Chinese Brainwashing During the Korean War – China Videos
www.adamdanielmezei.com — Unseen archival footage from Chinese film vaults on the 21 US Servicemen who refused to be repatriated to the United States following cessation of hostilities in the Korean War. Excellent documentary material by Shui Bo Wang from Canada's National Film Board.
Excellent article. I read the book, Manchurian Candidate, in 1963 when I was stationed in Jidda, Saudi Arabia. A few months later, the film version was received at the embassy via diplomatic pouch and viewed by the Marine Security Guard detachment.
Fascinating subject. Too, perhaps a movie that will never have an equal in this area, including star power, on the psychology of brainwashing by the military to achieve a political end.
Again, an excellent post.
Hi @wdbox,
Thanks for your kind note. In particular, I thought the documentary was astonishing for its value in bringing evidence of the little-before seen footage of what was going on behind Chinese lines during the Korean conflict. Like the documentarian Wang, himself, I was shocked to see just how well the POWs were cared for and attended to (even if there was a heaping dose of agit-prop to it) and I learned, moreover, a whole hot heap of information which before that viewing I was totally ignorant of.
It goes without saying that the late-great John Frankenheimer was almost god-like in his cinematic prescience.
--ADM
Looking forward to tracking down this movie. On a somewhat opposite, but related angle, if you've not read Ha Jin's War Trash, I highly recommend it. Anything by Ha Jin is generally quite brilliant, but War Trash was amazingly powerful. A novel, but still an insightful window into a period of Chinese history that is so rarely discussed.
Ryan, thanks for the title.
You can't go wrong devoting the time to watch "Manchurian Candidate." I'll go so far at to say this is one of only a handful of Hollywood productions that was better than the book on which it was based. I'll qualify this though, and say that I was only 21 years old when I read it and the going was tough.
Presently, I'm at the 30 minute mark of the Doc. Highly recommend. If this film doesn't shake your foundation, then you are, indeed, unflappable (with regards to patriotism,war,ideology,past and present).
I also suspect if the Kim regime suddenly (somehow) implodes, the rich cache of top secret DPRK/PRC collaborative documents that keenly detail much of the psychological experimentation on Allied troops from the conflict will at once be revealed to the world. That, my friends, is set to be a book of earth-shattering proportions. It will shock just as much as WWII's heinous revelations did in their time.
What, you do not think in case of such an implosion that the PRC will come in and take over?
The Korean scholarly and poly-sci experts -- and I'm not one of them by a long stretch -- seem to think that South Korea (ROK) will have first dibs. Why? ROK is the peninsula's rich breadbasket and given the rampant rural food shortages in DPRK that nearly killed the Kim-ists during the mid-'90s (we still don't know how many Koreans perished...anywhere ranging between 250,000 to 3M Koreans), the South is the logical and immediate go-to to solve the food and other economic crises North Korea currently suffers from.
Politically, that's where you may indeed have a point, @nstanosheck, though given the state of today's world, I hardly think it's going to be like the Soviets rolling into Korea as in past decades, or even like the Soviets rolling into post-War Germany.
I think the South Koreans and the Americans are ideally placed to move in and start pressing their influence.
"I think the South Koreans and the Americans are ideally placed to move in and start pressing their influence."
I don't disagree, but you are assuming, and it is a very big assumption, that the Americans have the stomach for it and will stay the course? I'm not sure at this point in time that the American people would stand for such posturing leading to a potential military conflict with China. To say nothing of Russia, who is grows more contentious by the day.
Further, the loss of NK and a takeover by the South would effectively surround Beijing with governments who are not necessarily favorable to her (CCP) survival.
However, who can be certain how much interest China has in NK, if any, as far as territorial expansion goes. Based on China's past history, probably none.
Glad that I, when the time comes, and it will, do not have to make the decision. Tough call.
Dub-d, let us not forget that ROK's army is nothing like what it was more than half-a-century ago when the US/UN sent their expeditionary force to defend Syngman's dictatorship in the '50s. The ROK's army today is a robust, well-equipped, and I believe (?) nuclear tipped fighting force that is capable of holding its own in an all-Korean melee. I believe the Americans remain in the country and as a presence in the DMZ as a way to mildly thumb their nose at the Chinese and also as a convoluted compromise on the whole Taiwan issue -- which is, since the '70s the Americans can't station their grunts on Formosa, so they place them on the peninsula -- six of one, half of the other.
I agree and I don't think the US public, moreover, has the stomach for it, and agree also wholeheartedly with your statement about how the Chinese might react to being under siege.
Another thing about DPRK that most don't realize: it's a complete dunghole backwater with very little viable industrial base (at least any longer after being stripped bare during the mid-'90s famine[s]) and the breadbasket is down in ROK, not up north.
So what could the Chinese possibly want with another potentially contentious piece of territory (er...colony?) when it's already got its hands full with the Tibetans and the Uyghurs?
Just my $0.02. Again, I'm just thinking logically but realpolitik marches, as always, to the beat of its own divergent drummer.