Chinese Communist Forces Research Articles

6·25전쟁발발 전후 장제스의 ‘반공대륙(反攻大陸)’ 구상

This paper reviews Chiang Kai-shek"s plan and will to regain the mainland before and after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. Chiang Kai-shek, who moved to Taiwan after the defeat of the civil war, conceived a plan, that is called “Return to Mainland” in order to stabilize the regime. After losing Mainland, he needs to retaliate to consolidate internal unity.<BR> To Carry out a Plan “Return to Mainland”, Chiang Kai-shek must first solve the problems of US military support and participation. Chiang Kai-shek expected South Korea to play an important role here.<BR> At that time, the United States insisted on retreating from Asian issues as much as possible. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek believed that the United States would intervene only if there were disputes in Asia. In Chiang Kai-shek’s view, the region with the greatest possibility of conflict in Asia was the Korean Peninsula. In addition, Shao Yu-lin made a suggestion that Korea is the most appropriate place to collect information and supplies for the “Return to Mainland”. Chiang Kai-shek hopes that will increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula, that he will be able to participate actively in the issue and will expand the anti-Communist front from the Korean Peninsula to mainland China.<BR> Although the crisis on the Korean Peninsula that the Nationalist government expected broke out, that is, the Korean War, but Chiang Kai-shek was unable to participate in the crisis on the Korean Peninsula and to link it to the plan “Return to Mainland”. Chiang Kai-shek conveyed to South Korea and the U.S. the intention to dispatch troops, but the U.S. refused to accept Chiang Kai-shek"s offer, fearing the intervention of the Chinese Communists. Chiang Kai-shek believed that in order to achieve a plan to counter-attack on the Mainland, co-operation among the anti-Communist camp must be established. Chiang Kai-shek applied this idea to the American anti-Communist, MacArthur.<BR> At the end of July 1950, MacArthur visited Taiwan, showed a very friendly attitude towards Chiang Kai-shek, and promised the National Government to provide assistance. But the United States had no intention of supporting Chiang Kai-shek"s “Return to Mainland” plan. Although MacArthur provided Chiang Kai-shek with promised aid, it was not enough to attack the mainland.<BR> In the late 1950s, what changed the situation on the Korean Peninsula was the dispatch of troops by the CCP. The U.S. is opposed to the dispatch of troops by KMT troops in fear of the intervention of the Chinese Communist forces, but in the end the Chinese Communist forces intervened in the Korean War.<BR> After the Chinese military intervened in the Korean War, Chiang Kai-shek also mentioned “Return to Mainland”, but his rhetoric changed. The reason was that the U.S. supported Army Commander-in-Chief Sun Li-jen rather than itself.<BR> In early 1950, Chiang Kai-shek proposed a plan “Return to Mainland” in order to stabilize his regime. But after the Chinese Communists entered the war, if they send KMT troops to South Korea or send to the mainland, the United States had to worry about the “defense of Taiwan”. And the United States believed that even if a second front was opened, its commander would not need to be Chiang Kai-shek.<BR> Finally, as President Truman opposed the intervention of the military, domestic discussions about the use of the military were suspended. Chiang Kai-shek also did not advocate active participation in the Korean War, so neither the Korean War nor Chiang Kai-shek"s “Return to Mainland” further link up.

I Cannot Forget: Imprisoned in Korea, Accused at Home

<i>I Cannot Forget: Imprisoned in Korea, Accused at Home</i>

Learning Through Practice

Abstract American scholars of Chinese history have generally explained the outcome of China’s civil war (1945-1949) by reference to social, economic, and political factors rather than by looking at the conduct of the war itself. Recently, military historians have begun to shift the focus to Communist strategy and operations. However, the question of how the Chinese Communist forces made the transition from guerrilla to conventional warfare has still not received sufficient attention. Using Mao Zedong’s theories of guerrilla warfare and Peter Senge’s model of the “learning organization” to analyze Lin Biao’s conduct of the war against the Nationalists in China’s Northeast (Manchuria), we can better understand how the Northeast People’s Liberation Army transformed itself from a force characterized by “guerrilla-ism” to the powerful army capable of defeating Jiang Jieshi’s best troops. The Communists performed poorly when they first encountered American-trained Nationalist units in the Northeast. Lin Biao and his staff responded to defeat by devising principles of tactics which they applied in a series of campaigns beginning with the “Three Expeditions/Four Defenses” (winter 1946-47). The Communist forces continued to derive lessons from their experience and to incorporate those lessons into programs of education and training. As a result, they made great strides forward in terms of the coordination of infantry, artillery, and armor in order to be able to pull off a conventional combined arms operation on the scale of the Liao-Shen Campaign. The Communist forces would bring these strengths with them when they entered the Korean War in 1950.

