Korean War 70 years later Win Lose and A draw

Max Demian said:

Militarily, I think, the Korean War saw China in positive light, as it showed itself capable to fight the UN to a standstill.

Politically, however, there were some clear negatives:
1. PRC was condemned as an aggressor state by the UN
2. The US decides to keep Taiwan out of PRCs reach. I am not sure whether it was the onset of the Korean War or the defeat of the Nationalist China that caused the US to change its intentions in regard to handing Taiwan over to China, but the Korean War certainly entrenched them in the position that Taiwan shall not be restored to China in the WW2 peace treaty.
3. Possibility of rapprochement with the US lost for two decades.

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I never for once bought the argument that US was trying to deliver Taiwan on silver plate to China It is just propaganda. Never believe those tall fairy tale . It is just the concoction of liberal in the US trying to win so called liberal wing in China.

From 1950 to 1974 China was under the strict embargo like what they did to North Korea now They even forbid grain export to China during the famine of 1960's.
They even send spy and recruit Tibetan trained and equipped until 1974 to secede from China

The US policy has always been to effect regime change in China at the onset of Korean war there were talk to bring Chiang regime back to China on the back of 8th army But all come to naught with Korean war Then they try Tibetan fiasco again failed. Encourage Indian to challenge China again failed miserably when China mauled the Indian army in what 2 months.

After Nixon visit they change tack luring the intellectual with siren song of democrazy They almost succeed with 1989 Demo but DXP put a top on that too Then they pinned their hope on richer population and exposure to nirvana west will demand democrazy again nothing happened. How about infiltration with facebook and instagram again they are stumped when China erected the fire wall . Then the wishfull thinking that China economy come to screeching halt. But they await for 30 years and no sight of economy waterloo. So now it come back to embargo and hopefully it will weaken economic growth and foment insurrection

Hendrik_2000 said:

I never for once bought the argument that US was trying to deliver Taiwan on silver plate to China It is just propaganda. Never believe those tall fairy tale . It is just the concoction of liberal in the US trying to win so called liberal wing in China.

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I was referring to the period up till the end of the Korean War. The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation clearly show that there was an intention to have Taiwan restored to China.

That these were not merely empty words can be seen from the draft of the WW2 peace treaty from as late as December 1949, stating: "The Allied and Associated Powers agree that the following territories shall be returned in full sovereignty to China: The island of Taiwan (Formosa) and adjacent minor islands ..."

If you read Kerr's Formosa Betrayed it's clear that the US policy at the time was: "Taiwan is China". This phrase was repeated each time by the US when reports of human rights violations perpetrated by ROC would arrive and calls from native Formosans for USMG administration grew louder.

All of this changed with the Korean War. In that sense it appears to me that the Korean War gamble cost China Taiwan.

Max Demian said:

I was referring to the period up till the end of the Korean War. The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation clearly show that there was an intention to have Taiwan restored to China.

That these were not merely empty words can be seen from the draft of the WW2 peace treaty from as late as December 1949, stating: "The Allied and Associated Powers agree that the following territories shall be returned in full sovereignty to China: The island of Taiwan (Formosa) and adjacent minor islands ..."

If you read Kerr's Formosa Betrayed it's clear that the US policy at the time was: "Taiwan is China". This phrase was repeated each time by the US when reports of human rights violations perpetrated by ROC would arrive and calls from native Formosans for USMG administration grew louder.

All of this changed with the Korean War. In that sense it appears to me that the Korean War gamble cost China Taiwan.

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Again I don't believe it when clearly the US policy is hostile toward China up until Nixon time But that is beside the point . If anything Taiwan outside China is more beneficial to China then inside, specially now .China does not lost anything. Taiwan is the main source of Technology and Human resource to China Heck the whole China semiconductor industry is founded by Richard Chang he brought with him hundred of semiconductor to China Though his motivation was to convert China to Christianity


Even now the 14nm Finfet that smic start mass producing is spearheaded by Taiwanese semi guru Liang Mongson
Not to mention that TSMC is the foundry where the like of Huawei produce their world beating 7nm Kirin 980 SOC
And other supporting chips Where would China be without Taiwan in the era of technology war?


