Do we understand why the chinese volunteers to north korea during the korean war was composed by a lot of southern Chinese soldiers and not those from the north which were more acclimated to the harsh winters of the north?

by kill4588
Daztur

It mostly comes down to WHY certain people and not others were volunteering to fight in the Korean War. The Korean War was a horrible bloodbath for Chinese soldiers and people didn't volunteer to fight in it for no reason. A good chunk of the initial wave were ethnic Korean from along the border but for the entire war Chinese Koreans were a small minority. For some it was patriotism or ideological commitment to communism but for a lot it was self preservation.

Why self-preservation?

Well the Nationalists had recently lost a civil war to the Chinese communists and not all nationalists had been able or willing to escape to Taiwan. Being a veteran of the losing side of a civil war isn't a very good thing to have on your resume, especially in Mao's China. Just think of how much nicer your resume would look if you could put "veteran of the People's Volunteer Army" on it instead of "guy who tried to kill People's Liberation Army soldiers" on it.

The people on the losing side of the Chinese Civil War were disproportionately from southern China so a lot of Chinese soldiers fighting for the North in the Korean War were from southern China.

Later these reluctant soldiers became one of the main sticking points that made it hard to end the Korean War. UN POW camps that a lot of North Korean and Chinese soldiers who REALLY didn't want to go to North Korea or Communist China. A lot of the "North Korean" soldiers were people from South Korea who had been forced to join the North Korean army when the North Korean army was in the South and just wanted to go home. A lot of Chinese soldiers weren't loyal communists to begin with and wanted to go to Taiwan instead which did not make China happy. Eventually POWs were allowed to choose where to go and about 14,000 Chinese POWs ended up choosing to go to Taiwan.

Later on during the military dictatorship South Korea expelled the bulk of its own Chinese population to Taiwan, which is part of the reason it's so hard to find good Chinese food in Korea (except mutton skewers, which are awesome) since the older wave of Koreans in China were forced out and the newer post-democracy wave hasn't really had time to put down roots yet (and includes a whole lot of ethnic Koreans in any case).