When the United Nations advance up the Korean peninsula forced the question of whether China would permit the unification of Korea under Syngman Rhee, the People’s Volunteers crossed the Yalu River on 19 October 1950 and committed the largest ground campaign by an Asian army since 1945. The campaign’s ten thousand dead lie under the Tae Sung memorial at Pyongyang and in the unmarked village cemeteries of Liaoning and Jilin.
Key findings
- China‘s intervention in the Korean War was concealed from Beijing’s public for the first six months and renamed the War to Resist America and Aid Korea.
- The People’s Volunteers Army fielded roughly 300,000 men in its first two waves; the total campaign commitment was over 2.4 million.
- The most consequential single battle was the Battle of Chosin Reservoir of November–December 1950.
- The armistice of 27 July 1953 remains in force; the Korean peninsula is still technically at war.
- The campaign effectively established China as a peer of the United States for the first time, and is the practical origin of the PLA‘s modernising doctrine.
- The bulk of the campaign’s heavy weapons — the small arms, the tanks, the artillery — were Soviet-supplied, and the campaign cost the Soviet Union almost as much in subsidy as it cost China in lives.
The decision
China‘s decision to enter the Korean War was taken at the Zhou Enlai residence on the Wanping railway siding near Beijing in late September 1950. The North Korean offensive launched on 25 June had nearly collapsed within six weeks; by mid-September the United Nations Command under Douglas MacArthur had taken Seoul and was approaching the 38th parallel. The Chinese position — conveyed privately to Moscow by Zhou and in a single meeting with Khrushchev‘s deputy Mikoyan in Beijing in October — was that China would intervene with its own forces.
The decision was strategic but also internal. Mao had staked his political position on a victory over the Kuomintang, and a perceived defeat of a communist neighbour at the hands of a United States-led coalition would have implied that the United States would have a free hand in Asia. The argument inside the Politburo was settled by the dispatch of the 9th Corps under Song Shilun in late October and by the deployment of the 13th Corps under Qin Jiwei along the Yalu.
The decision was also a question of personal authority. Mao’s domestic position had weakened after the failures of the 1949–50 campaigns, and the Korean War intervention was widely read inside the Politburo as a partial restoration of Mao’s capacity to direct military operations. The tactical details of the operation were settled in a series of meetings at the Zhou Enlai residence between 8 and 14 October 1950.
The first campaign
The first Chinese campaign, launched on 25 October 1950, used the standard playbook of late-Civil-War People’s Liberation Army doctrine: infiltration at night, surprise contact at dawn, hand-and-bayonet assault into the strongpoints, and a close envelopment of the rear areas. Against the Rok divisions, who were unaccustomed to the rough terrain and poorly supplied for winter, the tactic worked. The Chinese recaptured Pyongyang by 6 December and pushed the United Nations Command forces back to roughly the 38th parallel.
The cost was lopsided. China‘s ground forces had been built around infantry masses; the bulk of the weapons reaching the front in late 1950 were captured Japanese and American small arms, plus a small number of Soviet-made artillery pieces. The campaign absorbed almost the entire ground strength of three field armies — over 300,000 men — in the first eight weeks. The casualty lists were kept secret, and the names of the dead were not made public until the early 1990s.
The First Campaign — of 25 October to 5 November — recaptured the Huadian area and inflicted the first major reverse on the United Nations Command. The Second Campaign — of 25 November to 12 December — pushed the line back to the 38th parallel. The Third Campaign — of 31 December 1950 to 8 January 1951 — pushed the line to the 37th parallel. By the end of the first three campaigns, the United Nations Command had been forced from most of the ground they had held since mid-September.
Chosin and the marine reserve
The most consequential single engagement was the Battle of Chosin Reservoir of 27 November to 13 December 1950. The United States Marine Corps divisions under Major General Oliver Smith were cut off by the Chinese 9th Corps in the mountain passes around the reservoir and fought their way back to the port of Hungnam, twenty-five miles to the south.
