Roughstuff's Korean War Archive
book reviews and summaries, comments, analysis
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Hoyt, Edwin P. The Day the Chinese Attacked
DS 919.5 H68 1993

This is a powerful text who's central premise is very clear. Chinese paranoia about America's intentions in Asia-- sewn by our support of Chiang kai Shek and aggravated by MacArthurs blustery war rhetoric-- led to their intervention in Korea as UN forces crossed the 38th parallel. This premise is intriguing, perhaps accurate; but never wholly convincing. It is important for the reader to finish this book completely before jumping to conclusions abou the authors' perspective and prejudices. [Even then, it takes time to digest the complexities of foreign affairs. I may completely do this review in a few weeks after I have thought about this book more.]

In any case, one of the authors prejudices is common to intellectuals and academicians of the post WWII era. It can be summed up as follows.


American foreign policy sucks. In the name of anticommunism we support corrupt, venal, wealth sucking local despots instead of the communists. The latter are just misguided land reformers and idealists. In contrast, look at our support of the Diems; the Shah; Chiang kai Shek; Allende....ad nauseum

This is true but i have two comments. First, Hoyt forgets to look in the mirror at his communists. If he did he might see corrupt, venal, and wealth squandering despots as Castro, Kim il Sung, Caucescu, or Erik Honicker. To say nothing of Stalin and Mao. Heck, even the Beatles had enough foreign policy insight to see both sides of the coin.
Second, historians waste a lot of ink on our obsession with Moscow as the central head of world communism. America did decide--and it often bullied its allies into compliance-- that communism was the major threat to wrold peace and economic stability in the post war ear. What the big deal? If it is/was not a correct position, it is/was a plausible one. Who really cares who was directing it? A communist is a communist is a communist. Distill away the fluff and the regional spin, and all you have is a person hell bent on distributing your wealth from the point of his gun. The fervent hope of those "Present at the Creation," as Acheson would later say it, was that, if the western industrial democracies held firmly long enough, communism would collapse under the weight of its own stupidity. It did. The dominoes started falling (in reverse order) faster than anyone could have imagined, once they began to fall in the end of the last decade. Americans and the West do not need to hang their heads with shame about their communist obsession. Communism was a sick joke, hiding behind industrial reform in Russia and agrarian reform in the 3rd world. We have every right to be smug--not arrogant, but smug-- at having the last laugh.

But...but...but, like I said, don't jump to conclusions about this book. Hoyt would laugh, too. But please, he would add, don't let McCarthyism lead to the purges of qualified personnel from the State department. Guys like John Service or John Davies are invaluable when you want an answer to the question "will the Chinese intervene if we cross the 38th parallel?" Even so, the US was warned repeatedly by the Indian ambassador about Chinese concerns; we ignored them. Perhaps we would have ignored these two guys, also.
I might add a separate issue that the author never addresses, and which infuriates me about this text and others similar to it. North Korea invaded the South--plain, simple enough. Just what sort of insane logic suggests that the totality of our military response should be MERELY to push the aggressors back to the original border? (If a rapist breaks into your wife's apartment, is it sufficient to merely push him back out the door?) I argue elsewhere on this site that the UN forces rush to the Yalu was a fololish move for military purposes: the winter, the mountains, the logistics were all against UN forces. But it certainly was well within the prerogative of UN/ROK forces to respond in such a way as to destroy North Korea's ability to invade the South again, for some indefinite period. If the Chinese objected to that, well, thats too damn bad.

Face it. The Korean war occurred because Acheson's 'sphere of influence' speech suggested to the Communists (wherever they were) that invading the south would have no consequences. It almost didn't! After that, American and Chinese generals traded periods of arrogance and comeuppance. In the meantime, a whole bunch of people died.

Withdrawal of US forces from Northeast Asia is still a Chinese foreign policy goal. Ironically, the unification of the Korean Peninsula may hand the Chinese just the trump card they need to get that process started, as I discuss in my article Korean Unification and Northeast Asian Stability.



Now that you have read the review...