The Korean War: Communist Propaganda

Figure 1.-Here we see Chinese school children a few years after the War. Notice the masks. The allegations of American germ warfare were a Communist propaganda hoax, but they were taken very seriously by the Chnese, both by the military and civilians. The caption here read, "Children of China: Mao Tse-tung as Friend of the Young: Portraits of Chairman Mao Tse-tung are to be fiound in every classroom, and at this school near Peking, aoster depicting Mao in his favourite role --as a friend of the young -- is displayed prominently on aall. Many of the children, seen going home after lessons, are wearing masks as a protectionagainst infection, a practice which was stimulated by the germ-warfare charges made against the United Nations during the Korean War," Source: W.R. Geddes, London. The photograph is dated February 1957.

Communist propagada depicted the United States as an agressor country. The aggression charge was absurd given it was udeniably the North Koreans that had invaded the South. The Chinese charged that the United States was not only the aggrssor, but was using germ warfare. The Japanese had used both germ and chemical weapons against the Chinese in World War II. Chinese propaganda gave no credit to America for conming to the aid of China amd made a major issue out of the germ warfare charges. The Soviet Union suported the allegations. The charges were first raised (1951). The charges were picked uop by he international press. The cgarges led to well publicized international investigation (1952). U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and other U.S. and allied government officials denounced the Communist allegations as an ansurd hoax. While the Chinese made ye charges in 1951, actual disse out breaks do seem to have occurred (1952). We are not sure to what extent the Chinese charges were a pure hoax or if the duseas out breaks really led the Chinese to suspect that the Unted States was pursuing germ warfare. [Zang, pp. 181-82.] The International Red Cross and the World Health Organization found no evidence of biological warfare. The Soviet-affiliated World Peace Councilorganized set up the International Scientific Commission for the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in China and Korea. This Commission included highly polticized scientists like sinologist Joseph Needham. Tey opredictably that the allegatiins were true. The finding for the most part have only been found creditable by politicized authors like Australian historian Gavan McCormack. One aspect of the whole affair was that the Chinese and North Koreans deployed health and disease prevention measures both in the battlefiel and on the homefront. Gas masks were distributed and there was mass innoculations along the Chinese-Korean border. The Chinese Givernment ordere its people to kill possiuble fisease carriers (flies, mosquitos, and fleas). We also begin to see surgical face masks. [Zhang, p. 184.]

Source

Zhang, Shu Guang. Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995).

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Created: 3:49 AM 8/17/2018
Last updated: 3:50 AM 8/17/2018