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43 chapter three Negotiating while Fighting The Korean Armistice Talks, 1951–53 The Korean armistice negotiations, conducted between U.S. military of¤cers representing the UN Command and Chinese and North Korean military personnel, went from 10 July 1951 to 27 July 1953, lasting more than two years. It took altogether 575 meetings before an agreement was reached. During this period ,groundactionscontinued,althoughmorelimitedinscalethaninthe¤rstyear of the con¶ict, except for U.S./UN bombing entering its most destructive phase. About 45 percent of American casualties occurred in these two years,1 and the Chinese , North Korean, and South Korean forces suffered massive losses as well. Negotiatingpeacewhile¤ghtingawarentailstheuseoftwodifferentstrategies —diplomatic and military—to pursue the same set of objectives. Diplomacy at the negotiating table is intended to “fool” the enemy into accepting what you could not get at the battleground, while military action is designed to coerce the enemy to give in to your objectives at the negotiating table. How did the ¤ghting affect the talking? How did negotiation affect military action? More importantly , how did the Chinese-American encounters at the negotiating table and in the battle¤eld shape the general adversarial relationship between the two? How did the armistice negotiations affect subsequent U.S.-China relations? I On 25 June 1950, the afternoon of the North Korean attack, the UN Security Council met in response to a U.S. request and passed a resolution. It called for 44 negotiating with the enemy “the immediate cessation of hostilities” and “the authorities in North Korea to withdraw forthwith their armed forces to the 38th parallel.”2 The UN Security Council Resolution of June 27 asked UN members to give assistance to South Korea in order “to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.”3 While supportive of the initial intervention in Korea , America’s European allies were keenly aware of its dangers. In a positive sense, it could provide a spark to strengthen the West and deter future Soviet adventurism. But it could also divert U.S. attention and resources from NATO, and the Soviets might move against a highly vulnerable Western Europe. The ¤ghting in Korea could serve as a substitute for World War III, but regional war could easily set off a global con¶ict. In the latter case, no matter what the eventual outcome was, Europe would be in shambles. While Washington sought to make Korea an affair of the UN, thereby making that relatively new organization a source of international legitimacy, America’s allies attempted to use the organization as an instrument to contain U.S. action. The outbreak of the Korean War changed the Truman administration’s overall strategic thinking on the Cold War. China’s entry into the war posed a “major threat” to U.S. strategic interests in East Asia and disrupted Washington’s effort to search for a working relation with the PRC. Although Europe remained the “vital” interest, Washington could not afford to take China lightly any more. Truman’s decision to intervene in Korea and to send the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait in order to prevent an attack on and from Taiwan was an obvious reverse to the policy that Secretary of State Dean Acheson had announced in January at the National Press Club on the American defense “perimeter ” in Asia, which excluded Korea and Taiwan.4 The Truman administration now redoubled its effort to contain Communism around the world and was determined to be “tough” with the Chinese Communists as Washington now regarded Beijing as the “trouble-maker” and agent of Soviet expansionism.5 The PRC leaders were very much concerned about the outbreak of war in Korea as the Korean crisis presented potential threats to China’s physical security and created tremendous internal pressures on Mao and the CCP leadership as the rulers of New China. The PRC leadership were especially concerned over the U.S. decision to send the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait area. In their view, the crisis was much broader than the Korean con¶ict itself; its settlement should include such issues as the Taiwan question and the PRC’s seat at the UN.6 Within this context, on 12 July, Zhou Enlai, Chinese premier and foreign minister, personally drafted ¤ve conditions for a “peaceful settlement” of the Korean crisis, including (1) all foreign troops withdraw from Korea; (2) U.S. military forces withdraw from the Taiwan Strait; (3) the Korean issue should be solved by...

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