President Xi Jinping will partake in a ceremony on Friday in Beijing honoring the 70th anniversary since its army took up battling in a conflict China’s government defines as the “War to Resist U.S. Aggression and help Korea. China is going out in recollection of its participation against the US in the Korean War, transmitting a message to Washington that it’s not threatened by American military might.” It remains the only time China has gone to war with the US, which was commanding United Nations forces in the 1950-1953 conflict.
President Xi Jinping instructed the Chinese people to “carry on the fighting spirit and strengthen the fighting capabilities.”PLA Daily issued a lengthy commentary that claimed: “red lines should never be crossed, bottom lines should never be trampled on.” The array comes as relations between the two world’s largest economies are at their point in decades. From military tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea to revenge against diplomats and journalists and conflicts over technology, China wants to be seen as standing up to what it calls US aggression. A celebration of resisting a standoff with the Americans which took place in the 1950s when China was much more insufficient helps shore up the anti-US sentiment and a fighting spirit among the Chinese public amid discussion of a “new Cold War.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent floral baskets to a cemetery for Chinese soldiers killed in the war, where participants at a ritual to mark the anniversary “paid silent tribute to the martyrs of the Chinese People’s Volunteers,” the state’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.
In October 1950, Chinese troops crossed the border into North Korea at the Yalu River to fight the US-led UN forces. Beijing says just under 200,000 Chinese died in the Korean War, while some US estimates have put that figure at 900,000. Since the conflict ended with an armistice agreement and not a peace treaty, the Chinese People’s Volunteers who fought on behalf of North Korea are still technically at war with U.S.-led UN forces who fought on behalf of South Korea. Chinese forces, poorly armed and equipped at the time, would often attack in overwhelming numbers, occasionally causing American machine guns to overheat and break down. That strategy led to enormous casualties on the Chinese side, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Halberstam wrote in his book about the Korean War titled “The Coldest Winter.”
Perceptiveness around the war is running high in China, where earlier this month millions of people took to social media to criticize South Korean K-Pop music group BTS member Kim Nam-Joon, known by his stage name RM, for ignoring to talk about China’s role when he cited the Korean War at an awards ceremony in New York. Another message widely promoted on Chinese social media underlined the death toll, saying: “197,653 the number of martyrs who died in the Korean War. We’ve never forgotten. Please remember this number!”
The Battle of Triangle Hill a drawn-out clash during the war has been invoked in China’s modern-day tech fight with the US, used to represent its perseverance to make technological breakthroughs after the US hit Huawei Technologies Co. with regulatory restrictions. One film set for an Oct. 23 release touches on China’s assistance in the war and is called “The Sacrifice.” State broadcaster CCTV and local television channels have been airing a six-part documentary about the Korean clash. There’s even an animated sequel about heroes of the war aimed at Chinese teenagers.
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