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Personally, I want to keep myself neutral as a Chinese. But I think I can provide some interesting perspective from China, according to the order of timeline. I

Personally, I want to keep myself neutral as a Chinese. But I think I can provide some interesting perspective from China, according to the order of timeline. I'm by no mean historian so errors and non-seriousness are expected, you can think of this as an OverSimplified[0] cartoon on Youtube: 0. China was a 3rd world communist country after WW2. 1. The Korean war broke out, USSR ordered China to strike back to maintain the iron curtain. China also worried about the border so it joined the war. The result of the war is basically a draw, but the border and iron curtain was 'saved'. 2. After the Korean war, China's self-confident increased, and sort of complaining USSR's control. Then these two countries start to hate each other. 3. Vietnam war, China also joined because of the alliance relationship. This time the North won. 4. Meanwhile, Nixon visited China. Since China was one of the promising countries could weaken the iron curtain. 5. 'Reform and Opening' started in China. 6. After the Vietnam war, Vietnam became very powerful. There was quite a risk Vietnam could unify the Indochina. China was in the middle of the USSR and Vietnam. This became embarrassing after China and USSR hated each other, and the USSR was keeping investing in Vietnam. Then there was another war broke out between China and Vietnam. Both of the countries claimed they were self-defending. There was also no winner, but Vietnam seems less dangerous in China's perspective. 7. Japan grows really fast in the 80s. China was just started to grow after the opening policy and found the importance of the economy growing. 8. After that, the US feels threatened, there were some economic sanctions going on. There was an essay 'The Japan That Can Say No' from Sony co-founder. But eventually, it seems Japan said yes for most of the time. 9. The Gulf War. The US almost beat Iraq in no time, and Iraq was actually pretty powerful at that time. According to the rumor, this made the Chinese military pretty shocked. After the Korean and Vietnam war, China was kind of self-overrated and reduced a lot of military margin in order to grow the economy. 10. According to 8 and 9, the US shaped a very powerful image to China, and China also realized it's not wise to like Japan which always be the 'yes man' or omitting the military advancement. So the competing mindset was already formed pretty early. But there was also "闷声发大财" according to the president Jiang at that time, which basically means don't let other people notice you while you are growing fast. Another interesting thing is about cultural defense. Korean TV series and K-pop was very popular in China, but the first Korean TV series was introduced by official TV Channel. There was some theory believe the US and Japan culture are very influential and hard to replace, so China tried to guide people to consume Korean (and also Thailand, etc, since Asian culture are easy to introduce) culture instead of from the US and Japan. And then in recent years, Korean TW series and K-pop is largely replaced by Chinese own products, which seems pretty similar. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/Webzwithaz https://www.youtube.com/user/Webzwithaz

chewz 7y ago
> The Korean war broke out, USSR ordered China to strike back to maintain the iron curtain. On the contrary. It was Mao who had been pushing for the extension of Korean conflict in order to force Stalin's hand and get more and more aid and weapon technologies from USSR.
- namelosw 7y ago
  Thank you for pointing out. This makes more sense because it's Chinese border.
  - chewz 7y ago
    Strategically it made sense for China which shortly became able to get independent politically from Soviet Union. But at the expense of brutal war.
east2west 7y ago
I recognize some missing pieces, which I believe you will find interesting. 1. The Soviet union did not order China to attack UN troops. The Soviets were never powerful enough to order something like this, right after the conclusion of a civil war and brutal Japanese invasion. If they were, there would not have been a break-up shortly afterward. 2. I don't think the Soviet being a control freak is the reason for Sino-Soviet rupture. Even after public denunciation, the Soviets still delivered prototypes and all the blueprints of Mig-21. Your impression of overbearing Soviets might come from Communist propaganda about "three-year natural disaster." That was purely to cover up Mao's catastrophic "Great leap forward," a complete man-made disaster that the Chinese Communist party refuses to allow a full investigation to this day. 6. The Sino-Vietnam border war was China's admission ticket to Western block. Normalization of relation with US followed immediately and arms sales were permitted again. As for the military winner, Vietnam, I would say. Chinese army suffered heavy causalities with little to show for. Chinese officers were shown to be incompetent, and the Air force, despite deploying hundred of fighters, did not carry out one sortie against enemy forces. Another infamous incident is when China imported two sets of military radar for counter-battery targeting and one set sent to the front (the other was sent to Beijing for cloning), it was effective enough that Vietnamese sent in special forces and destroyed it. Afterward, only a lowly company commander was court marshaled. I have found that Communist propaganda is most effective in willful neglect and ignorance rather than outright lies. Lies can be pierced more or less readily, but ignorance hardened into opinions are much harder to change.

chewz 7y ago

> The Korean war broke out, USSR ordered China to strike back to maintain the iron curtain. On the contrary. It was Mao who had been pushing for the extension of Korean conflict in order to force Stalin's hand and get more and more aid and weapon technologies from USSR.

namelosw 7y ago
Thank you for pointing out. This makes more sense because it's Chinese border.
- chewz 7y ago
  Strategically it made sense for China which shortly became able to get independent politically from Soviet Union. But at the expense of brutal war.

east2west 7y ago

I recognize some missing pieces, which I believe you will find interesting. 1. The Soviet union did not order China to attack UN troops. The Soviets were never powerful enough to order something like this, right after the conclusion of a civil war and brutal Japanese invasion. If they were, there would not have been a break-up shortly afterward. 2. I don't think the Soviet being a control freak is the reason for Sino-Soviet rupture. Even after public denunciation, the Soviets still delivered prototypes and all the blueprints of Mig-21. Your impression of overbearing Soviets might come from Communist propaganda about "three-year natural disaster." That was purely to cover up Mao's catastrophic "Great leap forward," a complete man-made disaster that the Chinese Communist party refuses to allow a full investigation to this day. 6. The Sino-Vietnam border war was China's admission ticket to Western block. Normalization of relation with US followed immediately and arms sales were permitted again. As for the military winner, Vietnam, I would say. Chinese army suffered heavy causalities with little to show for. Chinese officers were shown to be incompetent, and the Air force, despite deploying hundred of fighters, did not carry out one sortie against enemy forces. Another infamous incident is when China imported two sets of military radar for counter-battery targeting and one set sent to the front (the other was sent to Beijing for cloning), it was effective enough that Vietnamese sent in special forces and destroyed it. Afterward, only a lowly company commander was court marshaled. I have found that Communist propaganda is most effective in willful neglect and ignorance rather than outright lies. Lies can be pierced more or less readily, but ignorance hardened into opinions are much harder to change.