70 { China’s Quest
effectiveness] the danger of ... US declaration of war on China ... would
not be grave ... In other words, since the Korean conflict can actually be
resolved on the basis of defeating the US ... such a war would be limited
in scale and would not last long.^27 (Emphasis added.)
If the United States prevailed in Korea, Washington would become
more “arrogant” and undertake increased aggression in the Taiwan Strait,
Indochina, the Philippines, and elsewhere in Asia. If unchecked, US im-
perialism would encircle China. Then China might be compelled to fight a
war on two or even several fronts. The US intervention in Korea was, Mao
believed, part of a grand US strategy of encircling China. If US intervention
in Korea was defeated, the United States would be more cautious, and revolu-
tionary forces across Asia would be encouraged.^28 Allowing the United States
to perennially threaten China’s industrial heartland would also mean, Mao
explained to the decisive Politburo session on October 2, that “We would have
to wait there year after year, unsure of when the enemy will attack us.”^29
A key political objective motivating China’s entry into the war was to rescue
Korea’s revolutionary forces from destruction. There were close ties between
the CCP and the KWP. During the 1945–1947 CCP-KMT struggle for China’s
Northeast after Japan’s surrender, North Korea had provided material assis-
tance and sanctuary for the CCP. Then, as the CCP moved toward victory in
1949, it transferred some 50,000 to 70,000 ethnic Korean PLA soldiers to North
Korean command. This very considerably increased the front-line strength of
North Korean forces. The revolutionary division of labor worked out between
Stalin and Liu Shaoqi in July 1949 also required that China bear the respon-
sibility for assisting Korea’s revolutionary forces. By undertaking to fight the
Americans in Korea, Mao was giving substance to the CCP’s pledge to take
prime responsibility for supporting Asian revolution. Mao was demonstrating
to Stalin that he was a resolute revolutionary not fearful of US imperialism. In
effect, Mao was asserting China’s bona fides as the center of the Asian interna-
tional order, albeit a new revolutionary and socialist-centered order.
There was also a strong linkage between intervention in Korea and moving
China’s revolution “forward” into its socialist stage. The CCP’s paramount
objective circa 1950 was to consolidate its control over China. With war with
the United States underway in Korea, ferreting out and destroying the puta-
tive agents of US imperialism within China could be cast as part of the effort
to defend China from attack. On other hand, if China did not intervene in
Korea, “reactionaries” within China and on Taiwan would be encouraged and
emboldened. War would also facilitate establishment of state control over the
economy. Integration of all China’s economic resources into a single, com-
prehensive nationwide effort via nationalization and central planning, i.e.,
imposition of a Soviet-style economy, could be presented as a sensible and
necessary move to defeat the American enemy. The emotional fervor, hatred,