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deadkenny · 03-09-2007, 10:35 AM

There are plenty of 'myths' or 'urban legends' floating around out there. Exnav, if your source for this is your students, then I would suspect that they have been taking the most 'exagerated' or most 'anti-American' versions of stories in order to 'boast' about their country compared to the US.

In particular, what I have heard regarding the 'official' communist version of the Korean war is that the US intended to 'annex' North Korea and there were some air attacks into Chinese territory. Now whether or not these air attacks intentionally, or unintentionally, were in Chinese territory, I do not believe that the 'official' claim is that the US launched a land invasion of China. As far as their claim that they (Communist China) 'won', again it is based on how they view it - they did push back US forces and (re)established a communist North Korea - so it is possible for them to define 'victory' in those terms. Of course it is clear that North Korea's objective was to annex the south, so it's hard to see how North Korea could claim any sort of 'victory'. The UN objective was originally to re-establish South Korea, so they could also claim 'victory' (along with South Korea itself), albeit with somewhat altered borders. However, one must acknowledge that Mac did in fact go somewhat beyond the scope of the original UN mandate by advancing deeply into North Korea as he did.

Similarly for the Communists claiming to have defeated Japan - they did / do claim that they defeated Japan in China (i.e. denying that the Nationalists did anything) but not that the US wasn't responsible for defeating Japan outside of China. I believe the theory that the atomic bombs were dropped more as a 'warning' to the USSR than to actually defeat Japan is common in the west as well (not that I agree), not just in communist China.

03-09-2007, 10:35 AM	#26 (permalink)
deadkenny Banished Join Date: 04-05-05 Posts: 428 Country:	There are plenty of 'myths' or 'urban legends' floating around out there. Exnav, if your source for this is your students, then I would suspect that they have been taking the most 'exagerated' or most 'anti-American' versions of stories in order to 'boast' about their country compared to the US. In particular, what I have heard regarding the 'official' communist version of the Korean war is that the US intended to 'annex' North Korea and there were some air attacks into Chinese territory. Now whether or not these air attacks intentionally, or unintentionally, were in Chinese territory, I do not believe that the 'official' claim is that the US launched a land invasion of China. As far as their claim that they (Communist China) 'won', again it is based on how they view it - they did push back US forces and (re)established a communist North Korea - so it is possible for them to define 'victory' in those terms. Of course it is clear that North Korea's objective was to annex the south, so it's hard to see how North Korea could claim any sort of 'victory'. The UN objective was originally to re-establish South Korea, so they could also claim 'victory' (along with South Korea itself), albeit with somewhat altered borders. However, one must acknowledge that Mac did in fact go somewhat beyond the scope of the original UN mandate by advancing deeply into North Korea as he did. Similarly for the Communists claiming to have defeated Japan - they did / do claim that they defeated Japan in China (i.e. denying that the Nationalists did anything) but not that the US wasn't responsible for defeating Japan outside of China. I believe the theory that the atomic bombs were dropped more as a 'warning' to the USSR than to actually defeat Japan is common in the west as well (not that I agree), not just in communist China. Last edited by deadkenny : 03-09-2007 at 10:38 AM.