 If so, this also seems to indicate, in the light of the general process described above by which Peking finally decided to intervene in Korea, that there were circumstances in China that tended to disincline it from full-scale involvement in Korea at that time.
From the above analysis, we cannot but consider reasonable that Mao could not possibly have had his nation involved in the war before 25 June, 84 and that "there is no evidence that it was instigated by the Chinese". 85 Both support the conclusion Allen S. Whiting attempted to establish in his excellent book, China Crosses the Yalu, that "there is no clear evidence of Chinese participation in the planning and preparation of the Korean War".86
It may be said that the outbreak of hostilities on 25 June itself was quite a surprise to Peking.
In North Korea, on the other hand, Kim II Sung immediately showed a most militant attitude the day after the outbreak of the war, saying that the Government of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, after studying
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the current circumstances, had ordered the People's Army to launch a decisive counter-offensive and sweep out the armed forces of the enemy;87 and on 26 June, Pravda lost no time in accepting as justified the North Korean radio declaration stressing that the South Koreans had made the first attack and that the North Koreans had been instructed to repulse the assault.88 In contrast, China's radio stations and newspapers were unable to present any prepared report the day after the opening of the hostilities, and the propaganda machinery in Peking was apparently confused. This fact is highly suggestive.89
Corroboration of a hypothesis
Having completed the above analysis, we will now return to our own hypothesis presented in Section II, that the Korean War broke out as an inevitable "war of national liberation", touched off by the north-south conflict that had been growing dangerously in Korea. At the same time, the Korean War was part of Stalin's overall international strategy, especially as it related to Stalin's postwar Asian policy and his international strategy vis-a-vis China following the establishment of the People's Republic there.
Having just succeeded in their revolution, the Chinese Communists were full of innocent enthusiasm and had a keen sense of responsibility for the solidarity and unity of the socialist camp, but they were wary of Stalin's strategy. Under this double burden, they ventured to intervene in the Korean War because they thought it was urgently necessary to do so for the defence of their own country. That this choice was a big gamble for Peking may be seen from the following passage in a national declaration of unity for "resisting America, aiding Korea, and defending our fatherland" issued immediately after the Chinese intervention in Korea (a joint declaration by elevan democratic parties including the Chinese Communist Party):
Historical facts teach us that a crisis in Korea has much to do with the security of China. With the lips gone, the teeth would be exposed to the cold; with the door broken, the house itself would be in danger. For the people of China to aid the people of Korea in their struggle against the US is not merely a moral responsibility but also a matter closely related to the vital interests of our own people, a decision necessitated by a need for self-defence. Saving our neighbours at once means saving ourselves. To protect our own country, we must help the people of Korea.90
As Seiji Imabori points out,91 "history tells us that many Chinese dynasties including Wei, Sui, Ming, and Qing fell due to excessive involvement in Korea".  Indeed, for the People's Republic of China immediately after its
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establishment "to venture into the hostilities in Korea against the US was an adventure with much danger of self-destruction as well as an action needed for self-defence".
Pressed for a critical choice, China finally decided to intervene in Korea. But the Soviet Union strictly remained a "merchant of death" and was unenthusiastic about aiding China. The Chinese succeeded in achieving the objective of securing Dongbei, to be sure; but Dongbei was theirs in the first place, and it cost them tremendously to keep it. Naturally, the suspicion grew in them that they had been tricked by Stalin's strategy, and they were increasingly disgusted with all this.
By way of justifying these assumptions, it will be necessary for us to have a clearer picture of Stalin's strategy. For this purpose, we should first recall the Sino-Soviet summit talks in early 1950. As noted previously, Stalin had a hard time dealing with Mao's strong nationalism and could not make him accept all his demands.
Stalin's fears and suspicions about Mao may have been reinforced by the fact that the US had not yet completely abandoned its old policy of making China Titoist. According to unpublished literature, Mao himself said of Stalin that "he suspected that after we won the revolution, China would become like Yugoslavia, and I would be another Tito".92 If Otto Braun is right in his recollection that Mao once attempted to drag the Soviet Union into the war against the Japanese by placing Northeast Asia in a fluid, confused state of affairs,93 Stalin now may have hoped to weaken Mao's China by creating a similar situation to take advantage of conditions in which the Russians could secure Dongbei again: a military conflict that would probably be limited to Korea, or to the Chinese mainland. From the beginning Stalin perhaps anticipated China's intervention in Korea, and expected that the war would make Mao's regime more dependent on the Soviet Union. Today, one of the authentic books on Sino-Soviet relations in the Soviet Union says: "The Korean War. . . . , cutting off for a long time the way to a collusion between the nationalistic CCP leaders and the US ruling circles and compelling Chinese leaders to wider co-operation with the Soviet Union".94   This view proves paradoxically that such was Stalin's design.
