The 15th is the 71st anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation.

With the success of the operation, the UN and ROK forces recaptured Seoul, went through Pyongyang, and reached the Chinese border near the Yalu River.

However, on October 19, 1950, 260,000 Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River and intervened in the Korean War, turning the tide again.

Considering that at the outbreak of the Korean War, there were about 65,000 regular troops in the ROK Army and 75,000 UN troops who participated in the Incheon Landing Operation, it is indeed an enormous amount of Chinese troops participating in the war.

This is a well-known fact.

However, it was confirmed for the first time that the Chinese Air Force participated in the Korean War wearing the North Korean flag instead of its own.

It was a sortie with the North Korean flag attached to the fighter, but it did not take off and land on North Korean soil.

It took off and landed in Dandong, China, which is adjacent to North Korea.

At that time, the world knew that the Chinese army was participating in the war, and why did they do this while taking off and landing on Chinese soil?

The Peking University Korean Peninsula Research Center led by Professor Dong-gil Kim of the Department of History at Peking University discovered this fact and the reason for the first time.

This research was conducted as part of the 'Overseas Korean Studies Core University Development Project' of the Central Research Institute for Korean Studies.



Chinese fighter jets sortie with North Korean flags instead of Chinese ones

The research team obtained a number of photos of Chinese fighter jets that served in the Korean War.

Each of these fighters is marked with a red star in a blue and red concentric circle.

It is the mark of the North Korean Air Force aircraft used in the past as well as in the present.

According to records produced by China, the 'MiG-15' among fighters is described as the main fighter of the Chinese army during the Korean War.


At the outbreak of the Korean War, North Korea is known to have owned about 200 yak fighters and IL bombers.

However, the difference in power between the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Air Force was so great that the United Nations forces were able to occupy the air superiority at the beginning of the war.

North Korea desperately needs fighter support.

This is why North Korea has continuously requested air support from the Soviet Union and China.

The Soviet Union, which supported China with fighter and air force training instead of participating in the war at the beginning of the war, directly participated in the air force in November 1950, after the Incheon Landing Operation.

At this time, Soviet fighters also participated in the war with the North Korean flag.

This fact remains in the records of the Ministry of Defense of Russia.




Not only the fighters owned by the Chinese military, but also the fighters supported by the Chinese military from the Soviet Union were engraved with the North Korean military emblem.

The original Chinese Air Force emblem was engraved with the numbers 8 and 1 in Chinese characters.

It symbolizes the 'Nanchang Incident' of August 1, 1927, which triggered the establishment of the Chinese army.

The Nanchang Incident refers to an armed riot in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, by the Chinese Communist Party against the Kuomintang's anti-communist policies.

What is the reason for using the North Korean mark in spite of these signs of their own?




China uses the name of 'People's Volunteer Army'...

"Volunteer to participate in the war"

The official name of the Chinese military is the People's Liberation Army. However, during the Korean War, the name 'People's Volunteer Army' was used instead of this name. Here, 'support' is not '支援' meaning 'help', but '志愿' meaning to go out on your own. In Korean, it is close to 'resource'. When we say 'volunteer' in Chinese, we mean volunteers, and Chinese media refer to the People's Volunteers as 'People's Volunteers' in English. It means volunteers who participated voluntarily, and it is similar to the word 'volunteer'. In other words, 'People's Volunteer Army' does not mean 'an army sent to help North Korea', but rather 'an army in which the people volunteered themselves'. This implies that the military is not officially dispatched by the government.



This attitude of the Chinese government can also be seen in the official data of the time. On January 24, 1951, the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, contained comments about the Korean War by then Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhou Enlai (Zhou Enlai). At that time, as the UN and ROK forces were pushed back after the Chinese army had entered the war, Seoul was given back and they were preparing for a counterattack. At this time, Zhou Enlai said, 'When all foreign troops are withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula, the Chinese government will take responsibility and persuade the People's Volunteers to return to their home countries.' It is as if the People's Volunteer Forces participated in the war without the will of the Chinese government. It looks like you're looking at out-of-body speech.



"Camouflage to avoid escalation in the mainland"...

Incheon Airport also uses the title of 'reinforcement force'

You can find a clue here.

The Peking University Korean Peninsula Research Center considered the reason why China marked its fighter jets with North Korea as 'a camouflage to avoid escalation with the United States or the UN forces'.

He said he was concerned about the possibility that the Korean War would spread to mainland China if Chinese fighters openly participate in the war.

The research team also thought that it would have been more difficult to label the Chinese army as China defined the characteristics of the war veterans as 'volunteer forces', that is, 'volunteers' who voluntarily participated in the war.

It can be claimed that tanks and other weapons were captured during the war, but it makes no sense for volunteers to drive fighters to war, so it is an interpretation that they made them look like North Korean fighters.

The research team plans to publish the findings of this study in the world's leading academic journal Cold War History.




China still calls Korean War veterans 'People's Volunteer Forces'.

On the 2nd, South Korea repatriated the remains of Chinese soldiers killed in the Korean War to China.

This is the 8th repatriation.

China broadcast live over two days, from the handing over of the remains at Incheon Airport to the arrival and welcome ceremony at Shenyang Airport in China, and the funeral ceremony the next day.

Fighters also escorted the remains of transport aircraft.




Whatever China does to inspire patriotism in its people, it has little to do with it. However, even in Korea, calling our own soldiers who participated in the Korean War as 'People's Volunteers' was annoying. The ceremony for handing over the remains at Incheon International Airport on the 2nd was held jointly by Korea and China, and the Chinese host said, "Volunteers, your country will take you home." Even though it was a country that suffered the horrors of war and fought as an enemy with China, it was repatriating the remains for humanitarian purposes.



▶ [Exclusive] "Chinese fighters enter the Korean War with North Korean flags"