Remembering ‘the most Lovable People’: 75 years on, China invokes Korean War Spirit
Shenyang Martyrs Cemetery. | Image: Sino-NK.
As China marks 75 years since its ‘People’s Volunteers’ crossed the Yalu River, joining the Korean War in October 1950, the CCP has amplified patriotic lessons from the past in a bid to steer ideology in the present.
Last month, Shenyang Martyrs Cemetery held its latest annual ceremony burying China’s repatriated war dead from the Korean battlefield. The day before the ceremony, on September 12, a Chinese military aircraft had carried the twelfth batch of remains of People’s Volunteers’ from South Korea to China following President Xi Jinping’s agreement on the issue with his then counterpart, former President Park Geun-hye, in June of 2013.
Xi has prioritized remembrance of the People’s Volunteers. His agreement on the issue with South Korea came just three months after taking office, and was made in the first of six meetings held with Park during the first three years of his presidency. By contrast, Xi’s predecessors oversaw ad hoc, infrequent efforts to return China’s Korean War dead from South Korea (albeit during periods of lesser ties with the ROK as Sino-DPRK relations had taken priority). In 2014, China carried out the first of its twelve such annual repatriations – and counting – with the remains of more than 1,000 People’s Volunteers returned and buried back in China thus far.
Media coverage of these and related events frequently refer to People’s Volunteers as ‘the most lovable people’ (最可爱的人), referencing a now infamous Chinese term coined by the writer Wei Wei in his 1951 People’s Daily Korean War dispatch on the bravery of those who went to the frontline: ‘Who are the Most Lovable People?’
China removed the article from Chinese school textbooks in 2001, and efforts to reinstate it were blocked in 2014 due to “its inconsistency with the [then] current situation in Northeast Asia”. This rationale was given by former senior Ministry of Education official Wang Xuming, an apparent reference to China’s efforts to forge ties with South Korea amid diminished Sino-DPRK relations at the start of Xi’s presidency. However, the article was then reinstated as an official text for seventh graders in March 2021, six months after the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.
Xi’s government clearly sees political messaging benefits in linking its revered Korean War past to the country’s present. Last month’s repatriation event in Shenyang included in attendance representatives of the Publicity Department of the CCP Central Committee, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Education, the State Administration of Radio and Television, and the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, teachers and students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and additional students from the mainland.
Three days before the repatriation flight, the Publicity Department of the CPC Shenyang Municipal Committee and the Shenyang Municipal Education Bureau organized a trip for teachers and students from two local schools to the Shenyang Martyrs Cemetery. Their tour, termed an “ideological and political course under the national flag”, included a talk from People’s Volunteer veteran Li Weibo decked out in his war medals.
Chinese news media have in recent weeks published numerous articles on Korean War veterans, and tied their experiences to the repatriation of war dead, and education of young Chinese. “National defense education” at Chinese schools has featured video screens in large lecture halls showing CCTV footage of the latest Korean War dead repatriation flight arriving in Shenyang, and received by the PLA. Footage of these sessions was broadcast on Noon National Defense Military Affairs (正午国防军事) segment, a daily program aired at midday since 2019 on CCTV-7 which was at the time rebranded exclusively as a military channel by China’s state-run broadcaster.
The CCP has also heavily promoted China’s Korean War experience as a positive influence on the country’s education sector. Since 2023, when China celebrated its 70-year “victory” anniversary following the end of the Korean War in 1953, a number of Chinese academics have published articles outlining methods by which students and teachers might foster the spirit of the People’s Volunteers.
One such paper published in the weekly journal Teaching Reference of Middle School Politics in 2023 by Shi Chunlin and Liu Miaomiao, a professor and doctoral student at Dalian Maritime University’s Marxism School,[i] states the “great spirit” of China’s Korean War effort “provides young students of the new era with ‘spiritual calcium’ to strengthen their sense of right and wrong, discern truth from falsehood, eliminate undesirable influences, and promote righteousness”.[ii]
The paper references previous comments by Xi that this “spirit” is a combination of patriotism, revolutionary heroism, revolutionary loyalty, and internationalism.[iii] Xi first made these remarks in 2010 prior to his ascension to the summit of the CCP, later repeated as leader during the 70th anniversary of China’s participation in the Korean War in 2020.
In another paper published in 2024,[iv] Zhao Jing, a researcher on ideological and political education in colleges and universities of East Liaoning University in Dandong, cites “incorporating red culture, particularly elements related to the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea” as an aid for teachers.[v] Her paper notes how China’s Korean War, including relics, have been used to design the East Liaoning University campus. It celebrates the semiotic role these relics play in guiding teachers “subtly imbued with the history of the war”.[vi]
Students conduct military training on the campus of East Liaoning University in Dandong. | Image: Sino-NK.
While it remains commonplace for patriotism and bravery related to a major conflict to form the foundation of a country’s remembrance activities and historical production, in China recent heightened treatment of the Korean War has been striking.
These activities have not only increased in volume around key milestones, such as the 75th anniversary, but have continued at an elevated level at other times also. Numerous new museum exhibitions have been created in recent years, including recently in Ji’an on the border with the DPRK, and film studios have churned out hours of new television series and film productions on the war.
When China released 38th Parallel, a television series which begins with US bombings of the Chinese border during the early Korean War, three years into Xi’s presidency in 2016, it marked the first time in 16 years a new series on the conflict had “been allowed to air”, according to the CCP Central Committee’s nationalistic tabloid the Global Times, due to “taking stable Sino-US relations into account”.
Amid fractured relations with the US in recent years, and a clear desire by the current Chinese government to harness the ideological value of China’s Korean War campaign, this situation has reversed sharply. Since the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in 2020, China has released at least eight feature films on the conflict, including director Zhang Yimou’s ‘Sniper’ in 2022, funded by the China Film Administration of the CCP Publicity Department. The end of last month saw the release of the third instalment of yet another Korean War film series, ‘Volunteers: Bloody Peace’ by Chan Kaige.
Ahead of the National Day Holiday this month, the film accounted for one in every five yuan spent on cinema pre-sales tickets across China, placing it in the top three going into the holiday period, according to box office tracker Maoyan. Its prequels, also released just prior to the same holiday season in 2023 and 2024, each topped the Chinese box office upon opening.
Main actress Zhang Zifeng told state broadcaster CTGN: “The history is not a cold past, but a vivid present,” adding she wanted “to pay tribute to the volunteer soldiers”.
[i] Shi Chunlin and Liu Miaomiao, “The value, dilemma, and path of integrating the great spirit of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea into ideological and political courses: Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the victory of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea [伟大抗美援朝精神融入思政课的价值、困境与路径—纪念抗美援朝战争胜利70周年],” Middle School Political Teaching Reference, no. 44 (November, 2023): 52-55.
[ii] Ibid, p. 52.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Zhao Jing, “The significance and path of integrating the great spirit of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea into teacher ethics education in universities [伟大抗美援朝精神融入高校师德师风教育的意义与路径
赵璟],” Journal of East Liaoning University, Vol 26:4 (2024): 1-5.
[v] Ibid, p. 3.
[vi] Ibid, p. 4.