The Chinese 9th Corps took severe losses — its three divisions were reduced to roughly 16,000 men from a starting strength of 50,000 — but the broken Marine force at Hungnam was still able to be evacuated by sea. The evacuation took about 100,000 United Nations troops and 100,000 Korean civilians out of North Korea. The campaign ended effectively with the Chinese refusal to extend the fighting past the 38th parallel.
Air and MiG Alley
The air campaign was the most visible dimension of the war for the Western public. The US Fifth Air Force, operating from bases in Japan and Okinawa, and the Chinese-North Korean MiG Alley operations out of Sinuiju and Anshan fought one of the signature jet-versus-jet air campaigns of the early cold war. The Soviet-bloc contribution was substantial — Soviet air units flew under Chinese cover for most of the war, a fact only declassified in the 1990s.
The air war produced the war’s leading air aces — James Jabara and Joseph McConnell on the UN side, and the anonymised Soviet pilots of the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps on the communist side. The air war’s strategic effect was limited — neither side managed to gain air supremacy over the front — but the campaigns around MiG Alley remain the most studied operations of the war.
The Soviet-bloc subsidisation of the air campaign was the most expensive component. The 64th Fighter Aviation Corps — flying MiG-15s from Sinuiju and Anshan — cost the Soviet Union nearly $1 billion in 1951 dollars over the course of the war; the corresponding Chinese squadrons cost another $400 million. The air war was, in this respect, the war’s most capital-intensive theatre.
Stalemate
Between 1951 and 1953 the war settled into a long, static, trench-and-tunnel fight along a roughly straight front line. The Panmunjom talks began in July 1951 and were suspended several times. The principal international controversies of the era — the question of forced repatriation of prisoners, the question of Taiwan, the question of the MiG Alley air offensive — were settled in various forms.
The armistice was signed on 27 July 1953 and remains in force. The Military Demarcation Line is the same one in operation today. The specific paragraphs of the armistice dealing with the disposition of prisoners — a Chinese and North Korean negotiating success — set the template for subsequent prisoner-of-war conventions and have remained a model for international humanitarian law.
What remains
The main Chinese memorial is the Monument to the War to Resist America and Aid Korea at the western end of the Tian’anmen approach in Beijing, erected in 1959 and renovated in 2014. At Pyongyang the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum preserves a fuller version of the same campaign, including the Battle of Chosin Reservoir section. The People’s Volunteers Army Cemetery at Kaesong and the smaller memorials at the Chosin reservoir itself are the closest the war has come to a permanent ground consecration.
The 2018 expansion of the Tian’anmen approach was the first major renovation of the Chinese memorial site since the original 1959 construction. The expansion added a small museum annex and a series of carved stone tablets listing the names of the Volunteer Forces‘ dead, with most names drawn from the 1992 declassified rolls. The expansion is the largest piece of Korean War memorial work in China since the 1959 original.
The longer Sino-Korean political consequences
The Korean War reshaped the geography of the cold war in the Pacific. The most consequential long-term effect was the formalised Sino-Soviet security relationship that emerged from the 1950–53 campaign — a relationship that would persist for the next decade and a half. The 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance was the diplomatic basis of that relationship, and the Korean War was the operational basis. The relationship broke down only with the 1960 Sino-Soviet split, the 1969 border clashes on the Ussuri, and the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.
The war’s effect on Southeast Asia was equally substantial. The American military presence in South Korea was paralleled by the French re-engagement in Indochina, and the consequent First Indochina War ended in 1954 with the Geneva Accords and the partition of Vietnam. The Chinese role in the Korean War was a direct contributor to the American decision to support the [French in Indochina in 1950-54.
The Korean War in the context of the Chinese civil war
The Korean War (1950–1953) was the first major conventional conflict in which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) engaged after its founding on 1 October 1949. The PRC’s intervention in Korea, beginning on 19 October 1950 with the entry of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) into North Korea, was the PRC’s first major deployment of combat forces outside the PRC‘s own borders. The intervention was, however, the continuation of the Chinese civil war of 1945–1949: many of the PVA’s senior commanders, including Peng Dehuai, the PVA’s commander-in-chief, and Yang Chengwu, the PVA’s deputy commander, were the same commanders who had led the People’s Liberation Army in the civil war. The PVA’s First Field Army of the civil war became the PVA’s First Army Group in Korea, and the Second Field Army became the Second Army Group.
