Chapter 49 1. Negotiations with different purposes

The armistice negotiations, which had been interrupted for half a year, resumed. The starting points of the two negotiating parties on the first three items of the agenda were very different, and the negotiations did not go smoothly. On December 4, the US proposed, as I expected, to set up another subcommittee to discuss the fourth item of the prisoner of war issue parallel to the third agenda item.North Korea and China agreed at the time.Another week later, on December 11, the negotiating team for the fourth agenda item began to meet.Representatives from the DPRK and China participating in this negotiation included Rear Admiral Lee Sang-chao of North Korea and Colonel Chai Chengwen of China; representatives of the US side were Rear Admiral Libby and Colonel Hickman of the United States.

At the beginning of the negotiations on the prisoner of war issue, the United States avoided determining the principle of repatriation, but insisted on exchanging the list of prisoners of war first.The number of prisoners submitted by the two sides is as follows: more than 7,100 prisoners of the South Korean Army were captured by the Chinese People’s Volunteers and the Korean People’s Army, and more than 4,400 were captured by the “United Nations Army” such as the United States, Britain, France, and Turkey; There were more than 20,700 prisoners of war of the Volunteer Army and more than 111,700 prisoners of war of the Korean People's Army.There is a large difference in the number of prisoners on both sides.

In a war, it is common for the two sides to have unequal captures, and during the war, the Chinese People’s Volunteers released a large number of prisoners on the battlefield immediately in accordance with the customary practice of previous civil wars.The United States does not intend to return all North Korean and Chinese prisoners of war, but only wants to return a comparable number of prisoners to North Korea and China.However, there is no basis for refusing to exchange because one side captured more prisoners than the other side. The US came up with various excuses for refusing to accept the proposal of China and North Korea to repatriate all prisoners of war.The U.S. claims that if all the prisoners of war are repatriated as requested by the DPRK and China, then after the number of prisoners on both sides is equal, the DPRK and China will have a net increase of more than 110,000 people, which will significantly increase the strength of the DPRK and Chinese troops.He also accused North Korea and China of not submitting a complete list of prisoners of war on the grounds that the number of prisoners of war taken by North Korea and China was disproportionate to the number of missing persons announced by the United States, saying that the number of prisoners of war proposed by North Korea and China was still 50,000 short.The U.S. also falsely accused China of sending prisoners of war to Northeast China and incorporating Korean prisoners of war into the Korean People's Army in an attempt to refuse to repatriate all prisoners of war.

On January 2, 1952, after 22 days of negotiations on the fourth agenda item, the United States proposed a plan for the repatriation of prisoners of war.The United States surprised the world by proposing such a plan for the repatriation of prisoners of war in an official text; it showed that the United States was determined not to be bound by the provisions of the "Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" recognized by all countries, and that what the United States cared about was not the rights of prisoners of war, but the ability to Whether to strengthen one's own strength after the armistice and restrain the growth of the Communist Party's strength.

Some American and British prisoners of war in the Chinese and North Korean prisoner-of-war camps also felt humiliated when they heard the content of the American plan.They published an open letter, saying that the US proposal would cause great disappointment to the US and British prisoners who were eager to return home as soon as possible, and would cause pain and anxiety to the relatives of the prisoners.The letter goes on to say that although this is the 20th century, it seems to us that we are being bartered as commodities that are bought and sold on the auction block. The attitude of the United States towards the armistice has not only made the DPRK and China suspicious, but also puzzled the whole world.The United States sat at the negotiating table to discuss an armistice when North Korea could no longer fight, but it was unwilling to let the war stop quickly.Every agenda item in the negotiations has gone through a lot of twists and turns. The United States intentionally or unintentionally suppresses China and North Korea as the dominant player, and proposes some unequal conditions for North Korea. If a truce is reached according to their proposal, North Korea and China will inevitably accept a humiliating treaty.The U.S. also sees that China and North Korea will not accept pressure easily, and it is bound to be difficult for them to quickly cease the war with this attitude towards negotiations.However, this result is in line with the needs of the US government, and a certain tension is beneficial to the United States.The United States hopes to use the Korean War to establish and consolidate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of anti-communist countries; arms dealers also want to use the war to export weapons abroad for profit.The wealthy and powerful interest classes have their own plans, but ordinary soldiers are suffering. The war consumes time and their lives.