The Chinese POW Issue: The Unknown Story

Chang and Halliday end their misinterpretation of Korean War history with a discussion of the Chinese prisoners of war (POWs). In their revision of Korean War history, Chang and Halliday cast Mao as an unsympathetic executioner, eagerly sending scores of Chinese troops to their deaths as a mere war tactic to pull in American forces. According to Chang and Halliday, even after Eisenhower’s threat to use the atomic bomb, “Mao insisted on keeping the Korean War going,”[1] in hopes of extracting more aid and support from Stalin, including the greatly coveted atomic bomb. In order to prolong the war and gain more military assistance from the USSR, Chang and Halliday suggest that Mao deliberately stalled armistice talks on the issue of voluntary POW repatriation.

The 1949 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war states: ‘Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of hostilities.’[2] At the close of the Korean War in 1953, neither the Chinese nor the North Koreans had signed the convention. However, in adhering to the principle of the article, they proposed that all POWs be repatriated without delay. In contrast, it was the US, a signatory to the Geneva Convention, which diverged from the convention’s terms and proposed a voluntary repatriation, arguing that the communist POWs deserved freedom of choice. The US argued that many Chinese prisoners did not want to return to Communist China because they would face possible arrest and persecution. As a result, they implemented a screening process which allowed communist POWs to choose whether they wanted to return to China or be relocated to Taiwan.

Chang and Halliday state that an overwhelming “two thirds of the 21,374 Chinese POWs refused to return to Communist China,”[3] and many who did return to Communist China were subject to persecution by Mao. However, translators with the State Department are recorded as explaining that an honest screening would have likely resulted in 85 percent of Communist POWs wanting to return to Communist China, not the reported 15 percent.[4] The apparent inaccuracy of the screening process was due to the fact that American officials wanted to exploit the propaganda advantages in publicizing the many Communist prisoners who refused repatriation as a demonstration of the illegitimacy of the regimes in Beijing and Pyongyang.[5] The chief US-UN negotiator, Admiral C. Turner Joy, later wrote “It was thought that if any substantial portion of the ex-communist soldiers refused to return to communism, a huge setback to communist subversive activities would ensue.”[6] Furthermore, the political situation in the US also seemed to contribute to the inaccuracy of the POW screening process. According to historians, any attempt to return Chinese anti-Communists would be seized upon by the Republicans as a potent campaign issue in a presidential year. There would have been no better confirmation of McCarthy’s charge that the Democrats were “soft on Communism.”[7]

It is clear that Chang and Halliday’s portrait of the POW repatriation issue is significantly flawed. Interestingly, an earlier book co-written by Halliday, cleverly entitled Korea: The Unknown War, clearly states that American “screening (of Chinese POWs) often meant intimidation and torture.”[8] Quoting Admiral Joy, Halliday’s book explains that “any prisoner wanting to return home was either beaten black and blue or killed… the majority of POWS were too terrified to frankly express their choice.”[9] Halliday even states that “many POWs were forcibly tattooed with anti-communist slogans to make it more difficult for them to choose to return home.”[10] Halliday’s 1988 publication documented the US military’s use of violence and intimidation to forcibly restrain Chinese Communist POWs from returning to Communist China. That his 2005 publication overlooks this key detail is indeed puzzling. Evidence also shows that Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist troops were used in several cases used to supervise CCP POWs. Violence was not a rare occurrence in these camps. According to Halliday’s earlier research, when the United States formally declared its intention not to return all POWs in February of 1952, U.S. troops were even given orders to “shoot-to-kill” and at times used tanks and flamethrowers, killing hundreds of prisoners.[11] Even the international community, most notably the British, began to question America’s stance on the POW issue. For example, London found it difficult to believe that 170,000 POWs could be “individually and reasonably privately” interrogated as suggested by American reports.[12]

Jon Halliday’s dramatic turn from his initial views of 1988 gives rise to a multitude of questions and casts doubt on the views presented in his most recent publication. One of these questions is clearly “Was Halliday more right in 1988 or more right now?” Given the significant amount of evidence that challenges Chang and Halliday’s “superb piece of research” and the credible historical documentation on the Korean War which supports much of Halliday’s earlier research, it is relatively easy to conclude that Halliday’s work in “Mao: The Unknown Story” is not only inaccurate but absurd. The fact that Halliday’s “Korea: The Unknown War” is not listed within the covers of “Mao: The Unknown Story” as one of his published works also suggests that Halliday is fully aware of the grave contradictions posed by his own scholarship, and has made a conscious effort to hide from it.

Stacy Jer

sjer@ucsd.edu

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[1] Jung Chang & Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. P. 375

[2] United Nations. General Assembly. Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva: United Nations, 1950.

[3] Jung Chang & Jon Halliday. 2005. P. 377

[4] Martin Hart-Landsberg. Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998. P. 132

[5] Qiang Zhai. The Dragon, the Lion, and the Eagle: Chinese-British-American Relations, 1949-1958. Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1994. P. 119-120.

[6] Steward Lone and Gavan McCormack. Korea Since 1850. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993. P. 178

[7] Qiang Zhai, 1994. P. 120

[8] Jon Halliday and Bruce Cummings. Korea: The Unknown War. New York: Viking Penguin, 1988. P. 178

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid

[11] Ibid. P. 179

[12] Qiang Zhai, 1994. P. 121