PRC Policy and Its Change for Intervention in the initial Korean War

The argument that the American army’s crossing of the 38th parallel compelled China’s intervention has been widely accepted in the West. From the early 1980s, however, Chinese scholars began to argue that Mao Zedong, believing that a Sino-American military confrontation was unavoidable, prepared proactively to send troops to Korea since the war broken out.BR Recent documents showed that Mao Zedong had a passive attitude toward intervention before the Korean War. However, the U.S move severely aggravated the political and ideological foundations of the CCP regime, therefore, Mao Zedong wished to send troops to assist North Korean’s quick victory but not realized because of Stalin’s negative attitude.BR However, after the landing of UN forces at Inchon, Mao switched to a peaceful solution through negotiations with the UN or “bluffing,” aiming at preventing American forces from crossing the 38th parallel.

The Chinese attitude shows that Mao’s overriding concern was not whether U.S. forces crossed the 38th parallel, but whether their dispatch helped to solidify the CCP regime and whether the preconditions for victory existed.