I think the Soviets could be blamed for keeping the info under wraps for so long. Well they did the right thing considering that it might've escalated into WWIII had their presence been known.
PLA involvement in the Vietnam War
- Thread starter bluewater2012
- Start date
I think the Soviets could be blamed for keeping the info under wraps for so long. Well they did the right thing considering that it might've escalated into WWIII had their presence been known.
It always makes sense to be objective in your analysis. At least historians would like to get to the truth based upon facts such as logistical data. Political propaganda should be left to the mainstream media. Historians the world over can not and should not ignore the facts.
China sent 320,000 support troops from 1965-1968 into North Vietnam. They directly aided the VWP from the Viet Minh's very inception. Just because Vietnam is now wary of China, does not in any way change the fact that China provided the bulk of aid to the Viet Minh at their most dire hour.
Just like US political interests today do not negate the fact that the USA and USSR both contributed huge resources at one of China's worst invasions.
It is the people that counts:
Tactically,
NVA had alot of their Company/ Battlion level commanders cycles through the infantry school in Guangxi and upper echelon staff officers in Nanjing Military school. Not to mention that some of NVA officers actually served in Chinese Red Army.
In DBP and beyond NVA had PLA trained officers and even advisers coming from PLA that went through the tough grind of Korea. PLA also gave NVA large quantities of captured american made crewed infantry weapons from Korea... some times even better and more upto date than than the WW2 surplus Americans supplied french.
on the bigger/political side.
All of the mid and early century anti-colonial national liberation movement in mainland asia were joint at hips.
In the very beginning Ho Chi Min palled around with all the big notables in chinese revolutionary pantheons in paris in 1919. There is no way those guys will not help Ho.
Alot of vietnamese revolutionaries went to Yanan because they saw the national liberation movement in china was THE way to acheive their own national liberation. ditto for Koreans, so many ethnic Koreans served in red-army/8th route army/the 4th field army that after the chinese civil war they went back as a 3 infantry division formation that really formed the combat hardened core of the intial NKA that almost pushed the americans into the sea. KJL and his gurella band was,... how should I put it, rookies at military operations compare to the guys who came back from china. hence when that core was dissipated after Inchon and the collapse, (PLA general staff warned Kim about Inchon btw, he dismissed it)
Kim doesn't have any other forces that are nearly competent enough.
Communist ideology only played a seconardy part. National liberation was the heart and the driving impetus.
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You have some things correct, but are a little off on some of the details. You have to understand the development of Mao Ze Dong's real interests in the Communist Revolutions he supported. His position was a constant revision over the course of hostilities. He started off confident and arrogant about the abilities of the new CCP regime in full control of the state of the Chinese nation.
In the Korean campaign Mao was dedicated to protecting the industrial north east which depended on hydro electric power from the Yalu River. Many Koreans were eager to unify their homeland. They had many operations during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. But out of these engagements the most important kind of fighter the CCP ever created were the guerrilla forces.
Contrary to your opinion that Kim Jong Il and his guerrilla forces were not very capable. It is in fact the opposite that was true. The North Korean guerrilla forces were extremely resilient. Even after their forces were routed at the Inchon landing. They managed to regroup and reconstitute major divisions literally overnight. In fact the UN used propaganda to negate the fact that some of the forces causing the "bug out" were in fact reconstituted North Korean forces.
Without the support of the North Korean guerrillas the PVA would not have survived in the desolate North. This kind of support is what kept the PVA alive so far from their main supply lines. The UN allies had started to conduct massacres and a scorched earth policy upon their retreat, leaving little for the PVA. Clearly without these basic foodstuffs to support the over 3,000 items that needed to be brought across the Yalu, the cause would have been lost.
The Chinese best ally during the Second Korean American War was in fact the North Korean guerrillas. They provided major intelligence and sabotage missions. They were so effective the South Koreans and Americans committed massacres in a desperate attempt to support the South Korean regime. In fact even though the North Koreans were the instigators of the war. The Clear protagonists were the South Koreans. Rarely had an ally done so much to prevent peace in a war. The Americans and UN allies wanted to get the hell out of the Siberian weather. The South Koreans wanted to finish and unite the peninsula once and for all.
This campaign was very important in shaping Mao's future plans of International Communist Revolution. Right away he saw that the Soviets were liars and not capable of equally supporting Revolutionary causes. In fact Stalin was kind of shocked the PVA would cross the Yalu even though the Soviets had denied air support at the last minute.
In the end the Americans were able to adeptly reorganize and advance to the 38th parallel. Mao knew this and sued for peace just as the Americans had field tested hand held nuclear weapons. Even though the PVA and its North Korean allies had thus far contained the war to the 38th parallel in a war of attrition. Clearly the US would have changed its mind of using nuclear weapons in a longer protracted war.
Also this was not a war of Chinese Volunteers. Proof of this is that all of the Chinese POWs requested to defect to the Nationalists in Taiwan. The South Koreans refused and resent them all back to the CCP. This is just one example of South Korea's resolve to prolong hostilities.
This definitely shaped the ideology of Mao Ze Dong just like it did Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh was a direct Han Chinese descendent. Ho was first influenced by the Americans. In American Chinatowns he discovered the ability to vote for the mass citizenry. He was so eager to apply American ideals towards the Vietnamese situation.
The racist Woodrow Wilson refused to see him and in fact changed his long term views of the world. He found his soul in Paris, where communist party meetings drew from colonized peoples around the world. It is true that major bonds were formed in Paris, but these bonds ARE NOT what would dictate the Vietnam War.
