A Chinese coworker of mine recently expressed curiosity about differences in how history was taught between China and America, and brought up the Korean War in particular. Aside from a year in Canada after graduating from college and watching CNN online to practice his English, he has had very little contact with foreign-educated people and their ideas. To clarify, he is still in China--I am an American living in China--so even now Western attitudes remain somewhat alien to him. And for context, while I don't know his exact age, I would guess that he went to high school in the mid-late 90s, so he would've been learning well after reform and opening up began.
As an American, I was taught that the military engagements of the Cold War were proxy conflicts between the US and Russia. My question is: to what extent did American military and political leaders consider China a threat within the context of the Korean War, independent of the Soviet Union?
From my understanding, both Russia and the US considered China a threat after the end of WWII. There's a common perception in China that the USSR and US tried to divide China in two during the civil war (like Germany). The understanding is that both favored for a weaker China that they could influence easily.
However that did not happen and although China remained a communist country, it thread a fine line between the USSR and the US. Mao disagreed with many of Stalin's ideologies and China as a whole was not exactly a puppet as North Korea was.
Now we get to the Korean War. it starts off with the Soviet Union backing North Korea in the attack. The Soviet Union is mainly interested in some ice-free naval bases. It has lost its naval bases in Dalian and Port Arthur after the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship. They did not anticipate that the US would use the UN to intervene and since the USSR was boycotting the UN they couldn't veto the decision. Sidenote: USSR was boycotting the UN in an attempt to replace the ROC's seat with the PRC.
At first it's just a war between Koreans with the North having the support of the Soviets. However with the US and it's allies in the war, the North quickly lost grounds. Here is where the Chinese interpretation of the war enters into play. It is believed that Mao thought it dangerous to have US forces so close to China. The belief is that Mao wanted to have North Korea as a natural barrier that would separate the US from China. Which could not happen if the South won the war. Therefore China intervened and became the major power during the rest of the war for the North.
It would seem that although the Soviet requested for China to send troops to help the North, it only requested around 5 to 6 divisions. The Chinese, after debating among themselves, decided to intervene mainly due to Mao's firm belief of the previously cited reasons. And they sent far more than 5 to 6 divisions. Also it is important to mention that the Soviet offered little support during the war.
I would say that during the Korean War, China definitely was not acting as a proxy for the Soviet Union but for its own interests. Whether the US thought of China as a threat is harder to answer. Looking at how the war went and ended, I would say that if the US did not consider China a threat before, it would have after the war ended.