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Xi Recalls Anti-U.S. Struggle in Korean War: Chinese People ‘Aren’t to Be Trifled With’

Xi Recalls Anti-U.S. Struggle in Korean War: Chinese People ‘Aren’t to Be Trifled With’




HONG KONG—Chinese leader Xi Jinping delivered a speech brimming with nationalistic triumph to commemorate his country’s entry into the Korean War, in a thinly veiled display of defiance against perceived bullying by the U.S.

Marking the 70th anniversary of Chinese troops joining a beleaguered North Korea to fight off U.S.-led forces, Mr. Xi on Friday called on Chinese people to emulate their forebears’ patriotism and resolve in combating present-day threats to China’s interests posed by foreign aggressors.

The “War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea,” as it is known in China, “let the world know that the Chinese people are now organized and aren’t to be trifled with,” Mr. Xi said at a nationally televised ceremony held in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, quoting Mao Zedong’s remarks at a 1953 leadership meeting.

“Once provoked, things will get ugly,” Mr. Xi said, drawing loud applause from the audience.

Although Mr. Xi didn’t mention current tensions with Washington, his speech was overtly about standing up to the U.S., said John Delury, a professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. “The message is that we’ve done this before and we can do it again—if anything we can do it better now, we’re much stronger.”

The speech marked China’s latest rhetorical thrust in fraying ties with the U.S. that have deteriorated to their worst level in decades. Wide-ranging discord over trade, technology, global influence and U.S. support for the island democracy of Taiwan has ravaged relations between the world’s two largest economies while fueling criticism of Mr. Xi’s aggressive style among some members of the Beijing elite.

With President Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, both saying they would take a tough line with Beijing, Mr. Xi’s speech indicates that he is buckling down for prolonged tensions. His rousing rhetoric also suggests he wants to whip up patriotic sentiment to gird his personal authority, as pandemic-induced economic woes threaten to stir unrest, China politics watchers say.

Mr. Xi struck a “fearsome” tone in a speech aimed at mobilizing Chinese society for a struggle, said Deng Yuwen, a former deputy editor at the Study Times, a newspaper published by Beijing’s Central Party School, which trains China’s political elite. “His goal is to unify the nation to resist the U.S.”

Xi Recalls Anti-U.S. Struggle in Korean War: Chinese People ‘Aren’t to Be Trifled With’

Chinese troops during the Korean War, in 1951.



Photo:

Department of Defense/ASSOCIATED PRESS

China’s Communist Party has long celebrated the Korean War as a seminal moment in entrenching its revolutionary victory in the face of Western imperialist intervention.

Chinese troops, whom Beijing characterized as a volunteer army, entered combat in October 1950 as U.S.-led United Nations forces threatened to overwhelm North Korea just months after the war began with Pyongyang’s invasion of South Korea. The fighting concluded with a 1953 armistice, but no peace treaty has since been signed, meaning the two Koreas remain in a technical state of war.

Despite the stalemate, official party histories portray Chinese forces as victorious in their fight to safeguard national security and halt Western expansionism in Asia—a narrative Mr. Xi upheld in his speech.

The Friday ceremony was China’s highest-profile commemoration of the Korean War since 2000, the last time a Chinese leader marked the occasion with a major memorial address. More recently, Mr. Xi, as China’s vice president and leader-in-waiting, delivered a speech in 2010 to mark the 60th anniversary of Chinese involvement in the conflict.

Xi Recalls Anti-U.S. Struggle in Korean War: Chinese People ‘Aren’t to Be Trifled With’

Mr. Xi at the Great Hall of the People on Friday. He called on Chinese people to emulate their forebears’ patriotism and resolve.



Photo:

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Mr. Xi struck a more martial tone on Friday than he did a decade ago. In his new speech, he cited the spirit of anti-American resistance to galvanize support for his efforts to strengthen Communist Party dominance over Chinese society, ensure China’s economic self-reliance and remold its military into a world-beating fighting force.

“Backwardness begets being bullied, and only through development can we strengthen ourselves,” Mr. Xi said. “Without a strong military, there can be no strong motherland.”

Rather than criticize the U.S. directly, Mr. Xi took aim at unilateralism, protectionism and arrogant, hegemonic behavior—labels that Beijing has repeatedly pinned on President Trump’s policies toward China. Mr. Xi also appeared to warn against U.S. attempts to pressure Beijing through closer cooperation with Taiwan, which the Communist Party claims as its territory and has pledged to assimilate, by force if necessary.

China will “never allow any person or any force to violate and split the motherland’s sacred territory,” Mr. Xi said. “Once such severe circumstances occur, the Chinese people shall deliver a head-on blow.”

Beijing has been building up this message of patriotic resistance ahead of Mr. Xi’s speech. State broadcaster China Central Television started airing a 20-episode documentary series on the Korean War earlier this month, in which the U.S. is portrayed as an imperialist aggressor—in line with longstanding Chinese narratives.

Mr. Xi also toured on Monday a new museum exhibition in Beijing commemorating the Korean War, telling senior officials that the conflict bequeathed a spiritual legacy that would inspire the Chinese people to “overcome all difficulties and dangers, and defeat every formidable foe.”

Write to Chun Han Wong at [email protected]

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