Big Army Groups, Standardization, and Assaulting Fortified Positions: Chinese “Ways of War” and the Transition from Guerrilla to Conventional War in China’s Northeast, 1945-1948

Abstract Western military historians often describe the Chinese “way of war” as emphasizing a gradualist military strategy, tending to avoid battle except when victory was assured, and preferring to use subterfuge, maneuver, or psychological means to defeat the enemy without actually fighting. The roots of this understanding of the Chinese way of war lie in selective readings of Sunzi’s Art of War and Mao Zedong’s writings on guerrilla warfare. The record of Chinese Communist operations in China’s Northeast (Manchuria) from 1945 through 1948 instead suggests a Chinese approach to war that is characterized not only by close attention to strategy and maneuver, but also by a preference for offensive operations leading to the ultimate destruction of the enemy in battles of annihilation. In the Northeast theater of China’s civil war we also see that the Communist forces had to go through a process of transformation before they were able to carry out large-scale maneuvers, deploy overwhelming firepower, and conduct large-scale operations or campaigns of annihilation. In order to gain victory, the Chinese Communist forces in the Northeast under Lin Biao’s command had to make the transition from guerrilla to conventional warfare, including the ability to attack cities. This transformation was achieved through a combination of factors: critical assessment of battlefield performance, incorporation of new weapons and equipment, and techniques of staff work. This suggests that any workable understanding of Chinese ways of war must go beyond cultural determinism to take account of the Chinese military’s flexibility and capacity for learning.

The Chinese Communist Forces(CCF) and North Korean People's Army(NKPA) Combined Forces Command and Its Impact on the Reorganization of NKPA

The Chinese Communist Forces(CCF) and North Korean People's Army(NKPA) Combined Forces Command and Its Impact on the Reorganization of NKPA

A Battlefield Historic Analysis on the Chinese CommunistForces's May Offensive in the Korean War

A Battlefield Historic Analysis on the Chinese CommunistForces's May Offensive in the Korean War

Review: The Long March

THE LONG MARCH The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth Sun Shuyun New York: Doubleday, 2006. 270pp, $34.00 cloth (ISBN 9781400134526)Getting facts straight on long march of Chinese communist forces retreating from southeast China (Jiangxi) ultimately to northwest China (Shaanxi) in 1934-35 is no easy matter. It is, as Sun Shuyun confirms in this readable account, national myth of People's Republic of China. Since march was made known to Westerners by Edgar Snow in his Red Star Over China (1937 in London; 1938 in New York), it has been presented as myth of sacrifice and redemption that vindicated Chinese Communist party and its then-emerging leader, Mao Zedong, as rightful rulers of China. These themes were amplified by party propaganda system and taught - in fashion of similar national myths in other countries - to generations of Chinese ever since, including to Sun, who learned this during last decade of Mao's rule (she was born in 1960s to a military family in China).Sun is clear from start: she wants to challenge that myth. For her, digging beyond patriotic paeans to long march involves asking: Was communism magnet that drew poor in droves to Red Army? How did it all work in detail? And what happened to four-fifths of approximately 100,000 marchers who never reached end (3)? Her answers are vivid: some people did believe, but many did not and joined by force of circumstance or at point of a rifle under forced conscription. Leaders, particularly Mao, made numerous mistakes and were often unfeeling of suffering of rank and file. The heroism of long march was mostly heroism of ordinary people, not Mao, other leaders, or idealized Red Army commanders from films Sun saw in China as a kid. Mostly, Sun's story emphasizes experience, memory, and voices of ordinary Chinese, many long forgotten and ill-served by army and party they either joined or endured. In end, Sun finds heroism, but it is not heroism of Mao and party, but heroism of these ordinary people. Their example now inspires Sun and her mission is to get their side of story out. The reason this is important, Sun says, is that dark side of long march that emerges helps to explain what went wrong later under Mao. The errors of later years and causes of sufferings of survivors she profiles can be seen in Jiangxi before long march (246). The implication is clear: it was rotten from start.Sun presents stories ofthe ordinary long marchers - and their lives since then - in style of a documentary film. This is no coincidence, as Sun is a filmmaker and television producer in England. Her scenes and images are vivid, and conversations taken from some 40 interviews are moving. She opens and closes with a few individuals, particularly tragic case of woman Wang (Wang Quanyuan), who after years of mistreatment still has faith in party. These are moving stories, well presented, based on extensive interviews, and all by a Chinese who grew up under Mao but now writes with freedom of one living in England. What's not to like?We should doubt a book that has the true history as part of its title. …