Not too mention that Taiwan pour billion of investment in China over 5 decades There are 1 million Taiwanese living in China now and thousand of Taiwanese companies energizing China's export industry specially in Consumer products and electronics. Chinese economics reform are underwrite by overseas Chinese and Taiwan is big part of it

Lee Kuan Yew once give advice to Deng Xiao Ping he said leave Taiwan alone she is more beneficial to you outside than inside.
CCP know that. They make noise for internal consumption but they know the importance of Taiwan as source of technology. The country will be reunited that is for sure but now is not the right timing. Time is on China side.
Once China can compete head to head with US and does not need Taiwan than it is the time to recover Taiwan

Max Demian said:

Militarily, I think, the Korean War saw China in positive light, as it showed itself capable to fight the UN to a standstill.

Politically, however, there were some clear negatives:
1. PRC was condemned as an aggressor state by the UN
2. The US decides to keep Taiwan out of PRCs reach. I am not sure whether it was the onset of the Korean War or the defeat of the Nationalist China that caused the US to change its intentions in regard to handing Taiwan over to China, but the Korean War certainly entrenched them in the position that Taiwan shall not be restored to China in the WW2 peace treaty.
3. Possibility of rapprochement with the US lost for two decades.

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The US Would Never Accept the PRC Until It Runs Out All Other Options

Being the most populous nation on earth, China's rise means the rise of a political, economical, and military force capable to challenge the dominance of the US at world stage. Under the pressure of being challenged, the US would never accept the PRC until it runs out all other options.

Max Demian said:

1. PRC was condemned as an aggressor state by the UN

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Then, who cares about these dirty US sexy strip-club performances?

While China is still labelled as an aggressor by the UN Resolution 498 of 1951, it is, in the meantime, designated by UN as one of the most powerful world peace defender because the UN welcomed China as a permanent member of its most powerful institution, the UN Security Council through UN Resolution 2758 of 1971. Looks like only a UN condemned world aggressor can be a UN approved world peace defender, while trashes like ROC / Taiwan can only be designate as a no-one- wanted stinky dog-shit.

Is this a victory, or a defeat, or an irony, or an embarrassment to the UN, to the US, or to China, to ROC / Taiwan?

Max Demian said:

2. The US decides to keep Taiwan out of PRCs reach. I am not sure whether it was the onset of the Korean War or the defeat of the Nationalist China that caused the US to change its intentions in regard to handing Taiwan over to China, but the Korean War certainly entrenched them in the position that Taiwan shall not be restored to China in the WW2 peace treaty.

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Your statement is problematic, at least in diplomatic terms. The US is in no diplomatic position to "hand Taiwan over to China". Taiwan is not like HK by any means. HK was leased to the British by Qing government. Taiwan was ceded to Japan by Qing govn't but was reclaimed from Japan's occupation by another legal Chinese government of the time in 1945. It has nothing to do with the US, diplomatically. The Taiwan issue now becomes an issue because the US realizes that it has to use every possible means, including use Taiwan, HK, Xing-Jiang, and South China Sea as chess pieces, to counter China's rise. With or without the Korean War, and either win or loss in the Korean War, the US will do the same thing to contain China's rise.

Your statement sounds like if the PRC didn't angered the US in the Korean War, the US wouldn't support Taiwan, Taibei then would automatically surround to Beijing. This assumption is against Chinese history. You may have to ask why didn't Zheng Cheng-gong's Southern Ming (郑成功-南明政权), which had no foreign support either, simply surround to Qing (大清)? In China's 2000-plus years history, very few regimes in exile chose to surround. The central govn't had to use force to quash the remaining regimes in exile as rebels. Since the practice of using force to kill rebellions has been used for the past 2000-plus years in China, so, I am confident it will be used again to wipe out rebels in Taiwan. It is a question of when, not why, and not if.

Your statement also sounds like if the US supports Taiwan, China then can't take Taiwan back by force. But this is a wishful thinking of Taiwanese. China can take Taiwan back by force regardless what the US would respond. If the US couldn't win the Korean War against the PLA seventy years ago, it stands zero chance to win any war against the PLA in Eastern Asia today. What prevents Chinese leadership from making the decision to reclaim Taiwan now is not China's war ability, but the issues that are related to China's job priority. Right now, eliminating absolute poverty is at the top priority, so, we know China will do nothing about Taiwan for now. After China finishes the job of eliminating absolute poverty in 2021, then anything could happen across the Taiwan Strait.

