Korean War 36: Ordering Chinese

Our biggest episode yet!

Episode 36: Ordering Chinese picks up from the last episode, this time from the perspective of the Chinese, as in late September they were clearly faced with something of a quandary. Stalin was ramping up his campaign to urge the Chinese to intervene, and in response, the Chinese claimed that since Kim Il-sung had yet to ask for help, Beijing could not give it. Stalin thus set to work engineering his plan into motion, and ensuring that the North Koreans would indeed ask for help. It was only to be expected that as the military situation worsened for Pyongyang in light of the Inchon landings, that Kim would see sense and appeal to the communist comrade in Beijing. Indeed, it was likely that he would have no choice but to do otherwise, thanks to the Soviet unwillingness to aid the NKPA in its time of need.

In case Soviet involvement in the war was discovered by the West, Stalin insisted, the Soviets would have to pull the plug of support for the Northern Army. These threats were delivered solely to produce the policy outcome that Stalin wanted, and in the first two weeks of October, we’ll see how, after some hesitation and preparations, Mao Zedong determines that the time had come to intervene. With a resolution approving the crossing of the 38th parallel on 7th October, it was clearly necessary to fight back and prepare for the conflict which Mao had once feared, then tacitly accepted, and now actively planned for. The next phase of the conflict began to whir into life, just as MacArthur believed that his greatest triumph was in the works.

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Music used:

“Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts”, Al Jolson, available: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Al_Jolson/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_03242015/Sister_Susies_Sewing_Shirts_for_Soldiers_-_Al_Jolson

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