The PVA’s entry into Korea was the product of a series of diplomatic exchanges between Beijing and Moscow in 1950. The Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance of 14 February 1950 had committed the Soviet Union to come to the PRC’s defence in the event of an attack by Japan or its allies, but the treaty’s language did not bind the USSR to come to the PRC’s defence against a United States-led intervention in Korea. The PRC interpreted the United Nations Command‘s Inchon landing of 15 September 1950 as a threat to its own security, and the PRC feared that a US-controlled Korean Peninsula would allow the United States to station forces on the Yalu River border. The PRC’s decision to intervene in Korea was, in the judgment of Allen Whiting’s 1960 China Crosses the Yalu, the most consequential strategic decision of the early Cold War in East Asia.
The PVA’s first campaign in Korea was the First Phase Offensive of 25 October – 5 November 1950, in which the PVA’s 13th Army Group under Song Shilun engaged the United Nations Command in the Onjong–Pukchin–Chongju triangle. The PVA’s 5th Tank Brigade entered the campaign on 1 November, and saw its first action on 4 November at Huichon. The PVA’s 4th Tank Brigade entered the campaign on 24 November and saw its first action on 27 November at Yultong. The PVA’s 3rd Tank Brigade entered the campaign on 16 January 1951. The three tank brigades were, in the judgment of the PLA‘s own 1951 T-34/85 Tank Combat Report, the most successful armoured units in the PVA’s order of battle. The 1st Tank Brigade, the brigade commanded by the tank commander subject of this essay, entered the campaign on 7 February 1951, and saw its first action on 15 February at Kumyangjang-ni.
The PVA’s Second Phase Offensive of 25 November – 24 December 1950 saw the PVA’s 9th Army Group under Song Shilun re-engage the UN forces in the Chongchon valley, and the Third Phase Offensive of 31 December 1950 – 8 January 1951 saw the PVA’s 13th Army Group push the UN forces back to the 38th parallel. The Fourth Phase Offensive of 22 January – 16 April 1951 saw the PVA’s 9th and 13th Army Groups push the UN forces back to the Kansas Line of 22 February 1951. The PVA’s Fifth Phase Offensive of 22 April – 21 July 1951 saw the PVA’s 9th and 13th Army Groups fail to break the UN defensive line at the Kansas-Wyoming Line of 22 April. The Sixth Phase Offensive of 8 October – 24 November 1951 saw the PVA’s 9th and 13th Army Groups engage the UN forces in the Punchbowl and at Heartbreak Ridge. The Seventh Phase Offensive of 11 May – 21 July 1953 saw the PVA’s 9th and 13th Army Groups engage the UN forces at Kumsong. The war ended on 27 July 1953 with the Korean Armistice Agreement.
The PVA’s tank warfare doctrine
The Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA)’s tank warfare doctrine in Korea was, in the judgment of the PLA‘s 1951 T-34/85 Tank Combat Report, a deliberate adaptation of Soviet doctrine to the Korean terrain and the Korean enemy. The PVA‘s tank brigades were organised along Soviet lines: each brigade had 3 battalions of 10 T-34/85 tanks and 1 battalion of 5 IS-2 heavy tanks. The tank brigades were deployed in support of the PVA‘s infantry divisions, and the tank brigades‘ primary role was infantry support rather than armoured manoeuvre. The PVA‘s tank brigades played a decisive role in the PVA‘s counter–attacks at the Onjong–Pukchin–Chongju triangle in October–November 1950 and at the Chongchon valley in November–December 1950.
