Chaoxianzu and the Chinese Communist Party: Korean Soldiers in Manchuria During China’s Civil War

The Soviet invasion of and subsequent collapse of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1945 further complicated the already fraught experience of ethnic Koreans (chaoxianzu) residing in Manchuria. After the end of World War II, many chaoxianzu were former collaborators with the Manchukuo government. Others were longtime members of the Korean Communist Party (KCP) and/or the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Thus when the Chinese Civil War resumed, there was a significant ethnic Korean contingent fighting in Manchuria for the CCP. What were the experiences fighting in the Chinese Civil War like for these chaoxianzu soldiers, and how did they reconcile their loyalties to the CCP with their ethnic Korean identity? Both during the Civil War and after the formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, how did the Chinese perceive these soldiers and their service? This paper examines the experiences of these Korean soldiers in the Chinese Civil War and their postwar fates in the opening salvos of the Cold War. It argues that these chaoxianzu complicate the Cold War identities of “Chinese,” “Korean,” and “communist.” Lastly, it explores the fate of these soldiers after the Chinese Civil War – whether they chose to migrate to the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) or remain in China – and what this tells us about the subjective nature of Cold War positionalities between China and Korea.