(L) Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army's Honor Guard Battalion march outside the Forbidden City, near Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, China, on May 20, 2020. (R) The U.S. Capitol building is seen on a cold and sunny winter day in Washington on Dec. 29, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images, Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images)
Americans and many others have rightly been wary of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) intentions for many decades. Chinese communism and Western-style liberal democracy mix together about as well as oil and water do.
Most observers realize that over the past 100 years, the CCP had made it clear that it intends to become the global leader in all human endeavors at the expense of other nations and the world’s people.
Mao Zedong’s CCP was originally focused inward on gaining complete control over China’s government, people, culture, commerce, and thought. At what point did the CCP’s animosity toward America begin? Let us take a look at history.
Introduction
American relations were initiated with Mao’s communist group in 1944 when the U.S. Army Observation Group established a liaison with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at the communist base camp at Yan’an. Beginning in the 1930s, the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) army and Mao’s PLA have maintained an uneasy peace while fighting the Japanese invaders through the end of World War II in 1945. Most of the U.S. logistic support provided to China during the war was given to the KMT, although some aid was provided to Mao’s forces.
After the war ended, a coalition government could not be formed, and a struggle began to consolidate the three geopolitical areas of China that then existed: Kuomintang-controlled southern China; CCP-controlled Shaanxi Province in central China; and Manchuria (northeast China), which had been occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army as a “protectorate” (Manchukuo).
The Era of the PRC Begins
Following four years of warfare, the Chinese communists (Chicoms) under Mao eventually prevailed in the Chinese civil war, and the nationalists (KMT) under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Taiwan (those who could, that is).
Mao declared the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Oct. 1, 1949. At that point, the Truman administration nearly abandoned the nationalists and considered allowing the communists to take over Taiwan while recognizing the PRC until Mao announced that he would align with the Soviet Union. And so began a period in which U.S.-China relations were effectively frozen until 1971, with an actual hot war being fought between the two countries in Korea in the early 1950s.
Korean War Hostilities and Aftermath
On June 25, 1950, over 75,000 North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel and pushed the combined U.S./Republic of Korea (ROK) forces southward to the so-called “Pusan perimeter” before a successful counterattack could be mounted via a surprise amphibious landing at the coastal city of Incheon in northwestern South Korea.
The Incheon landing, north of Seoul, cut the North Korean supply lines. The U.S. and U.N. troops, and remnants of the ROK army pushed the North Koreans to the far north of Korea along the Yalu River, which formed the natural border between North Korea and communist China.
At that point, over 200,000 Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River into North Korea in November 1950 to “save” their North Korean client state. A phenomenal documentary that covered the Chinese invasion of North Korea that was centered around the battle for Chosin Reservoir can be found in this link. The conditions were terrible for both sides: winter weather, including heavy snow, with temperatures dropping nightly to minus-30 degrees Fahrenheit in the bleak hill country in the north-central Korean peninsula. The black and white footage and commentary by U.S. Marines—who fought in the retreat across the frozen reservoir and southward from the temporary Marine headquarters at Hagaru-ri to the coast for evacuation by sea—are riveting to watch.
A column of troops and armor of the 1st Marine Division move through communist Chinese lines during their successful breakout from the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea during the Korean War. (Cpl. Peter McDonald/U.S. Marine Corps)
According to official U.S. Army history, “United Nations forces suffered over 559,000 casualties during the war, including approximately 94,000 dead.” According to estimates from Korean War Online (which reported PLA numbers), about 180,000 Chinese were killed, although other estimates placed the Chinese death toll at over 500,000.
It could well be argued that CCP animosity toward America began in earnest when Mao ordered those 200,000 Chinese soldiers—whom he called the “Chinese People’s Volunteers” for geopolitical reasons—to cross the Yalu River in October 1950. It could also be argued that the Chinese plan for world domination began in earnest after the Korean War as an act of revenge for the losses suffered during the war, as much as anything.