Max Demian said:

3. Possibility of rapprochement with the US lost for two decades.

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Is this a childish naiveness, or a deliberate misinformation? You need only to have a quick look at Mao's article of "Farewell, John Leighton Stuart." (《别了，司徒雷登》) published on Aug, 18, 1949, in which Mao denounced US long-time aggression and political manipulation to the Chinese, you then know the US would never choose the CPC over the KMT. By the way, North Vietnam did not fight against the US in the Korean War, did the US award a rapprochement treatment to the N. Vietnam before the Vietnam War? And why not?

The US meddling in China's internal affairs has been long and deep. It started far before the birth of PR China, far before the start of the Korean War. And its meddling in China's internal affairs is aimed to harvest its imperialist gains from China, not aimed to increase Chinese well-beings. Choosing the KMT as the work partner in China is in the best interest of America. It chose to support the KMT in China's civil war due to its own political ideology and its own economic preference. It is impossible for the US to accept the Communist Party of China, and the PRC because it is politically incorrect. The fallacy of "Korean War caused China decades' good relationship with the US" is Taiwan's cheap political propaganda to belittle the importance of CPC's Korean War victory.

Quickie said:

They could if they choose to, but they would have to weigh against the chances of success and the huge cost that would be incurred in terms of human life and money, made doubly worse by the kind of logistic required due to the long distance.


Talking about the cost in terms of human life and financial resources, the siege of Fort Zeelandia and the battle of Lowestoft is comparable especially in terms of the number of Dutch soldiers and their allies killed and wounded. The reason why the number of ships involved was smaller was that it was mostly a land war with the Dutch and their local allies defending against the invading Ming forces.

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In regard to financial resources,

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$7.9 trillion cap value is much bigger than 1 trillion caps value of the few American companies today and is almost double the GDP of the world's third-largest economy. They definitely were not lacking in the financial resources department when it comes to hiring and arming local allies to fight for them.

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Saying that they could if they choose propels the whole discussion into mere speculation. If that be the case then an equal argument can be made that they did not because they couldn't because they cannot afford to mount such an expedition.

In terms of financial resources the Battle of Lowesoft would have far outstripped the battle of Fort Zeelandia alone by number of ships employed (13 to 100) and the number of men. In terms of human life, Lowesoft outstrips Zeelandia by 400 at its lowest estimates, and 900 at it's highest and that is not counting the 2000 people captured, a number that alone dwarfs the entire Dutch garrison at Zeelandia.


Listing the assets alone ignores the fact that those are assets, not profit or money that the Company can use to raise armies or soldiers. The Company had to keep it's debt to profit margin solvent.
To put that in perspective, Lehman Brothers was worth almost 660 billion USD before it tanked, but yet it did because it has an outstanding debt worth almost at much.

Max Demian said:

I was referring to the period up till the end of the Korean War. The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation clearly show that there was an intention to have Taiwan restored to China.

That these were not merely empty words can be seen from the draft of the WW2 peace treaty from as late as December 1949, stating: "The Allied and Associated Powers agree that the following territories shall be returned in full sovereignty to China: The island of Taiwan (Formosa) and adjacent minor islands ..."

If you read Kerr's Formosa Betrayed it's clear that the US policy at the time was: "Taiwan is China". This phrase was repeated each time by the US when reports of human rights violations perpetrated by ROC would arrive and calls from native Formosans for USMG administration grew louder.

All of this changed with the Korean War. In that sense it appears to me that the Korean War gamble cost China Taiwan.

Click to expand...

From China's view it's options was rather limited at that time, it could either let NK fall and US forces crossing over into China to pursue the fleeing forces (which might not happen if it closes the borders from the start) and let the US unify the peninsular and station a permanent force right on it's borders, or it can intervene and allow itself to be viewed negatively by the US and be considered part of the Communist bloc, a status that would remain until Nixon's trip and in the process potentially ruining any future plans on Taiwan.

All in all the best possible outcome for China at the time was either NK never invaded SK to begin with or at least until after it concluded its plans with Taiwan or the USSR openly supported NK while pushing China away from the limelight.
Another outcome that might not have been too terrible for China was that the US-forces halt right back at the 38th parallel.

Just4Fun said:

Your statement is problematic, at least in diplomatic terms. The US is in no diplomatic position to "hand Taiwan over to China". Taiwan is not like HK by any means. HK was leased to the British by Qing government. Taiwan was ceded to Japan by Qing govn't but was reclaimed from Japan's occupation by another legal Chinese government of the time in 1945. It has nothing to do with the US, diplomatically.

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Thanks for an interesting post. I only have time to reply to this rather important technicality.

