PLA says 1950 battle for Hainan is ‘valuable experience’ for future seaborne landings
- Eastern Theatre Command, which is responsible for the Taiwan Strait, says one of the last acts of the Chinese civil war highlights a ‘winning code’ for combat
- Social media posts highlighting an exhibition about the Hainan battle follow a series of unprecedented drills around Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi’s visit
The command’s social media accounts recently posted about an exhibition jointly organised with Hainan Provincial Museum that tells the story of how the PLA took control of the island.
The battle of Hainan was one of the last actions of the Chinese civil war between the victorious Communist forces, which seized control of the mainland in 1949.
But the beaten Nationalist, or Kuomintang, forces under Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, which Beijing has vowed to bring under its control eventually.
The introduction to the exhibition says: “This battle provided valuable experience for future wars, especially for crossing the sea and landing on an island.”
The Battle of Hainan Island was one of the few sea landings conducted by the PLA in its history and came a year after an assault on two KMT-held islands failed. In the battle the PLA carried out waves of mass landings and assaults forcing the Nationalist forces to flee from the island.