[KS] Attempts to appease Communist China by the British during the Korean War

[Kwang On Yoo]

Hello Everyone,

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.

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.

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 "*give the Communists a slice of North Korea"*,
south of Yalu.

(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.)

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.

Indignant  MacArthur's reaction was swift and persuasive:

"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 - *give the Communists a slice of North Korea to serve
as a "buffer" area as evidence of the United Nations' good intentions."*

* "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."

** "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."

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.

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.

Sources;
*          *Reminiscences*, pages 370-371, Douglas MacArthur, 1964
**     *    MacArthur: His Rendezvous with History*, pages 411-412,
            Major General Courtney Whitney (MacArthur's Aide), 1956
***   *    Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War*, page 409
            RobertL.Beisner,   2006
****     *The Cambridge Spies*, page 298, by Verne W. Newton, 1991

I welcome your comments.

Regards,

Kwang-On Yoo
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