You shouldn't forget that WW2 had not officially ended at the start of the Korean War. Therefore, occupied Japanese territory could not have permanently been disposed of before a peace treaty had been signed. Wartime occupation doesn't grant annexation rights. As for the justification to US "meddling": as the principal conqueror of Japan, the US had proprietary interests in all the land of the Japanese Empire, including Taiwan.

Max Demian said:

You shouldn't forget that WW2 had not officially ended at the start of the Korean War. Therefore, occupied Japanese territory could not have permanently been disposed of before a peace treaty had been signed. Wartime occupation doesn't grant annexation rights.

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Hmm, I think it's more accurate to say that the war against Japan had not been formally concluded at the time. The state of affairs was even messier in Europe where the peace treaty with Germany had not been signed until 1990.

Viktor Jav said:

Saying that they could if they choose propels the whole discussion into mere speculation. If that be the case then an equal argument can be made that they did not because they couldn't because they cannot afford to mount such an expedition.

In terms of financial resources the Battle of Lowesoft would have far outstripped the battle of Fort Zeelandia alone by number of ships employed (13 to 100) and the number of men. In terms of human life, Lowesoft outstrips Zeelandia by 400 at its lowest estimates, and 900 at it's highest and that is not counting the 2000 people captured, a number that alone dwarfs the entire Dutch garrison at Zeelandia.


Listing the assets alone ignores the fact that those are assets, not profit or money that the Company can use to raise armies or soldiers. The Company had to keep it's debt to profit margin solvent.
To put that in perspective, Lehman Brothers was worth almost 660 billion USD before it tanked, but yet it did because it has an outstanding debt worth almost at much.

Click to expand...

$7.9 trillion cap could easily be equivalent to the world's second-largest GDP of a country of that time. To speculate that it was in debt is stretching it too far. Why not speculate that it was holding too much reserve that could be better served by converting it to real assets like more land and spices.

You're nitpicking on the number of people killed of what could be a 20% or so difference. Historical data can be highly inaccurate. An Anglo source of info could greatly bias towards their favor.

The number of people captured in the battle of Fort Zeelandia could well be around 2000 or more.
If you really want to go at it.

1600 to 1900 Dutch soldiers + about same number of native allies = 3200 to 3800.
So, 3200 to 3800 - 1600 killed = 1600 to 2200 captured. This is not even counting the 800 civilians.

They certainly would have the resources to build up for a much bigger battle but probably wouldn't because of the complete wipeout of the Garrison forces of 900 to 1200 plus 700 enforcement Dutch soldiers and an unknown number of native allies.

Add to that, the Dutch was not even fighting the Ming Dynasty proper but instead, they were fighting one of the remnants of the Ming Dynasty in the aftermath of the invasion of the Manchu from the north.

Quickie said:

$7.9 trillion cap could easily be equivalent to the world's second-largest GDP of a country of that time. To speculate that it was in debt is stretching it too far. Why not speculate that it was holding too much reserve that could be better served by converting it to real assets like more land and spices.

You're nitpicking on the number of people killed of what could be a 20% or so difference . Historical data can be highly inaccurate.
The number of people captured in the battle of Fort Zeelandia could well be around 2000 or more.

If you really want to go at it.

1600 to 1900 Dutch soldiers + about same number of native allies = 3200 to 3800. So, 3200 to 3800 - 1600 killed = 1600 to 2200 captured. (Alas, the number of allies is unknown)

They certainly would have the resources to build up for a much bigger battle but probably wouldn't because of the complete wipeout of the Garrison forces of 900 to 1200 plus 700 enforcement Dutch soldiers and an unknown number of native allies.

Add to that, the Dutch was not even fighting the Ming Dynasty proper but instead, they were fighting one of the remnants of the Ming Dynasty in the aftermath of the invasion of the Manchu from the north.

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Sure, at the same time let's also double the number of casualties and captured people at Lowesoft as well. Since "historical inaccuracies and all". Never mind let's triple that since we can bring in unspecified numbers of natives for Zeelandia.
And it is the VOC, not the Dutch Republic that the Chinese was fighting at the time.
And of we can speculate about the number of people involved in battle then we can also speculate about the finances of the company at that time then too, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, bumping it down one or 2 trillion might be a good start. Factor in the fact that the VOC had fought in Cambodia and Vietnam before Zeelandia and had lost will really put a dander on their ledgers.
Let's not forget that the sum estimate was calculated at the peak of the companies growth which is calculated to be in the late 1690s. Not 1662.