On Friday, October 23, Xi Jinping spoke at a meeting commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Korean War [Editor’s note: The CCP calls the Korean War the war in which China resisted U.S. aggression and aided Korea (抗美援朝)]. Xi warned that “any bullying actions will come to a dead end.” He advised that if China’s national security, sovereignty, territory, and development interests are threatened, China will “take it head-on.” This is seen as the strongest political statement that the CCP has made in the past 40 years. Chinese Scholars believe that stabilizing internal affairs still remains as Xi Jinping’s first priority.
In his speech, Xi Jinping said that the Korean War shattered the myth of the invincibility of the U.S. military and demonstrated with solid facts that, no matter how powerful any country or military is, if one stands on the opposite side of the world’s development trend, bullies the weak and aggressively expands, one will definitely be crushed. He also said, “In today’s world, any unilateralism, protectionism, and extreme egoism will not work. Any extortion, blockade, or extreme pressure will not work. Any way of doing things on their own and acting on their own will not work. Any act of hegemony or bullying will never work at all. Not only will it not work at all, it will eventually be a dead end.” It is believed that Xi was referring to the U.S. in his speech. Xi Jinping also said, “Now that the Chinese people are mobilized, don’t provoke them or make them angry. Otherwise the situation will be difficult to handle. We will never stand by and watch the country’s sovereignty, security, and development interests suffer, and we will never allow anyone or any forces to invade and split the sacred territory of the motherland. Once such a serious situation occurs, the Chinese people will definitely attack it head-on.”
A former lecturer from Tsinghua University told Radio Free Asia that Xi gave the strongest speech in the past 40 years, but the fact that Beijing remains confrontational with a sense of uncertainty, just as it did during the Korean War, shows that it still lacks a reflection on history. It is dangerous for Beijing constantly to incite nationalism, xenophobia and confrontation among the Chinese people and to exaggerate the possibility that China could be on the edge of a war in the future. One dissident said that China didn’t win the Korean War. In fact, it paid a costly price and suffered a disastrous defeat. One scholar said that Xi Jinping wants to win a war with the U.S. to establish himself in China, but other scholars believe that the statement is a complete bluff. It was only for the need to incite populism and nationalism inside China. China is falling behind the U.S. in military power and it is not prepared to go to a war with the U.S.
In June 1950, when the Korean War broke out, the United Nations, led by the United States, sent troops to support South Korea to resist the invasion from North Korean. Starting in October 1950, China sent more than one million soldiers to the war to support the Kim Il Sung regime of North Korea. According to official Chinese statistics, nearly 200,000 soldiers were eventually killed in battle.
Source: Radio Free Asia, October 23, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/zhengzhi/QL-10232020030617.html