In and after January 1950, the Soviet Union continuously refused to attend the UN Security Council while demanding elimination of the Nationalist Chinese delegation and admission of a delegation from the People's Republic of China. At that time, some observers already suspected that Moscow actually wanted the continued exclusion of Peking.95 Now that we know that there was a rift in Sino-Soviet relations in those days, it is not impossible to imagine that the Soviet Union's refusal to attend the Security Council continued until August that year through the most critical period following the outbreak of the war96 possibly because Moscow, under the pretext of demanding Chinese attendance, actually had in mind a scenario
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involving the intervention of the US and that of China too. In this connection, the learned scholar Max Beloff expressed some doubts about the Soviet absence from the UN Security Council in his excellent book, Soviet Policy in the Far East, 1944-1951, in the early 1950s when the public was still far from suspecting a rift between Moscow and Peking. Taking note of the Soviet behaviour in the Security Council as counter-evidence against the view that the Moscow summit talks gave birth to the Korean War, he suggested that Moscow and Peking might be at odds, and concluded: "By any calculation of realpolitik, the Korean War doubly benefited the Russians: it locked up a large part of the available strength of the Western world in the remotest and least important of the threatened fronts, and it confirmed the breach between Communist China and the Western world, thus underlining, as has been seen, its need of Soviet support".97
In conclusion, the situation in Korea was such that conflict could break out in the form of a war for national liberation, but although the internal situation was an indispensable catalyst, it is difficult to imagine that North Korea had nothing to do with the Stalinist strategy. After Stalin's death, a ceasefire was obtained through Chinese diplomatic efforts. Right after the death, Ho Ka-i and others of the Moscow group in North Korea were purged. In China as well, those with close connections to the Soviet strategy in Korea, including Gao Gang, were purged.
This study of the various events at that time thus crosses the border of conjecture and gives us a fairly adequate glimpse of reality. I believe that the events leading up to the Korean War, where China was unavoidably drawn into Soviet strategy and paid a great price in both lives and money, are important factors in understanding the abrasive criticism that China makes of the Soviet Union today.
Indeed, the war represents a climax in the history of postwar international politics in that it was an important historical step toward the subsequent enmity between China and the Soviet Union.
Notes
1 See Seizaburo Shinobu, "Gendaishi no kakki toshiteno Chosen senso" (The Korean War as an Epoch-making Point in Modern History), Sekai, August 1965.
2 For immediate reference of recent studies on the Korean War, see Hajime Izumi, "Chosen senso kenkyu no shindankai," (New Stages in Korean War Research), Kyosanshugi to kokusai seiji (Quarterly), I: 1 (July-September 1967).
3 US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Volume VII: Korea (Washington, D.C. 1976) [henceforth cited FRUS: Korea].
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4 Japanese newspapers gave top billing to reports from their correspondents in Washington roughly describing these documents the day following (in Japan time, two days after) their publication.
5 See Mineo Nakajima, "Motakuto to Stalin tono deai" (The Mao-Stalin Tete-a-tete), Kybsanshugi to kokusai seiji (Quarterly), I: 1 (January-March 1977).
6 See Paul Y. Hammond, "NSC 68: Prologue to Rearmament" and "The Role of NSC 68 in the Korean Rearmament", in Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, Strategy, Politics and Defence Budgets (New York, 1962); Yonosuke Nagai, "The Roots of Cold War Doctrine: The Esoteric and the Exoteric" in Yonosuke Nagai and Akira Iriye (ed.), The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (Tokyo, 1977); Seizaburo Shinobu, Chosen senso no boppatsu (The Outbreak of the Korean War) (Tokyo, 1969), pp.140-155.
7 Dean G. Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York, 1969), p.374.
8 NSC-48/1, 23 December 1949, NSC Papers (Washington, D.C., US National Archives); NSC-48/2, 30 December 1949, ibid,; NSC-68, 14 April 1950, ibid.
