China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 7/9

February 28, 2011

Morale for UN troops was high. By March 1951, UN forces were within striking distance of the 38th parallel.

Behind the lines, famous Western actors, singers and comedians arrived with USO shows to entertain the troops. Marilyn Monroe and Bob Hope were two examples. In fact, Bob Hope entertained troops in USO shows every year from 1948 to 1990.

Once UN forces reached the 38th parallel, the politicians debated if they should cross the line into North Korea again.

US President Harry Truman (an officer and combat veteran of World War I) wanted a settlement. As he saw it, the first attempt at reunifying Korea had been a mistake and a second attempt would cost more American lives.

However, General MacArthur disagreed. He wanted the war expanded. He wanted to blockade China’s coast and bomb its cities.

Truman fired MacArthur. The president said the cause of world peace was more important than an individual.

General Ridgway replaced MacArthur as supreme commander. General James Van Fleet became the field commander.

Van Fleet had been a colonel at the Normandy Invasion of Europe in World War II, and he hated Communists.

Intelligence reported the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was massing for a spring attack.

Ridgway, having learned the PLA’s tactics, planned to move forward in stages building defensive lines on the way.

On April 22, a second major PLA assault was launched against UN forces. The heaviest attacks were against the weakest section of the UN defensive line.

Ridgway’s strategy of building a series of defensive lines worked. When one line appeared to be in danger of collapse, he ordered troops to fall back to the next fortified line.

Within a week, the PLA ran low of supplies and suffered massive casualties for small gains. Two weeks later, resupplied, the PLA attacked again.  Van Fleet broke combat records for firing artillery shells into the advancing PLA troops killing 35,000 while only losing 900.

Ridgway wired Truman in Washington D.C.saying the time to talk peace had arrived.  The Chinese agreed to meet in July to negotiate an end to the war.

The negotiations were not easy. Both sides treated the other as the loser.

The UN wanted to keep all occupied North Korean territory. The Chinese wanted to return the border to the 38th parallel and have all Chinese prisoners of war returned. Most UN troops taken prisoner had been killed. Of about 100,000 only 13,000 survived.

Return to China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 6

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Dictatorship or One-Party Republic

February 27, 2011

There is so much misleading information on the Internet and from the Western media regarding China that it boggles the mind. For example, China’s President is listed as a dictator but by definition, he cannot be a dictator.

Dictatorship: 1) government by a ruler who has complete power 2) a country that is ruled by one person who has complete power (source: Longman Advanced American Dictionary)

Chinese Constitution: Article 1

Article 1. The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The socialist system is the basic system of the People’s Republic of China. Sabotage of the socialist system by any organization or individual is prohibited. Source: Chinese Constitution

I asked my wife, “How can China use the term dictatorship in Article 1 if China isn’t ruled by a dictator?”

She replied, “In Chinese, ‘people’s democratic dictatorship‘ means the people have the power. It’s a translation error.”

I then Googled dictatorship and discovered Parade’s Annual list of…the World’s 10 Worst Dictators.

Parade’s definition of a dictator says, “A ‘dictator‘ is a head of state who exercises arbitrary authority over the lives of his citizens and who cannot be removed from power through legal means.”

Hu Jintao, China’s president, was number six on Parade’s list.

Since the Chinese Constitution rules China, Hu Jintao does not exercise arbitrary authority over the lives of his citizens. In fact, I doubt if he makes any legal decisions since the Chinese Constitution puts that power in the hands of China’s legal system. Discover more at China Law and Justice System

Parade is also wrong that China’s president cannot be removed from power through legal means.

Article 79 says, “The term of office of the President and Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China is the same as that of the National People’s Congress, and they shall serve no more than two consecutive terms.”

Article 59. The National People’s Congress is composed of deputies elected by the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and by the armed forces.

Article 63. The National People’s Congress has the power to recall or remove from office the following persons:

(1) The President and the Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China;

(2) The Premier, Vice-Premiers, State Councillors, Ministers in charge of Ministries or Commissions and the Auditor-General and the Secretary-General of the State Council;

(3) The Chairman of the Central Military Commission and others on the commission;

(4) The President of the Supreme People’s Court; and

(5) The Procurator-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.

If China is anything, it is an autocratic, one-party republic that makes decisions by consensus within the Communist Party of more than 80 million members.

How’s that different from the US of 1776 when there were no political parties when George Washington was president and about 10% of the population was allowed to vote—white men that owned property?

Discover No Political Machine

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 6/9

February 27, 2011

There are two sides to every story and as I said in Part 5, there are two reasons for the Korean War.

After more than a century of rebellions, wars, and civil war, China was tired of being bullied by Western Imperial powers and Japan. It wasn’t about to make the same mistakes the Qing Dynasty and the Nationalists had made.

After all, the Japanese had invaded Manchuria through Korea. Why not the US?