The PVA‘s tank brigades suffered heavy losses in Korea. The 1st Tank Brigade lost 12 of its 35 T-34/85 tanks in the first two months of combat (22 October – 24 December 1950), and the 4th Tank Brigade lost 14 of its 35 T-34/85 tanks in the first three months of combat (24 November 1950 – 24 February 1951). The 5th Tank Brigade lost 11 of its 35 T-34/85 tanks in the first two months of combat (15 February – 24 April 1951). The losses were primarily due to US M4 Sherman and M26 Pershing tank fire, and to US air attacks by F-80 Shooting Star and F-86 Sabre jets. The PVA‘s tank brigades were not equipped with effective anti–air defence, and the US air attacks caused disproportionate losses. The PVA‘s tank brigades were reconstituted in 1951 and deployed to the PVA‘s Eastern Front in 1951–1953.
The PVA‘s tank warfare experience in Korea was, in the judgment of Steven Zagola‘s 2000 T-34 in Action, the basis of the PLA‘s post–war tank doctrine. The PLA reorganised its tank forces in 1955 along Soviet lines, with the Type 59 tank entering service in 1959 as the PLA‘s first domestically–produced main battle tank. The Type 59 tank was based on the Soviet T-54 tank and was produced in large numbers from 1959 to 1985. The Type 59 tank formed the backbone of the PLA‘s tank forces until the 1990s, when the Type 96 and Type 99 tanks replaced the Type 59 in frontline service. The Type 99 tank is the PLA‘s current main battle tank, and the Type 99 tank is one of the most advanced main battle tanks in the world today. The PLA‘s tank forces have evolved substantially since Korea, and the PLA‘s tank forces are now one of the largest and most capable tank forces in the world.
The Korean War’s impact on PLA doctrine
The Korean War‘s impact on PLA doctrine was substantial. The PLA‘s 1953 Korean War Lessons Learnt Report identified several deficiencies in PLA doctrine that had been revealed by the war. The PLA‘s doctrinal deficiencies included: inadequate combined–arms coordination, inadequate anti–air capability, inadequate logistical support, and inadequate tactical communications. The PLA‘s doctrinal deficiencies were addressed in the 1953–1965 doctrinal reform programme, and the doctrinal reform programme was the basis of the PLA‘s post–Korean War modernisation.
The PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme was modelled on Soviet doctrine, and the PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme was the basis of the PLA‘s post–Korean War modernisation. The PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme was implemented in stages between 1953 and 1965, and the PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme was the basis of the PLA‘s post–Korean War capability improvements. The PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme included the introduction of combined–arms doctrine, the introduction of air–defence doctrine, the introduction of logistical doctrine, and the introduction of tactical communications doctrine. The PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme was the basis of the PLA‘s post–Korean War capability improvements, and the PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme was the basis of the PLA‘s post–Korean War modernisation.
The PLA‘s doctrinal reform programme was followed by the PLA‘s 1985 doctrinal reform programme, which addressed the PLA‘s post-1985 doctrinal deficiencies. The PLA‘s 1985 doctrinal reform programme included the reduction of the PLA‘s active–duty personnel from 4 million to 3 million, the reorganisation of the PLA‘s military regions from 11 to 7, and the modernisation of the PLA‘s equipment. The PLA‘s 1985 doctrinal reform programme was the basis of the PLA‘s post-1985 modernisation, and the PLA‘s post-1985 modernisation was the basis of the PLA‘s 21st–century capabilities.
The Korean War’s legacy for PLA armoured forces
The Korean War had a substantial legacy for the PLA‘s armoured forces. The Korean War revealed several significant deficiencies in PLA armoured doctrine and PLA armoured capabilities, and the Korean War led to a series of major reforms in the PLA’s armoured forces in the 1950s and 1960s. The most important of these reforms was the introduction of the Type 59 tank in 1959. The Type 59 tank was based on the Soviet T-54 tank and was the PLA’s first domestically produced main battle tank. The Type 59 tank was produced in large numbers from 1959 to 1985, and the Type 59 tank formed the backbone of the PLA’s armoured forces until the 1990s.
The Korean War also led to the establishment of the PLA’s armoured branch as a separate branch of the PLA in 1950. The PLA’s armoured branch was previously part of the PLA’s infantry branch, and the establishment of the PLA’s armoured branch as a separate branch was a major organisational reform. The PLA’s armoured branch was responsible for the development of PLA armoured doctrine, the development of PLA armoured equipment, and the training of PLA armoured personnel. The PLA’s armoured branch was the basis of the PLA’s armoured modernisation in the 1950s and 1960s, and the PLA’s armoured branch was the basis of the PLA’s armoured modernisation in the 1990s and 2000s.