9 See "Events Prior to the Outbreak of Hostilities, January 1-June 24 1950", FRUS: Korea, pp. 1-124.
10 For example, a memorandum of conversation by the Office in Charge of Korean Affairs dated 3 April 1950 dealing with the inflation and postponed general elections in the Republic of Korea shows this clearly, particularly through remarks by Dean G. Rusk, then Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. "Memorandum of Conversation, by the Officer in Charge of Korean Affairs (Bond), [Washington,] April 3, 1950", FRUS: Korea, pp.40-43.
11 Harry S. Truman, Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope 1946-1953 (Garden City, N.Y., 1956). [Henceforth cited Harry S. Truman, Memoirs II], p.329.
12 "Memorandum of Conversation, by the Officer in Charge of Korean Affairs (Bond), [Washington,] May 10, 1950", FRUS: Korea, p.79.
13 Of course, the US did not immediately take up this military aid policy for the Republic of Korea after World War II and hold it consistently. With reference to the withdrawal of US forces from South Korea completed by late June 1949, the Joint Chiefs of Staff under General Bradley had, since 1947, been making light of the strategic value of Korea. Some State Department experts on Asia had been speaking for its strategic importance but, held responsible for "the loss of China" both by Congress and by the public, they soon ceased to be listened to. See Ernest R. May, "Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (New York, 1973), pp. 54-63. For discussions of changes in US policy on aid to the Republic of Korea, see Fuji Kamiya, Gendai kokusaiseiji no shikaku (Angles of Vision for Contemporary International Politics) (Tokyo, 1966); Gaimusho Chosakyoku Daiichi-ka (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Research Bureau, First Section) ed., Chosen jihen no keii (Korean War Developments) (Tokyo, unpublished, for staff reference, 1951).
14 "The Ambassador in Korea (Muccio) to the Secretary of State, Seoul, June 23, 1950", FRUS: Korea, pp.121-122.
15 Recent "first attack" disputes include one between K. Gupta, an Indian researcher, who claims a Republic of Korea attack on Haeju (a strategic position five kilometres north of the 38th Parallel) on 25 June 1950, and Robert R. Simmons, Chong-sik Lee, and W.E. Skillend, who all criticize Gupta's opinion. See Karunakar Gupta, "How Did
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the Korean War Begin?" China Quarterly, 52 (October-December 1972); Robert R. Simmons, "Some Myths about June 1950"; Chong-sik Lee, "The Korean Way"; W.E. Skillend, "Geographical and Political Misconceptions"; Karunakar Gupta, "Reply to Professor Simmons, Reply to Professor Lee, Reply to Dr Skillend", China Quarterly, 54 (April-June 1973).
16 "The Ambassador in Korea (Muccio) to the Secretary of State, Seoul, June 9-12, 1950", FRUS: Korea, pp.98-104.
17 "Review of the Position as of 1950: Address by the Secretary of State, January 12, 1950", US Department of State, American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1950-1955, Vol.11, (New York, 1971) p.2318.
18 Glenn D. Paige says that Secretary Acheson excluded the Republic of Korea from the US defence line in the Far East on the basis of a secret study by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which had consistently failed to recognize the strategic importance of Korea. See Glenn D. Paige, The Korean Decision [June 24-30, 1950] (New York, 1968), pp.68-69.
19 Ernest R. May, "Lessons" of the Past, pp.74-75. Although May says in a footnote that this statement is based on Glenn D. Paige, Korean Decision, pp.45-47, such information cannot be found in the indicated part of Paige's work.
20 Ernest R. May, ibid., p.67.
21 The Truman-MacArthur dispute on strategy is discussed in the following painstaking work: John W. Spanier, The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).
22 George F. Kennan, Memoirs, Volume I, 1925-1950 (Boston, 1967), p.500.
23 The first report from US Ambassador Muccio in Seoul to Secretary of State Acheson on the outbreak of the Korean War was wired from Seoul at 10 a.m. on 25 June and arrived in Washington on the evening of 24 June, Saturday, at 9.26 p.m., Eastern daylight saving time (or at 10.26 a.m. on 25 June, Tokyo time). See "The Ambassador in Korea (Muccio) to the Secretary of State", FRUS: Korea, p.125. But on the following day, Sunday, the UN Security Council was called quickly, and US Delegate Ernest A. Gross succeeded in having the council approve a resolution branding North Korea as an aggressor by arguing that an attack had been made on "the vital interests of all members of the UN" {New York Times, 26 June 1950).