A Study on Change of the Chinese Communist Forces’ Strategy and Tactics in the Early Korean War

A Study on Change of the Chinese Communist Forces’ Strategy and Tactics in the Early Korean War

Moving the Enemy: Operational Art in the Chinese PLA's Huai Hai Campaign (review)

Reviewed by: Moving the Enemy: Operational Art in the Chinese PLA’s Huai Hai Campaign Harold M. Tanner Moving the Enemy: Operational Art in the Chinese PLA’s Huai Hai Campaign. By Gary J. Bjorge. Leavenworth Paper No. 22. Ft. Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004. Maps. Figures. Tables. Glossary. Notes. Pp. viii, 253. Available at http://www.cgsc.army.mil/csi. Between 6 November 1948 and 10 January 1949, Chinese Communist forces eliminated five Nationalist Armies totaling nearly half a million men in a campaign that involved well over a million combatants across front lines of around two hundred kilometers. This action, the Huai Hai Campaign, put the Communists in control of China's strategic Central Plains. Combined with other operations, the result was to eliminate the forces of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) north of the Yangzi and to so deplete his troop strength, while simultaneously increasing Communist strength, that the way was paved for Mao Zedong's armies to cross the Yangzi and sweep the Nationalists from the mainland. Curiously, there has heretofore not been an English-language monograph on Huai Hai. Dr. Bjorge's concise and well-researched volume fills this gap in the literature. His goal is to study the Huai Hai Campaign "as an example of warfare at the operational level," focusing on "the planning and execution of large-scale operations by PLA commanders . . . to further validate the importance of operational art as a doctrinal concept . . . and also increase the reader's understanding of the professional knowledge and skill of the PLA officer corps" (p. 2). To illustrate his point, the author constructs an analytical framework drawn from two sources: U.S. Army Field Manual 100-5 Operations and Sunzi's The Art of War. He presents the planning and implementation of Huai Hai as a concrete illustration of the principles of operational art as seen in those two sources and uses concepts from both works, but particularly concepts such as "moving the enemy," "deception," and "subduing the enemy without battle" from Sunzi. This succeeds both because Sunzi was a significant influence on the thinking of Chinese Communist and Nationalist leaders and because the principles outlined by Sunzi have universal applicability and thus his work "has been integrated into U.S. Army doctrine" (p. 6). Dr. Bjorge begins with an introductory chapter on historical background and proceeds with chapters on Communist and Nationalist planning, the physical setting and comparison of forces, and the unfolding and significance of the campaign. The book includes fourteen maps on which the reader can [End Page 1305] easily locate places named in the text. The author has made good use of primary and secondary sources in Chinese to provide a detailed study of the Huai Hai Campaign as a concrete example of the operational art. But in doing so, has he changed or added to our understanding of the reasons for Nationalist defeat (or Communist victory)? Our general understanding is that, aside from political, economic, and social weaknesses, Jiang's defeat was the result of: (a) the poor quality of Nationalist commanders, including Jiang; (b) over-centralized command; (c) unclear command structure, with Jiang often issuing orders personally, from afar; (d) factionalism; and (e) superior organization, command structure, generalship and unity on the Communist side. Bjorge's work does not change this picture. Nonetheless, by looking at a significant campaign in detail, he gives us concrete examples of decision-making on both the Nationalist and Communist sides and the immediate (and for the Nationalists, disastrous) results of those decisions. In doing so, he puts flesh on the bones of the true, but highly generalized statements about the military conflict in the English-language historiography of the period, most of which treats military operations as peripheral to the political, social, and economic struggles between the Communists and Nationalists. As part of the growing English-language literature on Chinese military history, this book will be useful not only to students of the operational art, but also to specialists and graduate students of modern Chinese history. Harold M. Tanner University of North Texas Denton, Texas Copyright © 2004 Society for Military History

The Suppression of Secret Societies in Post-Liberation Tientsin

On 15 January 1949 Tientsin fell to Chinese communist forces. As the first of the major treaty ports captured by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and with a population of over 1·8 million, it presented its new rulers with a vast array of complex problems, considerably greater than any they had previously encountered. One of the most important of these was the question of how to deal with the various socio-economic groups which dominated Tientsin society at the time of Liberation. Tientsin is a particularly useful case study in this respect, for not only was it the first major metropolis where strategies had to be devised to cope with this problem, but also the solutions worked out in Tientsin frequently served as models for other areas. Within Tientsin, perhaps the most powerful type of social organization was the secret society. This article begins with a brief survey of the general social situation, to put the secret societies into their proper context; it then details the Chinese Communist Party's strategy for handling Tientsin's secret societies and the problems which it encountered.

