China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War

As a student of history, as opposed to being a historian, I found this book to be a valuable addition to a series that would include such other works from the period after WWII as "This Kind of War" by T.R. Fahrenbach and "The Coldest Winter" by David Halberstam.No one book can capture all of the viewpoints from that period of time, and such would be the case with "China Crosses the Yalu" by Whiting, so one should not expect it to be source of all answers as to Chinese thinking at that time, but it gives much valuable insight in to the economy of China circa 1949, and how well organized the Communists were in terms of getting a government up and functioning in a war-ravaged nation without industrialization outside of Northeast China.My copy is bristling with post-it notes, one specifically at p.166, for the subject "Political Aftermath," where Whiting writes, "One major political consequence of Peking's entry into the Korean War was the undisputed establishment of 'new China' as a force to be reckoned with in Asia."Regardless of why China went into Korea, and much of that will likely never be known, since what Mao and Stalin and Kim of Korea talked about is unknown, the result is that the Chinese Communist forces earned the respect of the Americans at least, who fought them on the ground in Korea, and history was changed, as a result.I read the book because Averill Harriman read the book when he was with the Kennedy administration and Viet Nam was brewing.According to David Halberstam, after Averill Harriman read the book, he personally discussed it with Whiting, which then caused me to read the book for background, as to how it might have influenced the thinking of Harriman concerning Viet Nam.And Whiting shows up in Halberstam's "The Best and The Brightest" during the LBJ period as a man who had been sidelined because he was a sceptic, which gives his work some historical significance to a student of the Viet Nam war period.What I found valuable about the book were the footnotes, such as this:Tsai Ying-p'ing, "The Road to Final Victory," People's China, Vol. I, No. 4, Feb. 16, 1950, p.27, offers estimates of the total amount (provided by United States) captured (by Communists from Chiang Kai Shek) in the (Chinese) civil war, without indicating condition of equipment or its subsequent disposition in combat (in Korea).This includes 52,051 pieces of artillery; 297,740 machine guns; 2,612,126 small arms; 598 tanks; 378 armored vehicles; 492,799,000 rounds of ammunition; and 5,183,390 shells.end quotesAnd the thoughts of Chairman Mao, such as this:Mao had earlier defended "leaning to one side" in the following terms: "At present (circa 1949) the rulers in Britain and the United States are still imperialists.""Would they extend aid to a people's state?""Suppose these countries would be willing in the future to lend us money on terms of mutual benefit, what would be the reason for it?""It would be because the capitalists of these countries want to make money and the bankers want to earn interest to relieve their own crisis; that would be no aid to the Chinese people"; Mao Tse-tung, "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship (July 1, 1949), in Conrad Brandt et al., A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, pp. 455-456.end quotesAll in all, I found it to be a valuable addition to my collection.

Very good

In 1960, 7 years after the armistice that ended the shooting conflict, Alan Whiting wrote a detailed analysis of China's entry into the Korean War. Based on US documents, and primarily Chinese news accounts, he concluded that US actions provoked China to worry about its security and China was only protecting its interests.But recent works, based on Chinese sources, such as "Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War", 1950-1953 (Modern War Studies) by Shu Guang Zhang and "China's Road to the Korean War: by Chen Jian, offer a totally different perspective. They both conclude that Mao wanted war with the US. Mao desired to continue the revolution, to consolidate his control over China and his belief that China deserved to be a major world power. He fervently believed that overwhelming numbers will beat a technologically superior but politically "weak" power.Whiting concluded correctly based on the research information available in 1960. Unfortunately, the information was incomplete and his conclusion was dangerously flawed.In the 1970's this text was the foundation of most history courses. It supported a general anti-US trend in academics. His conclusions are still quoted in the popular press.One advantage of living long enough is sometimes, the truth comes out. Often too late, but still interesting.