1. Aim: How Did the Cold War Turn Hot in East Asia?
Do Now: Is the Korean War Still On?

2. Chinese Civil War
1945 Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong came to a truce after WWII, but civil war renewed in The Communists did not hold any major cities after WWII, but had a superior military organization, and large stocks of weapons seized from Japanese supplies in Manchuria. In Oct 1949 Mao Zedong established of the People’s Republic of China. Chiang and his forces fled to Taiwan. The Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek continued to receive U.S. support.

3. The Great Leap Forward 1958 - 1961
The Great Leap Forward was a push by Mao Zedong to change China from an agrarian to a modern, industrialized society in just 5 years , millions of Chinese citizens were moved onto communes. The Great Leap Forward was supposed to be a 5-year plan (similar to Stalin’s 5 Year Plans), but it was called off after just 3 years, which lead to 20 to 43 million deaths.

4. Backyard Furnace and Starving Children During the “Great Leap Forward”

5. Mao’s Great Leap Forward Continued…
“The worst catastrophe in China’s history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of 1958 to 1962, and to this day the ruling Communist Party has not fully acknowledged the degree to which it was a direct result of the forcible herding of villagers into communes under the “Great Leap Forward” that Mao Zedong launched in In all, the records I studied suggest that the Great Leap Forward was responsible for at least 45 million deaths. Between 2 and 3 million of these victims were tortured to death or summarily executed, often for the slightest infraction… Punishments for the least violations included mutilation and forcing people to eat excrement. One report dated Nov. 30, 1960 tells how a man named Wang Ziyou had one of his ears chopped off, his legs tied up with iron wire and a 10-kilogram stone dropped on his back before he was branded with a sizzling tool. His crime: digging up a potato...” By FRANK DIKÖTTER Published: December 15, 2010 NY Times

7. Mao’s Cultural Revolution 1966 - 1976
In 1966, China’s Communist leader Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution. Mao called on the nation’s youth to purge the “impure” elements of Chinese society and revive the revolutionary spirit that had led to victory in the civil war 20 decades earlier and the formation of the People’s Republic of China. Intellectuals, people deemed “class enemies” and those with ties to the West or the former Nationalist government were persecuted. Many officials were purged. Some, like the future leader Deng Xiaoping, were eventually rehabilitated. Others were killed, committed suicide or were left permanently scarred. The Cultural Revolution continued until Mao’s death in 1976.
A man is holding a “Little Red Book”; a book of selected statements from speeches and writings by Mao. Paramilitary "Red Guards” ensured every Chinese person carried one and could quote from it. "Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

8. The Korean War
A) At the beginning of the 20th century, Korea had been a part of the Japanese empire. After WWII the world leaders at the Potsdam Conference agreed to temporarily divide Korea along the 38th parallel, with the Soviets in the North and the Americans in the South.

9. Korean War Continued…
B) Instead of Korea reunifying, a civil war began.
South Korea: Anti-communist dictator Syngman Rhee ( ) was supported by the US.
North Korea: Communist dictator Kim Il Sung ( ) was supported by the USSR (Stalin) and China (Mao).
C) The Korean War officially began June 25, 1950 when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army crossed south of the 38th parallel. By July, American troops arrived to help South Korea.

10. Korean War Continued… Syngman Rhee Kim Il Sung
“I can handle the Communists. The Reds can bury their guns and burn their uniforms, but we know how to find them. With bulldozers we will dig huge excavations and trenches, and fill them with Communists. Then cover them over. And they will really be underground.”
Kim Il Sung
“The most important thing in our war preparations is to teach all our people to hate U.S. imperialism. Otherwise, we will not be able to defeat the U.S. imperialists who boast of their technological superiority.”

11. The Korean War Continued…
D) An armistice was called on July 27, The agreement allowed the POWs (Prisoners of War) to stay where they liked, drew a new boundary near the 38th parallel that gave South Korea an extra 1,500 square miles; and created a 2-mile-wide “demilitarized zone” that still exists today. *There was never an “official” end of war treaty.
Did You Know? North Korea calls it the Fatherland Liberation War. In South Korea, it's called Six-Two-Five, after the day it started. China's subtle name for the conflict is the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea.

13. The Korean War Continued…
Korean refugees take a rest on April 04, 1951

14. The Vietnam War
A) The French defeat of the Indochina War (1946 – 1954) resulted in the division of the former French colony of Indochina into 3 separate countries; Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Vietnam was divided along the 17th Parallel into the Communist North Vietnam and the anti-Communist South Vietnam until a nationwide election would be held to unify the country.

15. Vietnam War Continued…
B) In 1956 South Vietnam refused to hold the election. JFK sent 2,000 military to support the South, which was increased to 16,300 by By 1960, the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) had begun to crush the South Vietnamese government.
Guerrilla forces from North Vietnam's Vietcong movement cross a river in 1966

18. Vietnam War Continued…
C) 1964, after an attack on two U.S. Navy vessels (Gulf of Tonkin Incident), the Gulf of Tokin Resolution was passed by Congress giving President Johnson authorization to use military forces in Southeast Asia.  Johnson and later Nixon increased American troops in Vietnam.

19. The Vietnam War Continued…
C) January 31, 1968, 70,000 Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive, a series of attacks on more than 100 cities in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), planned the offensive to spur rebellion among the South Vietnamese and encourage the US to reduce its support. The Tet Offensive increased American anti-war sentiment. Historians consider the Tet Offensive a turning point; a strategic victory for the North and the beginning of America’s withdrawal from Vietnam.
“Any forces that would impose their will on other nations will certainly face defeat.” General Vo Nguyen Giap

21. The Vietnam War Continued…
D) 1969, President Richard Nixon “Vietnamization” gave South Vietnamese forces greater responsibility in fighting the war while still receiving American aid. E) 1970, Nixon attempted to destroy Viet Cong supply bases to the south in Laos and Cambodia. This  anti-war protests in the U.S. F) In Jan 1973, the Paris Peace Accord was signed establishing a ceasefire and allowing a POW exchange following U.S. force withdrawal. The fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War and Vietnam was reunified as a communist country.

22. A Cambodian girl salvages a board from her home in Neak Luong, southeast of Phnom Penh, which was hit by a misdirected U.S. bombing raid. (Tampa Bay Times files)

23. Life Magazine February 11, 1966
A woman mourns over the body of her husband after identifying him by his teeth and covering his head with her conical hat. The man’s body was found with 47 others in a mass grave near Hue on 11 April 1969.
Life Magazine February 11, 1966

24. Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief 1968
After Nguyen Ngoc Loan raised his sidearm and shot Vietcong operative Nguyen Van Lem in the head he told reporters “These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha will forgive me.” Captured on NBC TV cameras and by AP photographer Eddie Adams, the footage became a symbol of the Vietnam War’s brutality. What Adams’ photograph doesn’t reveal is that the man being shot (Nguyen Van Lem) was the captain of a Vietcong “revenge squad” that had executed dozens of unarmed civilians earlier the same day. The photo won a Pulitzer Prize.

25. Vietnam War Protests

27. Key Vocabulary
38th Parallel Cultural Revolution Great Leap Forward Gulf of Tokin Resolution Korean War Mao Zedong Paris Peace Accord Tet Offensive Vietcong Vietnamization Vietnam War