138 China in World History
divided Korea. On June 25, 1950, with Soviet equipment and probably
with the permission of Stalin, Kim launched an invasion across the 38th
parallel in an attempt to unify the Korean peninsula under Communist
control. The United States quickly sent American troops to Korea under
the banner of the United Nations and the leadership of General Douglas
MacArthur.
When MacArthur’s forces pushed the North Korean troops back
behind the 38th parallel and then proceeded toward the Yalu River
(marking the Korea-China border), hundreds of thousands of Chinese
troops surged into North Korea and entered the war. The United States
and China were now in direct military confl ict, with each side prepared
to believe the worst of the other’s motives. The United States assumed
China was behind the Korean War in the fi rst place, proving that Com-
munism was a dangerous uncontainable virus. The Chinese Communist
leaders believed the United States wanted to use Korea as a launch-
ing pad from which to invade China, reverse the Communist revolu-
tion, and restore Chiang Kai-shek to power. At the outbreak of war,
President Truman ordered the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan
Strait, reversing the United States’ earlier policy of nonintervention in
the Chinese civil war.
Against the overwhelming technological superiority of the U.S.
forces, the Chinese compensated by sending wave after wave of foot
soldiers into battle against American tanks and artillery units. Despite
incredibly high casualties—one million Chinese combat deaths—the
People’s Liberation Army fought the American and United Nations
forces to a stalemate near the 38th parallel. A truce was fi nally signed
in 1953. The Korea War had dire consequences for U.S.-Chinese rela-
tions. For two decades, the United States refused to recognize the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China and forbade American citizens to travel to or
trade with China. During those years, Chiang Kai-shek’s government
sat as China’s permanent representative on the United Nations Security
Council, as if the People’s Republic did not exist. Chinese Communist
leaders, despite their alliance with America during World War II, now
assumed America was their premier enemy in the world.
Chairman Mao had come to power as a great military leader and
strategist, and he continued to look at the challenge of governing the
country as though politics was simply warfare by other means. If exter-
nal enemies did not actually invade China, Mao was quick to fi nd inter-
nal enemies to be rooted out, exposed, and destroyed. The Communist
Party controlled all aspects of the government and military and all com-
munications media. Mao’s preferred style of governance was through