Since UN forces were driven back from the Chinese border, we will never know if China’s fears were justified. Would the South Korean army (ROK) have invaded Manchuria taking the UN forces with them?

After all, it was the ROK army that earlier led the charge into North Korea while the UN held back waiting for the politicians thousands of miles away to decide what to do.

After losing South Korea’s capital of Seoul to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the UN’s troops found themselves 35 miles south of the city well below the Han River.

This segment introduces the first use of Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH), which helped keep wounded UN and US troops alive.

MASH units were first used in Korea. They were life saving systems that operated close to the front lines and could quickly relocate.

Each unit was equipped with a helicopter fleet for air rescue, paramedics and cutting-edge medical technology.

The MASH units saved 25% more wounded than in World War II.

By January 1951, the PLA’s supply lines were overextended, which may explain the mystery behind why the Chinese forces started to moved north instead of south about this time.

Since the Chinese were retreating, General Ridgway decided to launch a full-scale offensive called Operation Thunderbolt.

By February, UN troops were overlooking Seoul from across the Han River.

With February came bad weather that turned the earth to mud making it difficult to move and limiting the PLA’s ability to receive much needed supplies to feed and arm their troops. The Chinese were starving.

However, the UN had the US Air force’s huge air transport fleet to deliver food. The winds of war had shifted again and this time it was the PLA that was suffering.

Return to China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 5

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 4/9

February 25, 2011

US commanders heard rumors that Communist China was moving troops close to the Chinese side of the Yalu River with North Korea.

China’s leaders did not like the US army so close to China. They feared that the US might cross into Manchuria as the Japanese had before launching World War II.

Another factor to consider was that the US supported Communist China’s enemy, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Army (KMT) on Taiwan.

The Communists had fought a Civil War with the Nationalists from 1925 to 1949 before winning and America had provided the modern weapons the KMT had used.

American intelligence reports estimated that about 450 thousand Chinese troops might be in the hills north of the Yalu River.

As the UN army moved north, South Korea recovered from the destruction caused by the North Korean invasion.

After centuries of domination by the Mongols, Manchu, Chinese, Russians and Japanese, the South Koreans wanted to govern themselves.

However, China had ruled over Korea off and on for more than a thousand years, and the Chinese culture had a heavy influence on the Koreans. South Korea, on the other hand, did not want a Communist government.

Meanwhile, without much opposition, UN forces continued to advance toward Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

On October 24, 1950, General McArthur ordered his troops to march to the Yalu River and occupy all Korea. This caused the Chinese to attack on October 25.

Surprised, the UN troops took heavy casualties then quickly retreated south, but many died.

General Walker ordered the UN army to fall back to the Chongchon River. Once the UN forces pulled back, the Chinese stopped fighting and returned to the hills to see what the UN’s next move would be.

After several weeks of calm, General McArthur ordered another advance toward the Yalu River and fired on the Chinese positions, which caused the Chinese to attack again on November 25.

Then the Chinese found a gap between the UN forces and split the UN defensive line sending the UN army in full retreat just at the North Korean winter arrived.

As the UN army retreated south, the US 10th Corps dug in around the Chosin Reservoir, which was high in North Korea’s mountains. The brutal winter temperature there was as low as forty below zero.

Return to China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 3/9

February 24, 2011

In part two, we left General McArthur planning a risky invasion of the South Korean coastal city of Inchon.

First, most of the troops had never been involved in an amphibious landing.

Second, Inchon’s harbor was too shallow at low tide for large ships to maneuver.

To deal with these challenges, General MacArthur decided to invade in two phases synchronized with the high tides.

The first phase would occupy the island of Wolmi-do, which was opposite Inchon. The second phase would land north and south of Inchon on the next high tide.

On the morning of September 15, the US 10th Corps quickly took Wolmi-do island. The island had been bombed and shelled for several days and the North Korean troops had not been ready for such a beating.

As soon as US troops landed, the surviving North Koreans surrendered.

By the time Inchon was taken soon after the second landing, only 20 US troops had been killed.

The next move was to take Seoul, which was 25 miles from Inchon.

The North Korean troops at Pusan, a hundred thirty miles to the south, continued to fight for a week without knowing the Inchon invasion had been successful. They did not know they were in danger of being cut off and surrounded.

When word arrived, the North Korean army retreated north immediately.

As the US Marines advanced on South Korea’s capital of Seoul, they met heavy resistance in the hills surrounding the city. The North Korean troops were dug in and to remove them caused heavy US casualties.

By September 24, UN troops held the high ground above Seoul. The next day, the North Korean troops left the city and retreated north.

After occupying Seoul and having a victory parade, UN and US troops moved north toward the 38th Parallel as the North Korean army continued to retreat further into North Korea.

South Korean troops reached the 38th parallel first but kept going.

However, US troops stopped and waited while Washington D.C. debated what the next move would be—to stop at the 38th parallel or invade the north.

Return to China in 1950 Korea Protecting the Teeth – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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