24 I.F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War (New York, 1952), pp.42-52.
25 Editorial Note, FRUS: Korea, p. 128.
26 "The Acting Political Adviser in Japan (Sebald) to the Secretary of State", FRUS: Korea, p. 140.
27 What George Kennan thought of the Korean War and the policy-making process in Washington around the time of its outbreak, and how he did not participate in that policy-making, is told impressively by Kennan himself in his memoirs. See George F. Kennan, Memoirs, Volume I, pp.484-500, and Memoirs, Volume II, 1950-1963 (Boston, 1972), pp.23-38. There Kennan says: "I found myself thus automatically relegated to the sidelines: attending the respective meetings in the Secretary's office, but not those that took place at the White House level." (George F. Kennan, Memoirs, Volume I, p.486.) Referring to this fact, Ernest May observes that, "had Under Secretary Webb or George Kennan been present, the balance might have tipped otherwise." (Ernest R. May, "Lessons" of the Past, p.72.)
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28 "Memorandum by the Counselor (Kennan) to the Secretary of State", FRUS: Korea, pp.623-629. Kennan's proposal was too sophisticated to be acceptable in the environment of an intensifying war in Korea. In late August, soon after he wrote this memorandum, Kennan temporarily left the State Department and moved to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton on furlough.
29 "The Ambassador in India (Henderson) to the Secretary of State", FRUS: Korea, p.742.
30 Referring to this matter Fuji Kamiya writes: "The reason, according to Truman, was that what China had said was in the nature of a threat rather than a warning, that Panikkar had always been pro-Peking and could not be viewed as an impartial observer but should rather be considered to have conveyed Communist Chinese propaganda, and that Peking, seeing a new UN resolution on the Korean War was coming up, probably wanted to put pressure on it by threatening to intervene." Fuji Kamiya, Chosen sensb {The Korean War) (Tokyo, 1966), p.75.
On the other hand, the fact was made public by China's authority on the occasion of the first anniversary of Premier Zhou En-lai's death, that when China was faced with the decision on the Korean War, "He [Zhou En-lai] urgently summoned the Indian Ambassador to China late at night and, through the Indian Government, solemnly warned the US Government". Waijiaobu lilun xuexi zu (The Theoretical Study Group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), "Xuexi Zhou Zongli de guanghui bangyang, wei guanche zhixing Mao Zhuxi de geming waijiao luxian er fendou" (Study Premier Zhou's Glorious Example, Strive to Carry Out Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Foreign Policy Line), Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 11 January 1977.
31 "NSC 81/1 United States Courses of Action With Respect to Korea, Report by the National Security Council to the President", FRUS: Korea, pp.7l2-721.
32 George F. Kennan, Memoirs, Volume II, pp.24-25.
33 Zhou En-lai, "Wei gonggu he fazhan renmin de shengli er fendou" (Strive to Strengthen and Promote the People's Victory, [30 September 1950]), Xinhua yuebao (New China Monthly), II: 6 (15 October 1950); "Waijiao bu fayanren guanyu Lianda tongguo Ying Ao deng baguo dui Chaoxian wenti ti'an de shengming" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman's statement on UN passage of Eight-Nation Proposal on Korea Sponsored by Britain, Australia, and Other Countries), New China News Agency report from Peking, 10 October, in Xinhua yuebao, III: 11 (25 November 1950).
34 Editorial Note, FRUS: Korea, p. 1036.
35 "Notes on NSC Meeting, November 28, 3.00 p.m., The White House, Memorandum of Conversation, by the Ambassador at Large (Jessup)", FRUS: Korea, pp.1242-1249.
36 "Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs (Clubb) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk)", FRUS: Korea, pp.1039-1040.
37 "Current Capabilities of the Northern Korean Regime, Memorandum by the Central Intelligence Agency,  [Washington], June  19,  1950", FRUS:    Korea, pp.109-121.
