War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK

The war waged by the Chinese People's Volunteer Army to assist the Korean people against the U.S. imperialist aggression and to defend China's security. It was one of the three major campaigns in the early years of the founding of New China, along with the land reform and the suppression of counterrevolutionaries.

On June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out. On the 27th, the United States announced its armed assistance to South Korea, and thus interfered in the internal affairs of Korea, moreover, sent the Seventh Fleet of the Navy into the Taiwan Strait, blatantly interfering in the internal affairs of China. The United States then manipulated the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution to cloak the U.S. policy targeting Korea. With the U.S. manipulated resolution, the aggressive armies of other countries were arranged under the "United Nations Command" and appointed MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the U.S. forces in the Far East, as the commander-in-chief of the "United Nations Command" to further expand the war of aggression against Korea.

From August 27, the U.S. aircrafts began to intrude into Chinese airspace, conducted reconnaissance and bombed and strafed targets in China, causing property damage, casualties, and injuries. On September 15, 1950, the U.S. troops landed at Incheon on the west coast of the Southern Korean peninsula, and on October 7, the troops crossed the 38° north parallel (hereinafter referred to as the "38th parallel") and made a major advance into Northern Korea, rapidly advancing toward the Korean Chinese border.

At the request of the DPRK government and Kim Il-sung, the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong made an important decision to "resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea and defend the country" by forming the Chinese People's Volunteer Army and appointed Peng Dehuai as its commander and political commissar to “march speedily to Korea and join the Korean comrades in fighting the aggressors and winning a glorious victory.”

On October 19, 1950, the first batch of volunteer troops from Chine entered the DPRK territory to fight against the aggressors side by side with the Korean People's Army. On October 25, the volunteer army launched its first battle after entering the DPRK, opening the curtain of the great war against the United States and supporting the DPRK.

This day was later named as the "Day of Commemoration of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army's Resistance to U.S. aggression and Aid Korea". The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK was divided into two stages. From October 25, 1950 to June 10, 1951, it was the first phase of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK. At this stage, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army and the Korean People's Army adopted a strategy of combining mobile warfare with some positional warfare and guerrilla warfare. They conducted five battles in a row, wiping out more than 230,000 enemies and stabilizing the front near the 38th parallel. At the same time, the Party and the government launched a massive nationwide movement to resist U.S. aggression and aid the DPRK. People at all levels across the country enthusiastically joined the army and the war, donated aircraft and artillery, signed patriotic conventions, launching campaigns to increase production and save money, which effectively supported the front.

From June 11, 1951, to July 27, 1953, it was the second phase of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK. At this stage, the Chinese and Korean people's armies implemented the strategic principle of "protracted warfare and active defense" and took positional warfare as the main form to carry out protracted active defensive warfare. In a period of more than two years, more than 710,000 enemies were killed, wounded, and captured. The U.S. signed the Korean Armistice Agreement with the Chinese and Korean representatives in Panmunjom on July 27, 1953, after the situation became even worse. The Korean War, which lasted 3 years and 32 days, ended. Clark, who was then commander-in-chief of the UN Forces, later wrote in his memoirs in dismay: "I earned the unenviable reputation of being the first commander in the U.S. history to sign an armistice that was not won.” The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK was a comprehensive military, political, economic, and diplomatic contest between New China and the United States as the main rivals of each other’s. It was a continuation of the Chinese people's long war against the U.S. imperialism under the historical conditions of the founding of New China. The American invaders used all the modern weapons of the time except the atomic bomb, but the war ended with the victory of the Chinese and Korean armies and people. This fact exposed the myth of the invincibility of the American imperialism and taught the United States a serious lesson. As Peng Dehuai pointed out in his “Report on the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK”: “Long gone are the days when the Western invaders could occupy a country if only they could shoot a couple of cannons on the oriental sea”.

The victory in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK greatly enhanced the prestige of the Communist Party in the eyes of the whole country; it raised the national self-confidence and national pride of the Chinese people and made a part of the people who once had fears and illusions about the U.S. imperialism deeply educated and awakened. The victory in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid the DPRK showed that the people's war idea of defeating the strong with the weak, which was developed during the long revolutionary war years in the past by the CPC and the People's Liberation Army under its leadership, was still applicable to modern warfare; the victory resisted the momentum of U.S. aggression and expansion, maintained the peace in Asia and the world, increased the international prestige of New China as never before, and created favorable external conditions for the construction of New China.