Motive for intervention in the Korean War

[bhchao]

Woodcutter, of course Mao did not go to war in Korea solely for the purpose of getting rid of a few KMT soldiers. Obviously there were bigger reasons. PRC was just a year old when UN forces were advancing rapidly towards the Yalu River border. Mao probably feared a unified, democratic Korea (with American support) right at its borders. Certainly Mao was not going to let his communist brothers in the North fall to the "American-led imperialists" who were on the verge of unifying North and South under a "capitalist" banner.

Getting rid of former KMT soldiers was just a means in making ends meet.

Song soldiers were not the only foreign contingent in Kublai Khan's armada. There were also Korean soldiers on those boats before the kamikazes came.

[39degN]

Mao Zedong was obsessed with history

Yeah, couldnt agree more, Mao is a person who lives in history/fiction himself throughout his whole life. He's obviously not a realist. Sadly his Romance based on mountain of human bodies.

[39degN]

By the way, Mongols never needed any excuse to fight anybody, and I agree that the case is similar ie. getting rid of Song soldiers was hardly the issue!

Yeah, that's the case! He even wrote such a poem read as "久有凌云志,重上井岗山" blah..when he temporarily lost his position in CCP at his 70s, (or 80s, not so sure), he's born fighter. This kind of persons are always scary... think about H__ler~~

[Ian_Lee]

Would Mao's participation in the Korean War have anything to do with the activities of Gao Gang (高岗) in Manchuria?

The purge of Gao Gang was the first political movement within CCP after establishment of PRC in '49. Gao was known to be the CCP overlord in Manchuria and was alleged to propose to Stalin in 1949 to join USSR as the 17th Soviet Republic.

And Gao was purged in February 1954 which was right after the Korean War came to a stalemate.

Would the participation in Korean War actually be a move against USSR instead of US?

[woodcutter]

I'm more open to that kind of argument, because this was a period where Mao was trying to put the borders of China back where they used to be. If he really felt deeply threatened by Gao Gang and his Soviet buddies, then I'm sure he would have used a chance to assert control in Manchuria.

Again though, the consequences of war are not very forseeable. A reassertion of Maoist control in Manchuria would not necessarily be the outcome of a move into Korea.