Soviet-Indian Relations-Neutralism and Communist China

frontiers last year, it has become increasingly evident that armed clashes in desolate Ladakh region have far greater international significance than local incidents that occurred in past in this strategically important area. As skirmishes between Indian and Chinese Communist forces developed into larger-scale military operations, it appeared that objectives of Chinese attacks in direction of Aksai Chin, the white desert, were not limited merely to securing a supply route designed to consolidate Chinese positions in Tibet. In addition to strengthening their military posture, Chinese Communists quite obviously expected to gain considerable psychological and diplomatic advantages from their Indian venture. The principal non-military objectives of their undertaking included humiliation of India and discrediting of neutralism, which over past years had remained principal element in shaping of Indian policies. The Chinese efforts to weaken India's prestige in uncommitted world, particularly in Southeast Asia, not only affected India's status as largest, and morally most influential, neutralist country; they also created a situation in which complex question of relations between a neutralist country, such as India, and great powers engaged in socalled cold war acquired a new, and considerably increased, significance. The question that arose in wake of Chinese

The China Problem Today

No change in the last decade rivals that which has taken place in the situation of China. The military victory of the Chinese Communist forces on the mainland in 1949-50 and the removal of the Nationalist government to Taiwan have created a radically different milieu in which the China problem must be viewed today. Four elements in this situation are of key importance: the direction of developments within Com munist China as the Peking regime seeks to impose its coercive, high-speed program of modernization and social transformation on the Chinese people in an environment far different from that confronting the Bolsheviks in Russia in the 1920's; the benefits and liabilities derived from mainland China's special relation ship to the Soviet Union; the changes and pressures in China's Asian environment; and the influence of American military and political power on Chinese developments. Russia and the United States both exercise immediate and direct influence on China's domestic and international position, but neither can fully control the evolving relations between China and her Asian neighbors. In this area, signs of flexibility and change have appeared during the past decade. Committed to its Russian connection and opposed to all signs of neutralism within the Communist orbit, Communist China has been unable to yield to the appeals of Asian neutralism but has sought to find some ac commodation with it favorable to its own ends.

The Missionary Exodus from China

SEVEN YEARS AGO Protestant missionaries in China numbered slightly over four thousand. Though this was less than half the peak number reached a quarter of a century earlier, it represented a substantial achievement in the rehabilitation and support of mission work only three years after an exhausting war. But by 1948 the Chinese Communist forces were on the march; between December of that year and the end of 1949 the Red Army and its blue-clad Propaganda Corps had swept from the eastern end of the Great Wall across the entire country to the borders of Tibet. Before this so-called Liberation, half the Protestant missionary population evacuated their stations, usually upon the advice of their field organizations or with their approval. Some of them did so because of poor health, approaching retirement age, insufficient language or too brief an adjustment in a strange land, or concern for children under unpredictable conditions. A few had suffered years of Japanese internment and judged it unwise to face another such experience. In some areas-but rarely--Chinese Christian leaders or home mission societies advised withdrawal in advance, lest foreigners prove to be a liability rather than an asset to the Church in China. For the most part, the Roman Catholic missioners, numbering well over three thousand, under more centralized discipline, were ordered to remain at their posts, and one group which arrived in Formosa was reported to have been sent back to the mainland to hold the fort. Three of those priests who returned were later imprisoned. The two thousand Protestant missionaries who stayed in Red China did so for a variety of reasons: commitment to their task, indifference to political change, curiosity, loyalty to their Chinese colleagues, desire to render service as long as possible, hope that somehow the Communists would modify their attitude toward religion and Western imperialism when they came to responsibility and power. For a yearmore or less, depending on geographical location-their choice seemed

Review: The River and the Gauntlet: Defeat of the Eighth Army by the Chinese Communist Forces, November, 1950, in the Battle of the Chongchon River, Korea, by S. L. A. Marshall

Book Review| February 01 1954 Review: The River and the Gauntlet: Defeat of the Eighth Army by the Chinese Communist Forces, November, 1950, in the Battle of the Chongchon River, Korea, by S. L. A. Marshall The River and the Gauntlet: Defeat of the Eighth Army by the Chinese Communist Forces, November, 1950, in the Battle of the Chongchon River, KoreaS. L. A. Marshall George Harmon Knoles George Harmon Knoles Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (1954) 23 (1): 89–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/3635089 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation George Harmon Knoles; Review: The River and the Gauntlet: Defeat of the Eighth Army by the Chinese Communist Forces, November, 1950, in the Battle of the Chongchon River, Korea, by S. L. A. Marshall. Pacific Historical Review 1 February 1954; 23 (1): 89–91. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3635089 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1954 The Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.