38 For this very reason, one must attach great importance to the study made recently by Robert R. Simmons, in which he analyses the "alliance" relationships among the Soviet Union, North Korea, and China: Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance: Peking, Pyongyang, Moscow and the Politics of the Korean Civil War (New York, 1975). However, although Simmons is unique in considering the origin of "the Korean War as a civil war" in relation to the then "strained alliance" among Moscow, Peking, and  Pyongyang,   he   tends   to   underestimate   the   role   of  the   Soviet Union in
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the war, and some of the things he says about China's role seem unacceptable to us.
39 I.F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War.
40 Recent US cold war research trends and cold war revisionism are carefully reviewed in Sadao Asada, "Reisen no Kigen to Shuseishugi-kenkyu: Amerika no baai" (The Origin of the Cold War and Revisionism: Research in the US), Kokusai mondai, 170 (May 1974).
41 David Horowitz, From Yalta to Vietnam: American Foreign Policy in the Cold War (Harmondsworth, 1967), p.119.
42 For example, Edgar O'Ballance, Korea: 1950-1953 (London, 1969), pp.59-60; Kim Chum-kom, ed., Kankoku doran [The Korean War) in Japanese (Seoul, 1973), pp.56-57, (English ed., pp.59-61). A noteworthy study recently published by a Korean on the Korean War and China's intervention in it is Pak Doo-boc, Zhong Gong canjia Han zhan yuanyin de yanjiu (A Study of the Chinese Intervention in the Korean War) in Chinese (Taibei, 1975), although Pak is essentially of the same opinion as Kim. An outline of what the author says in the book is given in Pak Doo-boc, "Motakuto — Staarin Kaidan to Chosen senso mondai" (The Mao-Stalin Talks and the Korean War Issue), Mondai to kenkyu in Japanese, February, 1976.
43 See Note 5.
44 Seizaburo Shinobu, Chosen senso no boppatsu, pp.246, 220-276. Despite Seizaburo Shinobu's important contributions to Korean War research, we cannot but disagree with him on China's role and Stalin's strategy.
45 Kim Chum-kom, Kankoku dbran, p.75 (English ed., p.83).
46 Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance, p.268.
47 Such views are expressed in David J. Dallin, Soviet Foreign Policy After Stalin (Philadephia, 1961): J.M. Mackintosh, Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign Policy (London, 1962); Kim Chum-kom, Kankoku doran; Shigeo Hiramatsu, "Chosen senso no kaisen to Chugoku: Chukyo-kei Chosen jin-butai no yakuwari" (The Outbreak of the Korean War and China: The Role of the Korean Troops in the PLA), Kokusai mondai, 209 (August, 1977).
48 Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York, 1960), p.44.
49 For example, one can mention Edgar O'Ballance, Korea: 1950-53; Kim Chum-kom, Kankoku doran; Motoi Tamaki, "Nihon ni okeru Chosen senso kan" (Views of the Korean War in Japan) in Minzokumondai kenkyu kai (ed.), Chosen senso shi: Gendai-shi no hakkutsu (A History of the Korean War: Rediscovering Modern History) (Tokyo, 1967).
50 Motoi Tamaki, Chosen senso shi.
51 For a ready discussion of "the Liu Shao-qi thesis", see Mineo Nakajima, Gendai Chugoku ron: Ideorogii to seiji no naiteki kbsatsu [On Modern China: Looking Into Its Ideology and Politics) (Tokyo, 1964, supplemented edition, 1971), p.64.
52 For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy, 2 March 1950. For discussions of such issues as international communism and Soviet policy in various parts of Asia in those days, and the Calcutta conference of February 1948, which apparently had much to do with the Liu Shao-qi thesis, see Max Beloff, Soviet Foreign Policy in the Far East, 1944-1951 (London, 1953), Ch.VIII:   "Soviet Policy in Southeast Asia" (written by J. Frankel);
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Yoshihiko Tanigawa, "The Cominform and Southeast Asia" in Yonosuke Nagai and Akiralriye, (ed.),The Origins of the Cold War in Asia.
53 Seizaburo Shinobu, Chosen sensb no boppatsu, p.256.
54 Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance; Masao Okonogi, "Minzoku kaiho senso toshite no Chosen senso: Kakumei to senso no kosaku" (The Korean War as a National Liberation War: A Confluence of Revolution and War), Kokusaimondai, 182 (May 1975).
