ABSTRACT
The first contacts represented a probing effort. Should Chinese soldiers face United Nations (UN) personnel in the field, especially American troops, they would need every advantage to offset the superior firepower of the enemy. Surprise was essential, as was the cover offered by rough terrain. The central mountains of North Korea allowed for both conditions. Chinese forces could mass in the area and still avoid detection, then strike the unsuspecting and overconfident enemy. Even better, perhaps a show of Chinese resolve amounting to no more than a skirmish would be enough to stall the UN advance and to avoid war with the United States and its allies. Should this not be the case, and a war erupted instead, Chinese generals could confirm the belief in their soldiers’ ability to confront and stop these western invaders. The first attacks in October 1950 did just that: Chinese soldiers fought well and could clearly stand up to the enemy. There was still a chance that war could be avoided. UN forces appeared timid, road-bound, and lacking the stomach for combat and they quickly came to a standstill. Perhaps they would go no further. But the UN advance resumed in late November and as UN forces moved closer to the SinoKorean border, the Chinese high command gave the order for a full-scale offensive. This preemptive strike brought Communist China into the
The Korean War erupted in mid-1950 and it dominated the early stages of the Cold War. It was an unlikely place for a pivotal battleground, far away from Europe, which was the focus of this ideological struggle between the United States and the USSR. But the Korean situation demanded attention in its own right, a hold-over from World War II that left Korea divided in half at the 38th parallel. Since 1945, a Communist North Korea had faced an anti-Communist South Korea in an uneasy standoff along this political demarcation line. Both sides wished for reunification, and North Korea attacked its neighbor in June 1950 to achieve this end. The offensive was spectacularly successful. But the United States quickly intervened, believing this to be an offensive directed by the Soviet Union. American military forces first prevented a North Korean victory by holding onto the key port of Pusan in the south. The United States then led a counter-attack that expelled the North Koreans from the southern half of the peninsula and threatened the Communist regime in the north with attack. When US troops, under the banner of the United Nations, crossed the 38th parallel and attacked North Korea in October 1950, the armies of Communist China, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), crossed the Yalu River, the border between China and Korea, and soon engaged the American army and its UN allies. The Korean War now assumed a different form, a local battleground serving as a main front of the Cold War. For almost three more years the PRC and the United States waged war on the peninsula, killing several million people before agreeing to an uneasy ceasefire in 1953. The Cold War carried on, with Korea smoldering in the background.
