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South Korea Returns Bodies of Hundreds of Chinese Soldiers After Six Decades, Chinese Soldiers Killed in South Korea Head Home
(about 11 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Friday repatriated the remains of 437 Chinese soldiers killed during the Korean War six decades ago, making a gesture symbolic of warming ties between the two nations. SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Friday repatriated the remains of 437 soldiers from China who were killed during the Korean War six decades ago, a sign of warming ties between the two nations.
China sent a flood of soldiers to help its Communist ally North Korea, which invaded South Korea in June 1950. Its intervention saved the North, whose forces had been pushed back toward the country’s northern corner by American-led United Nations forces later that year. The three-year war ended in a cease-fire, leaving the divided Korean Peninsula technically in a state of war. The remains had been kept in a little-known burial ground north of Seoul, until recently called the “enemy cemetery.”
Over the years, when South Korea discovered the remains of hundreds of Communist soldiers in old battle sites, it kept them tucked away in a little-known temporary burial ground north of Seoul, until recently known as “the enemy cemetery.” That it took six decades for the bodies of the fallen Chinese soldiers who had fought with North Korea to be returned home bore testimony to the political uneasiness rooted in a war that has never been formally ended.
That it took six decades for the bodies of the fallen Chinese soldiers to return home bore testimony to political uneasiness rooted in a war that, while it ended long ago, was never formally put to rest. Between 1981 and 1989, North Korea accepted the remains of 42 Chinese soldiers from South Korea and transferred them to Beijing. But after receiving the remains of another Chinese soldier in 1997, North Korea refused to take any more, in part because it feared that any indication it was helping to mend relations would weaken its efforts to persuade Washington to sign a formal peace treaty. The United States has said it will not support a treaty at least until Pyongyang gives up its nuclear program.
Between 1981 and 1989, North Korea accepted the remains of 42 Chinese soldiers from South Korea and handed them over to Beijing. But it has never been willing to negotiate for the return of its own fallen soldiers. Accepting their return home would be seen as a gesture of closing the war, which North Korea insists will not be over until Washington signs a peace treaty with it. The refusal meant that the remains of the other 437 Chinese soldiers were caught in the long and sometimes violent standoff between the two Koreas.
After accepting the remains of another Chinese soldier in 1997, North Korea refused to take any more, leaving the 437 Chinese soldiers stranded in the inter-Korean deadlock. A breakthrough came last June during a visit by President Park Geun-hye of South Korea to China. As part her efforts to cultivate closer ties for the countries, she offered to send the Chinese remains home. China is North Korea’s last remaining major ally, but it has appeared intent on closer ties with South Korea as part of its strategy of countering United States influence in the region. And under Ms. Park, South Korea — while still a close ally of the Washington — has also seemed committed to better relations with China, which has overtaken the United States as South Korea’s biggest trading partner since Beijing normalized its relations with Seoul in 1992. Each year, millions of Chinese tourists visit South Korea.
A breakthrough came last June when President Park Geun-hye of South Korea visited China to cultivate warmer ties there. She offered to send the Chinese remains home as a good-will gesture, and Beijing welcomed it. “The repatriation today will be a landmark for the two countries in healing the trauma from the past and moving toward co-prosperity,” South Korea’s deputy defense minister, Baek Seung-joo, said during a ceremony held at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul.
“The repatriation today will be a landmark for the two countries in healing the trauma from the past and moving toward co-prosperity,” Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo of South Korea said during a ceremony held at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. During the ceremony, the Chinese ambassador, Qiu Guohong, placed Chinese flags on the dark brown coffins that contained the remains, which were then carried aboard a plane by Chinese soldiers. The remains of the soldiers, the last from China that have been found, are expected to be interred in the resting place for China’s Korean War dead, known as the Resist America and Aid Korea Martyrs Cemetery, in northeastern China.
During the ceremony, the Chinese ambassador, Qiu Guohong, placed Chinese flags on dark brown boxes that contained the remains. Chinese soldiers carried them aboard a Chinese plane, which flew them to the Resist America and Aid Korea Martyrs Cemetery, the resting place for China’s Korean War dead, located in Shenyang, in northeastern China. The soldiers were among at least a million Chinese troops sent to help North Korea after it invaded South Korea in June 1950. China’s intervention later that year saved the North, whose forces had been pushed back toward the country’s northern corner by an American-led United Nations force. The three-year war ended in a cease-fire, leaving the divided Korean Peninsula technically in a state of war.
China remains North Korea’s last remaining major ally, while the United States is South Korea’s No. 1 military ally. But China has overtaken the United States as South Korea’s biggest trading partner since it normalized relations with Seoul in 1992. Each year, millions of Chinese visit South Korea as tourists. Although some Chinese tourists had started visiting the cemetery in recent years, the site, on a remote hillside a few miles south of the border with North Korea, drew little attention in the South.
Still, the existence of Chinese remains, and the “enemy cemetery” itself, has drawn little attention in South Korea, even though some Chinese tourists began visiting it in recent years. Built on a hillside, it is hard to find. The remains of 770 North Korean soldiers killed during the war are still at the cemetery, stranded by the tense relations between the two Koreas. Their graves all face north, looking homeward, in contrast to the traditional Korean practice of aligning graves toward the south. Also buried there are dozens of other North Korean soldiers killed over the years, including commandos who died in an unsuccessful 1968 attack on the presidential palace in Seoul.
Now with their Chinese companions gone, the remains of 770 North Korean soldiers stay marooned in the cemetery only a few miles south of the inter-Korean border, their forlorn grave markers emblematic of unresolved Cold War hostilities that still divide the Koreas. Their graves all face north, looking homeward, in contrast to the Korean tradition of aligning graves toward the south. Estimates of the number of Chinese killed in the war range from 110,000 to more than 400,000. South Korean officials said on Friday that it would continue to repatriate Chinese remains if more were discovered during excavations at battle sites to search for South Korean war dead.
Also buried there are dozens of postwar North Korean agents, including commandos killed in an unsuccessful 1968 attack on the presidential palace in Seoul and a North Korean agent who killed himself after planting a bomb on a South Korean jetliner that exploded over Myanmar in 1987 with 115 people aboard. The bodies sent home on Friday arrived just ahead of China’s annual “tomb-sweeping day,” when families visit the graves of their ancestors.
The bodies of the agents cannot go home because their government has not acknowledged their missions.
Estimates of the number of Chinese killed in the war vary from 110,000 to over 400,000.
South Korea said it would continue to repatriate Chinese remains if it discovered more while excavating battle sites for its own war dead.