55 Masao Okonogi, "Minzoku kaiho senso."
56 A study analysing the armed struggles in the Republic of Korea with reference to revolutionary strategy in Korea at that time is Kim Chum-kom, The Korean War and the Labor Party's Strategy, in Korean (Seoul, 1973).
57 As evidence of this fact, Khrushchev's testimony will suffice:
"We had already been giving arms to North Korea for some time. It was obvious that they would receive the requisite quantity of tanks, artillery, rifles, machine guns, engineering equipment, and anti-aircraft weapons. Our air force planes were being used to shield Pyongyang and were therefore stationed in North Korea." Strobe Talbott (trans, and ed.), Khrushchev Remembers (New York, 1970), p.369.
58 Ibid., pp.367-368.
59 Ibid., p.372.
60 Simmons, taking note of an intraparty conflict between Kim II Sung on the one hand and Pak Hon-yong for the South SKWP (South Korean Workers' Party) group and other native Communists, believes that Pak, rather than Kim, took the lead in opening the war. See Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance, pp.104-110.
61 George F. Kennan, Memoirs, Volume I, pp.497-498.
62 Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1967 (New York, 1968), pp.518-520.
63 "Long Yun daibiao de fayan" (Remarks of Delegate Long Yun), Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo diyijie quanguo renmin daibiao dahui disici huiyi huikan (Minutes of the Fourth Session of the First National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, Peking, 1957), pp.1402-1403.
64 Renmin ribao. Hong Qi bianji bu (Editorial Department of People's Daily and Red Flag), "Zai zhanzheng yu heping wenti de liangtiao luxian: Wu ping Su Gong zhongyang de gongkai xin" (Two Different Lines on the Question of War and Peace: Comment on the Open Letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU [5]), Renmin ribao, 19 November 1963.
65 "Zhong Gong zhongyang yijiuliusi nian er yue ershijiu ri gei Su Gong zhongyang de xin" (Letter of the Central Committee of the CCP to the Central Committee of the CPSU), Zhongguo Gongchandang zhongyang weiyuanhui (The Central Committee of the CCP), 29 February 1964.
66 Mainichi Shimbun, 26 February 1972, report from Correspondent Ando.
67 foitsu Nippb (Tokyo), 29 April 1976.
68 On Army Day in 1950, the Preparatory Committee of Various Circles in Peking for a Demonstration Rally in Celebration of the First of August Army Day and in Opposition to US Aggression in Korea and Taiwan, announced a set of thirty-five slogans on the general theme of "opposition to US aggression in Taiwan and Korea", of which the
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twenty-eighth was "Long Live Generalissimo Stalin, Leader of All Peoples of the World!" A year later, in 1951, the General Political Department of the People's Revolutionary Military Committee of the Central People's Government announced a set of eighteen Army Day slogans, none of which referred to Stalin or the Soviet Union or the CPSU. In this connection, Robert R. Simmons, comparing the 1950 and 1951 May Day slogans in China and the Soviet Union, notes that in 1951 the Soviet slogans included no mention of the Chinese People's Volunteers while the People's Republic of China did not mention Stalin at all. Indeed, Simmons observes, China's 1950 slogans were verbose about "Sino-Soviet friendship, alliance, and mutual assistance", whereas in 1951 only the twenty-seventh slogan finally said with moderate enthusiasm, "Long Live Unity and Accord of the Two Great Peoples of China and the Soviet Union!" (Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance, pp.195-196.) Simmons, as will be noted later, criticizes Allen S. Whiting as being erroneous in reading Renmin ribao {People's Daily) and arbitrary in quoting Shijie zhishi (World Culture). But Simmons himself is not accurate in making the above statement. Actually, China's 1950 May Day slogans (as announced by the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee) numbered thirty-eight, of which the thirty-first was, "Let's Defend the Democratic Camp for World Peace Led by the Soviet Union! Long Live the Chinese-Soviet Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance!" In the Soviet Union, meanwhile, the May Day slogans announced by the USSR Communist Party Central Committee numbered fifty-five, of which the fourth was, "Long Live the People of China with Their Epoch-making Victory!" and the fifth, "Long Live the Chinese Communist Party!" In 1951, the Chinese slogans (announced by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) increased to fifty-seven, of which the twenty-sixth was, "Long Live the Democratic Camp for World Peace Led by the Soviet Union!" and the twenty-seventh, "Long Live the Unity and Accord of the Great Peoples of China and the Soviet Union!" The Soviet Union, meanwhile, had fifty-nine slogans, of which the fourth said, "Long Live the People of China!" The lack of "Long Live the Chinese Communist Party .'"was conspicuous. It might be added that the Chinese never mentioned Stalin in their May Day slogans, and that the Soviets never mentioned Mao personally in theirs either.
