Hello Everyone,<br><br>The aim of foreign policy is to promote national
interest, but one nation's
interests should not violate other nations' territorial sovereignty,
among others. However that was not the case specially with the British
during the Korean War.<br><br>During the War, the Commonwealth Brigade (Britain, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand) fought as a part of the U.S. lead U.N.
Forces. Their participation lead to the belief that "We can bring U.S.
power into play [in Korea] only with the cooperation of the British." as
the U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson said. <br>
<br>Thus Britain was an equal partner with the U.S. on Korean War
polices, but sometimes they acted extremely selfishly, in order to serve
their own interest. Here, in order to persuade Communist China not to
jump into Korea, the British proposed to "<b>give the Communists a slice
of North Korea"</b>, south of Yalu.<br>
<br>(At this writing I only had American source material. There should
more information in Britain and hopefully in China, and in Russia too,
thanks to the Cambridge Spies Donald Mclean, Kim Philby and Guy
Burgess.) <br><br>During the Korean
War, the British took a diplomatic position, rather than an ideological
one, to protect it's commercial interests. Britain officially
recognized Communist China as a sovereign nation but fought the
Red Army at the same time. By playing both sides, by offering up a
buffer zone to the Chinese, served British interests but was
diametrically the opposite position of the United Nations.<br><br>Indignant MacArthur's reaction was swift and persuasive:<br><br>"At
about this time (October 1950), the British Labour government (under
Clement Attlee) suggested a strange solution to the problem of combating
Red Chinese intervention - <b>give the Communists a slice of North Korea to serve as a "buffer" area as evidence of the United Nations' good intentions."</b><br><br>* "In protesting (to the U.S. State Department) the
short-sightedness of the British proposal, I compared it with the ceding
of the Sudetenland to Germany in 1938.
Besides violating the spirit of the United Nations decision of June 25,
this so called "buffer" would be a signal to further aggression on the
part of the Chinese, and perhaps most important, would bankrupt our
political, military, and psychological position in the Far East." <br><br>** "In
the face of such foolhardy advice, and growing indications that the
U.S. State Department might heed this advice, MacArthur made another
effort to warn Washington of the disastrous course ahead. MacArthur said
'The widely reported British desire to appease the Chinese Communist by
giving them a strip of Northern Korea finds a most recent precedent in
the action taken at Munich on September 29th, 1938 by Great Britain,
France and Italy, wherein the Sudetenland, the strategically important
Bohemian mountain bastion, was ceded to Germany without the
participation of Czechoslovakia and indeed against the protest of that
government. Within ten months, following acquisition
of that vital strategic bastion, Germany had seized the resulting
impotent Czechoslovakia, declaring it had ceased to exist as a sovereign
state and that the Reich forces would thereafter preserve order.' - - -
'It would be a tribute to aggression to encourage that very
international lawlessness which is the fundamental duty of the United
Nations to curb.' - - - MacArthur couched this warning in the strongest
terms: ' To give up a portion of North Korea to the aggressions of the
Chinese Communists would be the the greatest defeat of the free world in
recent times.' - - - 'Such an abandonment of principal would entirely
reverse the tremendous moral and psychological uplift throughout Asia
and perhaps the entire free world, which accompanied the United Nations
decision of June 25th, and leave in its place the revulsion against the
organization bordering on complete disillusionment and distrust."<br><br>Secretary
of State Acheson also rejected British
ideas of a broad buffer zone south of Yalu, which he thought would be
worthless if, as he properly suspected,*** " Mao was fighting for a strategic
victory." He rejected the British ideas not on moral ground but because Mao wanted whole Korea not a piece of North Korea.<br><br>Footnote -
****The British also considered a cease-fire with China by offering "a seat
in the U.N.". Only way to do this was by expelling their World War ll alley Nationalist China(Formosa) from the U.N.<br><br>Sources;<br>* <i>Reminiscences</i>, pages 370-371,
Douglas MacArthur, 1964<br>** <i> MacArthur: His Rendezvous
with History</i>, pages 411-412, <br> Major General Courtney Whitney
(MacArthur's Aide), 1956<br>*** <i> Dean Acheson: A Life in the
Cold War</i>, page 409 <br> RobertL.Beisner, 2006<br>**** <i>The
Cambridge Spies</i>, page 298, by Verne W. Newton, 1991<br><br>I welcome your comments.<br><br>Regards,<br><font color="#888888"><br>Kwang-On Yoo</font>