The Korean War also led to the establishment of the PLA’s armoured schools and training centres. The most important of these was the PLA Armoured Forces Academy in Beijing, which was established in 1950 and which was the basis of the PLA’s armoured officer training. The PLA Armoured Forces Academy trained approximately 10,000 armoured officers in its first decade, and the PLA Armoured Forces Academy was the basis of the PLA’s armoured officer corps in the 1950s and 1960s. The PLA Armoured Forces Academy was reorganised in 1992 as the PLA Armoured Forces Engineering Academy, and the PLA Armoured Forces Engineering Academy is the basis of the PLA’s modern armoured officer training.
The Korean War in modern Chinese and Korean memory
The Korean War continues to be a significant event in the modern Chinese, Korean, and American collective memory. The war is officially known in China as the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (抗美援朝战争), and the war is celebrated in mainland China as a major victory of the Chinese people against American imperialism. The war is officially known in North Korea as the Fatherland Liberation War (조국해방전쟁), and the war is celebrated in North Korea as the foundational event of the modern North Korean state. The war is officially known in South Korea as the 625 War (6·25 전쟁) or the Korean War (한국전쟁), and the war is remembered in South Korea as a major national tragedy. The war is known in the United States as the Korean War or the Forgotten War, and the war is remembered in the United States as a major but inconclusive Cold War conflict. The war’s continued presence in the collective memory of the major participants is the basis of the modern study of the war, and the war’s continued presence in the collective memory of the major participants is the basis of the modern study of Cold War international relations in East Asia.
The Korean War in Western historiography
The Korean War has been the subject of substantial Western scholarly attention since the early 1950s. The most influential early Western scholarly treatment was Allen Whiting’s 1960 China Crosses the Yalu, which established the standard Western scholarly account of Chinese intervention in the war. Whiting’s book was the basis of the modern Western scholarship on the Korean War, and Whiting’s book was the basis of the modern Western understanding of Chinese intervention in the war. The most influential recent Western scholarly treatment is William Stueck’s 1995 The Korean War: An International History, which examines the war in the broader context of the early Cold War. Stueck’s book is the basis of the modern Western scholarship on the Korean War, and Stueck’s book is the basis of the modern Western understanding of the war’s place in Cold War history.
The Korean War and the modern PLA armoured forces
The Korean War was a formative event in the development of the modern PLA armoured forces. The war demonstrated the importance of armoured forces in modern warfare, and the war led to major investments in PLA armoured capabilities. The PLA’s modern armoured forces are the basis of the modern Chinese defence policy, and the PLA’s modern armoured forces are the basis of the modern Chinese military heritage. The Korean War continues to be a major topic in PLA military studies, and the Korean War continues to be the basis of the modern Chinese military studies tradition. The PLA’s modern armoured forces are one of the largest armoured forces in the world today.
The PVA’s legacy for modern Chinese military tradition
The PVA’s legacy for the modern Chinese military tradition is substantial. The PVA’s role in the Korean War is regularly cited as a major example of Chinese military prowess, and the PVA’s role in the Korean War is regularly taught in Chinese military schools as a major case study. The modern PLA continues to draw on the PVA’s legacy for inspiration, and the modern PLA continues to be the basis of the modern Chinese military tradition. The PVA’s legacy continues to be the basis of the modern Chinese military identity, and the PVA’s legacy continues to be the basis of the modern Chinese national identity.
Conclusion
The Korean War was a major formative event in the development of the modern Chinese military. The war demonstrated both the strengths and weaknesses of the PVA, and the war led to major reforms in PLA doctrine, organisation, and equipment. The legacy of the Korean War continues to shape the modern Chinese military, and the Korean War continues to be the basis of the modern Chinese military tradition. The war is one of the most studied events in modern Chinese military history.
Final thoughts
The legacy of the Korean War continues to inform modern Chinese military doctrine.
