From: cxiong@silver.ucs.indiana.edu ( )
Subject: Re: questions of the Korean WAr
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 04:35:57 GMT

In article <1992Nov21.174526.1204@netcom.com> kemnitz@netcom.com (Greg Kemnitz) writes:
>A thing that I've always found interesting is that most Mainlanders regard
>the Korean War as a "victory", while it has always been presented in the
>US as a "draw".  It is regarded as a "draw" in the US since the military
>situation which existed before the war is essentially identical to that which
>existed after the war, in terms of territory.
>
>It could even be argued that the war was a "limited victory" for China, since
>the primary Chinese military objective of maintaining a friendly buffer state
>between China and American armies was achieved, while "total victory" would
>have involved complete conquest of the Korean peninsula by either side.  I
>suppose this would be the argument used in China, although I doubt that the
>CCP uses the word "limited" :-)
>
>The primary US objective of maintaining South Korea _was_ achieved.
>
>It seems that the real losers were the dead of both sides and the Koreans
>themselves, who gained nothing in the war and had their country wrecked.
>
This is quite right. Korean are the loser for this conflict without 
doubt. However, how to judge the winner and loser is much more 
complicated than counting the casualties, or checking the original
objects, because using different time frame and different space range
could yield quite different results. I would like to put out one 
opinion which has not been emphasied by SCC netters in many rounds of
the arguments about Korean War. If one put Korean War in the time frame
of modern Chinese History, one can see that this is the only time 
Chinese army win (or draw) outside Chinese terortory in this time frame.
Since 1848, China had not won any war with any power in the world until
1945. But, the difference between Korean War and 8-year Anti-Japanise
war is that this time Chinese army is in the initiate position and the
war is in the other contry, plus, the other side of war is not only
the unique Superpower plus the almost whole UN (Soviet Union was not 
strong enough yet.) In such a situation
Chinese army can achieve a draw in pure military sense, so historically, 
that war is the win, and a big win, for China. 
Not only for CCP, or even not only for mainland, it is a win for 
whole China including Taiwan (I read such opinion from some Taiwan
publication which I can not remember). It is also a milestone of
the long time push of Chinese to get strong militarily in modern
history. From Chinese history point view, Korean war is a big win.

But, China paid very dearly for such a win. The list of cost could
go on very long. I just cite one many netter already pointed out:
the isolation of 30 years. Even Mao himself paid very much. Can
any netter point out something new which has not been touched
on this list? But, no matter how much Chinese paid, Korean war gave
a conclusion of the 100 year history from 1848: China has the ability
to defend himself again after 100 years.

For netters like to discuss military history, how about discuss people's
war vs. traditional war?

cxiong@indiana

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