China in the Korean War

[Yu Ming Zai]

I am curious to know about other's opinion of China's participation in the Korean War. Do you think that China's intervention in the Korean War is imperialistic or do you believe it was an act against imperialism? How does China's intervention in the Korean War in 1950 compare to say the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan in 1979?

[The CPSU Chairman]

Not imperialistic. China wasn't out to exploit Korea economically or even to dominate it politically. It was about protecting what they viewed as a legitimate socialist revolution. They regarded it as their internationalist duty to defend socialism in Korea when it was under threat.

Another reason for the war was that there was a genuine danger that if North Korea fell, the U.S would march right on into China and try to overthrow the Chinese revolution. However unrealistic that may look in hindsight, it was a very real fear at the time, particularly since, at the start of the Korean conflict, the U.S established a military presence in the Taiwan Strait, effectively intervening in the Chinese civil war on behalf of the Guomindang. There was at that time a debate going on in the U.S, with American politicians accusing each other of having "lost" China, as if China was theirs to lose. I believe MacArthur even explicitly said he wanted to attack China, even before China intervened in the war.

I don't see much difference between China's intervention in the Korean War and the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan. In both cases, the intervening country was explicitly asked (begged might be a better word, in both cases) for military assistance by the country they were intervening in, and the intervening country genuinely regarded the intervention as their internationalist duty on behalf of socialism.