Opinion | China needs open debate on the Korean war to lay ghosts to rest
- The war has been immensely consequential for China’s relations with the US, and the facts of China’s decision to go to war 70 years ago should not be lost in the fog of history. If mistakes were made, they should be acknowledged
Seventy years ago this month, the People’s Volunteer Army crossed the Yalu River, marking China’s entry into the Korean war, known in China as the “War to Resist America and Aid Korea”.
Instead of trying to use the occasion to score points against America, amid intensifying tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, China should take the opportunity to re-examine the war, a watershed event that shaped the course of East Asian history.
At school, we were taught that the conflict was China’s great victory against American aggression. Was it?
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China stages high-profile ceremony to welcome home remains of 117 soldiers killed in Korean war
Back in 2000, I met a group of former prisoners of war in Beijing, all men in their 70s and 80s. From them, I learned some uncomfortable and little known facts about the war. Those men were among the fewer than 6,000 Chinese POWs who returned to the motherland, while more than 14,000 others went to Taiwan.