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In the 1950s, the flames of war on the Korean Peninsula marked China’s final trial in the era of transition from cold to hot weapons.

War broke out in June 1950. The Korean People’s Army marched southward and once pushed the South Korean forces back into a small enclave around Busan. The tide of the war shifted sharply after the Incheon Landing. The combined forces of fourteen countries advanced far north, their spearhead reaching the banks of the Yalu River. Faced with this peril, the Chinese People’s Volunteers crossed the Yalu River and headed for the distant battlefield.

Lacking air superiority and heavy armor, their supply lines were perpetually exposed to the air forces of the United Nations Command. Relying on tactics of flanking manoeuvres, close-quarters combat and night fighting, the officers and soldiers of the Chinese People’s Volunteers concentrated superior forces on local battlefields, repelling enemy assaults time and again. Through the five major campaigns, the frontline shifted back and forth. After the war settled into a stalemate of positional warfare, tunnel fortifications served as their shield while artillery fire grew steadily stronger; they pressed for progress at the negotiating table through combat.

On the eve of the armistice, the combined Chinese and Korean forces reached their peak strength of roughly 1.8 million troops on the battlefield. A total of three million Chinese People’s Volunteers took part in the war. The United Nations Command and South Korean forces together numbered around 1.2 million, among whom about 300,000 were U.S. troops.

Sustained attrition fuelled mounting anti-war sentiment among the American public. Although Seoul was recaptured in the end, the United States could no longer commit sufficient ground troops. The Chinese People’s Volunteers suffered even heavier losses. The shackles of logistical hardship had dogged them from the very beginning of their entry into Korea. Under constant aerial blockades by the United Nations Command, roads and bridges were repeatedly bombed, making transportation extremely difficult. The famous “one-week offensive” was constrained by supply limits: once a unit completed an offensive thrust, it lacked the supplies to pursue and exploit its gains.

This was no mere contest of troop numbers. It stood as the conclusion to a century of conflict between China and the West.

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