War in Korea and Indochina } 81
be; there should be no involuntary repatriation. Beijing and the KWP insisted
adamantly on complete repatriation without regard to individual volition.
This was a matter of principle, Zhou Enlai explained to Stalin in August
- Therefore, China could not yield to the United States on this point. Two
months later, China rejected the US/UN “final offer” on the POW issue, lead-
ing the US/UN to break off talks, to be resumed only when Beijing became
willing to accept the principle of voluntary repatriation.
This, of course, was a many-layered issue. It reflected the vast difference
between liberal democratic and Marxist-Leninist philosophies of the two
sides. It reflected too a political struggle for moral superiority. Decisions by a
significant number of Chinese and North Korean POWs not to return to their
communist-ruled homes would be, and was, used by the United States and
South Korea for propaganda purposes. It was also an issue touching on mili-
tary discipline in future wars. If soldiers of communist armies knew—as US
psychological warfare efforts would ensure they did—that they would not be
returned at war’s end to their communist masters, they would be more likely
to surrender and to cooperate with their anticommunist captors by supply-
ing intelligence. For seventeen months, the talks deadlocked over the POW
repatriation issue.
In March 1953, after Stalin’s death and with a new US president (Dwight
Eisenhower) in office, Beijing proposed the resumption of talks, implicitly
acceding to the US/UN position on repatriation. Beijing now accepted the
principle of voluntary repatriation, but proposed that nonreturnees first be
handed over to a neutral third country. This was still unacceptable to the
Americans, who saw all sorts of dangers lurking in this arrangement, and
the United States insisted that the issue be handled in Korea. But the shift
toward a “neutral third country” option finally moved the communist side
away from the “all for all” formulation. Eventually, Beijing accepted the US/
UN demand; repatriation was voluntary, with “explanations” to individual
POWs regarding their rights completed in Korea. Eventually 6,700 CPV
POWs would choose repatriation to China, while 14,700 (or 2.2 times as
many) refused repatriation.^50 Most of the Chinese nonreturnees eventually
went to Taiwan.
Scholars have long believed that Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, eliminated
a leader who wanted to keep the Korean conflict going as long as he could for
strategic purposes. Stalin’s death finally allowed Chinese leaders who longed
for peace and a focus on economic development to finally bring the war to an
end. Scholar Chen Jian, on the other hand, concluded that Stalin and Chinese
leaders moved in tandem in late 1952–early 1953 toward ending the Korean
conflict. Beijing alone was responsible for the unyielding position on the
POW issue, Chen found, and there is no evidence of Soviet-Chinese disagree-
ment on this issue that blocked settlement for seventeen months.^51 In August
1952, Stalin proposed the face-saving third-neutral-country solution that