69 See David Horowitz, From Yalta to Vietnam, p. 131.
70 Immediately before that, Chairman Gao Gang of the Dongbei People's Government had visited Moscow in July 1949 on Stalin's invitation, independently of the CCP Central Committee, and signed a "Trade Agreement Between Dongbei and the Soviet Union". For a detailed discussion of questions involving Gao Gang, see Mineo Nakajima, "The Kao Kang [Gao Gang] Affair and Sino-Soviet Relations", Review (Japan Institute of International Affairs), 44 (March 1977).
71 Tami Torii, Motakuto: itsutsu no sensb (Mao Ze-dong's Five Wars), (Tokyo, 1970), p.38. Torii's conjecture about Peking's motives for intervening in Korea is one of the few predecessors of our opinion.
72 Edgar Snow, The Other Side of the River: Red China Today (New York), 1962, pp.654-655.
73 On 27 June 1950, US President Truman, referring to the "neutralization" of the Taiwan Strait, declared: "I had ordered the Seventh Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa. As a corollary of this action, I am calling upon the Chinese Government in Formosa to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland. The Seventh Fleet will see that this is done". "Mission of the United States Seventh Fleet in the Formosa (Taiwan) Area: Statement by the President, June 27, 1950 (Excerpt)", US Department of State, United States Policy in the Korean Crisis (Washington, D.C., 1950), p.18.
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Actually, the Seventh Fleet was not active in the Taiwan Strait until October that year.
74 George Paloczi-Horvath, Mao Tse-tung: Emperor of the Blue Ants (London, 1962), p.279.
75 Mao Ze-dong, "Wei zhengqu guojia caizheng jingji zhuangkuang er douzheng" (Let's Fight for a Basic Improvement in the Nation's Financial and Economic Conditions), Xinhua yuebao, II: 3 (15 July 1950). For a discussion of the demobilization carried out by the People's Liberation Army at that time, see John Gittings, The Role of the Chinese Army (London, 1967), Ch.2.
76 Mao Ze-dong, "Zai renmin zhengxie diyijie quanguo weiyuanhui dierci huiyi shang de bimuci" (Closing Speech at the Second Session of the First National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference), Xinhua yuebao, II: 3 (15 July 1950).
77 Referring to this matter, Seiji Imabori observes: "The Korean War broke out on June 25,1950, two days after the Second Session of the Political Consultative Conference, but in Mao Tse-tung's closing address there was nothing suggestive of a forthcoming war in Korea". Seiji Imabori, Chugoku gendaishi kenkyu josetsu (An Introduction to the Study of Modem Chinese History (Tokyo, 1976), p.162. Also see Stuart Schram, Mao Tse-tung (Harmondsworth, 1966), p.263.
78 Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, pp.21-22.
79 Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance, p.124. Simmons considers that China, which had been very careful since the outbreak of the conflict in Korea not to let it develop into a full-scale war, finally gave up hope of liberating Taiwan after General MacArthur's highly topical visit to Taiwan in late July (ibid., pp.148-149).
80 John Gittings, The Role of the Chinese Army, p.4l.
81 Renmin ribao, shelun (People'sDaily, editorial), "Weishenme women dui Meiguo qinlue Chaoxian buneng zhizhibuli?" (Why Should We Supinely Tolerate US Aggression in Korea?), Renmin ribao, 6 November 1950.
82 Xiang De, "Rao Shu-shi de'zuizhuang': 'Gao-Rao fandang tongmeng' zhenxiang" (Rao Shu-shi's 'Crimes': the Truth about the 'Gao-Rao Antiparty Alliance'), Mingbao yuekan, May 1967. Then a member of democratic parties in China, Xiang De later wrote a recollection criticising Rao Shu-shi's "defeatist pessimism" about the Korean War, in which he said: "When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, many people in and outside the Party were not only uneasy, but also sceptical and negative about the question of whether or not China should eventually participate in the war. Over this issue, opinion was divided even in the Party, and in fact not a few Party members feared that the US might be a real tiger and make a lot of trouble. Chairman Mao persuaded these sceptical, confused people in and outside the Party by offering the famous argument that 'the US had San-tuan I-ch'ang (three disadvantages and one advantage) while China had San-ch'ang I-tuan (three advantages and one disadvantage)'." For a discussion of the presence of such dissident opinion in China over the question of intervention in Korea, also see Tang Tsou, America's Failure in China 1941-50 (Illinois, 1963), p.575.