First and foremost the major division between the Viet Minh and the CCP was the status of Indo-China itself. China wanted a fractured Indo-China independent of the French, but not united against China. While the Viet Minh preferred to take up the French power vacuum and unite Vietnam with Laos and Cambodia.
From the very beginning it is clear that China understood the fact that a war on its own soil would prevent the development of an industrial infrastructure. Most important to Mao and the CCP was to prevent another foreign invasion. To do this they understood that they had to create safe buffer zones aligned with China. This Communist International brotherhood crap did not ever take precedence over individual nationalist issues. In Asia some of these issues go back thousands of years as in the case of Korea and Vietnam.
Shortly After the cease fire during the Second Korean American War, Kim Jong Il expelled the Chinese consulate from its borders. Towards the end of the Vietnam War the Viet Minh also expelled the Chinese consulate from its borders. Clearly everyone knew their history and did not want to throw the chains of one oppressor in proxy for another historically and geographically greater threat. Each of the three nations would exercise their own nationalist interests above the united Communist front.
The Situation in South East Asia is very complex. Chinese influence and domination had far reaching implications even to this day. In response to this long standing hegemony. Chinese people the world over suffered some of the greatest genocide comparable to the Jews in Europe, when China lost to the European colonial powers in the 19th century. A slow, but steady parasitic carving of China, resulted in the Chinese diaspora and the International ability to legally express racism and reject Chinese people the world over. This diaspora of refugees would be hated for their immigration as well as academic and commercial dominance.
This kind of hostile reaction was not equal. For example Cambodia has a long history of Chinese immigration going back to the Song Dynasty. The Song Chinese loved the weather and the peaceful Cambodians whose women were bare skinned from the waist up. Many Song Chinese in fact would become refugees in South East Asia after the Mongol invasions. These genetic lines are physical and FACTUAL links to the past.
Now Vietnam is a different story because parts of Vietnam have been apart of China from the time of Qin Shi Huang Di. But even though the political hegemony has not been constant, the cultural and genetic lineage has! In fact the original South East Asians were black. They were part of the Austronesian aboriginal migration out of Africa, along the Indian subcontinent, through the south pacific and into the Americas. Where the Fuegans were last seen at Tierra Del Feugo.
In the interior of Vietnam and the Philippines there remain people whom are called The Hill People or the Negritos. They are the original black indigenous inhabitants that exist TO THIS VERY DAY! They are proof of the massive Chinese genetic migrations across not only East Asia, South East Asia, but also the Clovis people into the Americas.
Also the Chinese have spread their gene pool across most of East and South East Asia in more recent migrations, than the first wave out of Africa. Their slanted eyes with an extra layer of fatty lipid in fact increases long distance vision in polar regions. The further north, the smaller the eyes in relation to the mass arctic glare. However we see these arctic features on tropical South East Asians. This is physical proof of historical lineages and human migration. What is important to understand is the long standing interests of China in dealing with all of her regional neighbors. But in terms of the Vietnam War.
Clearly the most important thing China taught the Viet Minh was to include women in their struggle. This doubled their forces overnight. This contribution to the guerrilla forces alone would secure the intelligence pipeline that kept the Americans in check. Just like China had against Japan, Vietnam would also have an advanced sexual spy network that would never be compromised. Horny soldiers in foreign lands have loose lips, especially in long campaigns.
So in the case of Vietnam we have to seriously take into account its similarities with Taiwan. Both nations' populations have a majority that is ethnic Han Chinese. Both peoples are outnumbered by the majority of ethnic Han Chinese in China. So where does democracy and the will of the people stand? It is kind of like the US support of Israel against the Palestinians. In some cases American self-interest supersedes altruistic cries for democracy or even Republicanism.
However only Vietnam was part of China during Qin Shi Huang Di's Qin Dynasty. Even though China is locked in a struggle to regain Taiwan. What about Vietnam??? It is not a question of when China will attack and incorporate Vietnam or Taiwan into the mainland Chinese nation. But the fact that China can simply use its mass population and cultural suzerainty to repopulate both Taiwan and Vietnam. Contrary to mainstream western ideology, China does not have to conquer her neighbors militarily. She only has to out last them, and repopulate them over time.
This is the problem the Western world never understands about the mass of enduring China. We can talk about all the military weapons we want. All the military might of even the United States COULD NEVER police China long term. Of course in a full scale war the American military could invade, but never be able to police an occupation in China like it did in Japan. The population is simply too massive. Just as in India, the largest colony in the history of the world, Britain could not militarily strangle her forever. This is clearly a case where humanity overrides pure military power.
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Sorry I have trouble seeing the point of posting long essays that can not get to a central point.
But I do have the time to reply to this point:
When I say "Kim Jong Il and his guerrilla forces" I meant his merry band that was under his control and soviet tutelage during most of 2nd WW sitting in Siberia, contrasting to the ethnic Korean elements in the North Eastern borne 4th Field Army that became the core of NK Army, pre-1950.
What you described as NK "guerrilla forces" was constituted by shattered elements of superb ethnic Korean 4th Fields army Veterans that has gone through hammer of Chinese civil war but destroyed as formation post Inchon. plus the local gurreliia resistance that was built during Japanese occupation.
Just a quibble in this interesting thread: You mean Laos, not Burma. I recently read an article in Asia Times on line, that it might cost $16 billion to get rid of the unexploded ordnance the US dropped on Laos during their war with Viet-Nam and that they contributed $5.1 million to that cause in 2009.
If you go Hanoi, there is a monument commerating the sacriface and bravery of PLA anti-aircraft regiment protecting the airspace of Hanoi during Vietnam war.