The CCP has focused on the United States as its “main enemy” from that point onward. Mao executed a series of pogroms and social campaigns intended to consolidate the CCP’s power on the mainland in preparation for political-military-economic initiatives aimed at elevating communist China to world leadership roles. The economic reforms of the “Great Leap Forward” from 1958 to 1962 failed miserably, as “communist economics” is ultimately an oxymoron.
However, the CCP’s political control was consolidated throughout the country, giving the Politburo Standing Committee respite to devise its plan to replace the United States as the world’s sole superpower in every sense.
The Vietnam Era and Aftermath
During the Vietnam War, the CCP’s plan included the use of proxies to diminish the United States politically and militarily, including the North Vietnamese, North Korea, and the “Non-Aligned Movement.” Even the U.N. was exploited to advance the CCP’s political objectives. The Chicoms gave material aid to North Vietnam and North Korea, and exerted diplomatic pressure via the U.N. and the Non-Aligned Movement (the latter were pressured by Chinese “foreign aid contributions”). In 1964, China joined the nuclear club by testing its first nuclear device.
Mao’s last major forced reform, the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” from 1966 to 1776, was actually a fortuitous event for the United States, as it distracted the CCP from U.S. actions in nearby Vietnam. But the campaign was disastrous for the CCP and the Chinese people as millions were killed, tortured, imprisoned, and left destitute, causing many to lose faith in the regime.
In 1971, Mao made an important decision to open China to the West in order to gain access to Western technology and direct investment. President Richard Nixon made a state visit to China in 1972 to formally acknowledge this major change in U.S.-China policy.
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai welcomes U.S. President Richard Nixon during his official visit to Beijing, China, on Feb. 21, 1972. (AFP/Getty Images)
After Mao died in 1976, the United States and the U.N. (backed by multilateral corporations) accelerated the push to open and modernize China under the leadership of a succession of “moderate” CCP leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, the principal PRC policymaker from 1978 to 1989. The PRC was eventually even brought into World Trade Organization in December 2001 as a crowning achievement of those in the West who support engagement with China.
Modernizing China included the implementation of “free trade” policies and the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing facilities to mainland China. The policies were purposeful and executed by multinational corporations with the assistance of key members of the U.S. political class.
The result was startling, as described in a piece by ThoughtCo in which the results of the “open door policy” was examined: “Between 1978 and 1989, China rose from 32nd to 13th in the world in export volume, roughly doubling its overall world trade. By 2010, the World Trade Organization (WTO) reported that China had a 10.4% share of the world market, with merchandise export sales of more than $1.5 trillion, the highest in the world.”
And engagement with communist China has remained a U.S. policy ever since, with a brief four-year hiatus during the Trump presidency, to the collective detriment of the United States and the world. China is now the number two economy in the world and regularly flexes its economic muscles to put pressure on targeted countries to achieve the CCP’s geopolitical goals. In parallel, the CCP has increased aggression toward its neighbors and belligerence as a diplomatic policy toward the rest of the world, especially the United States.
Conclusion
It is contended that the CCP’s animosity toward the United States and the West was especially exacerbated by the Korean War. After the disastrous results of the Cultural Revolution, this general animosity toward the West was submerged in the interests of leveraging Western know-how and foreign direct investment to jump-start China’s moribund economy. And the CCP happy faces have paid off handsomely for the communists since then!
It should be noted that the economic rise of China was made possible by foreign investment, not indigenous development and growth, as the Chinese economy was virtually stagnant from the 1950s through the early 1970s. Regardless, the CCP’s animosity toward the United States and the West continues unabated and is seeping out into the public domain with each passing day for all the world to see.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Stu Cvrk retired as a captain after serving 30 years in the U.S. Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. Through education and experience as an oceanographer and systems analyst, Cvrk is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he received a classical liberal education that serves as the key foundation for his political commentary.
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