On this point, Peking's recent official view describes China's internal situation over the issues of intervention at that time as follows: "Chairman Mao. . . .overcame obstacles and oppositions from within and outside the Party and the country and resolutely decided to send the Chinese People's Volunteers to fight shoulder to shoulder with the fraternal Korean people . . ." (Waijiao bu lilun xuexizu, "Xuexi Zhou Zongli.") (My italics).
83 John W. Spanier, The Truman-MacArthur Controversy, p.86.
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84 Stuart Schram, Mao Tse-tung, p.263.
85 John Gittings, "The Great Power Triangle and Chinese Foreign Policy", China Quarterly, 39 (July-September 1969).
86 Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, p.45.
87 "Kim Il-sung's Radio Speech on the Outbreak of the Korean War" (26 June 1950); Kamiya Fuji (ed.), Chosen Mondai Sengo Shiryb (Documents on the Post War Korean Problems), Vol.1, (Tokyo, 1976), p.309.
88 Quoted from Max Beloff, Soviet Foreign Policy, p. 183.
89 In this connection, CP. Fitzgerald, a learned Australian scholar on China, suspected even during the Korean War that Peking had not only been unprepared for the outbreak of the war, but also received the news of the development rather late. He noted, "The disarray of the Chinese Communist press during the first twenty-four hours of the Korean War is an interesting and suggestive fact." And Allen S. Whiting points out, "No Peking newspaper reported the war for forty-eight hours following the North Korean attack". CP. Fitzgerald, Revolution in China (London, 1952), p.220; Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, p.54. Referring to Whiting's observation, Simmons says: "Actually, Renmin ribao devoted about 15 per cent of its front page on 26 June announcing the new hostilities to its readers". Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance, p.149. Simmons is right about the 26 June 1950 issue of Renmin ribao, which carried at the left in the top section of the front page, a New China Agency report from Pyongyang dated 25 June saying that the North Koreans were fighting in defence against a Republic of Korea invasion.
90 "Ge minzhu dangpai lianhe xuanyan" (Joint declaration of the Democratic Parties 5 November 1950), Renmin ribao, 5 November 1950. (My italics).
91 Seiji Imabori, Chugoku gendaishi.
92 Mao Ze-dong, "Zai bajie shizhong quanhui shang de jianghua" (Talk at Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the CCP, 24 September 1962), Mao Ze-dong sixiang wansui (August 1969).
93 Otto Braun, Kitayskie Zapiski (1932-1939) (Moscow, 1974), pp.214-216; and "Otto Braun wa kataru: Motakuto wa ikani seiken o nigitta ke (Otto Braun Speaks: How Mao Ze-dong Seized Power)" Kyokutb no shomondai, III: 2 (June 1974).
94 O.B. Borisov and B.T. Koloskov, Sino-Soviet Relations 1945-1973: A Brief History; English trans, from the Russian by Yuri Shirokov (Moscow, 1975), p.117.
95 Max Beloff, Soviet Foreign Policy, p.82.
96 The Soviet boycott of the UN Security Council at that time has long been argued about. For detailed discussions of this issue, see Chosen jihen no keii; Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance, Ch.4 (The Soviet Union Freezes China Out of the United Nations); Hajime Izumi, "Chosen senso o meguru Chu-so tairitsu: Soren no Kokuren Anpori kesseki no haikei" (The Sino-Soviet Conflict in the Korean War: around the Soviet boycott of the UN Security Council), Gunji kenkyu, x: 3 (March 1975).
According to the newly released US diplomatic papers, contrary to the Soviet Union, the United States had already decided a rather flexible attitude towards the China issue at the UN. See "United States Policy Regarding Problems Arising from the Representation of China in the Organs of the United Nations", US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States 1950, Volume II, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere (Washington, D.C, 1976), pp. 186-302.
97 Max Beloff, Soviet Foreign Policy, pp.255-256.