korean & vietnam war

• Communism in China

  • Communist forces tried to gain control of the government in 1911 but were prevented by the Chinese Nationalists
  • Civil war erupted in 1927 between the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Tse-tung
  • Mao's Communists gained control of China and defeated the Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan
  • Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949
• Mao's rule in China


  • Consolidated power by removing individuals who threatened it
  • Confiscated farmlands of independent middle-class farmers and forced them into slave labor
  • Launched the "Five Year Plan" in 1953 to increase industrial output but agricultural activity continued to decline
  • Launched the "Great Leap Forward" in 1958 which resulted in further decline in production
  • Launched the "Cultural Revolution" in 1966 to remove cultural revolutionaries and foreign influences
• Korean War (1950-1953)


  • Began when North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950
  • US and UN forces were pushed to the southern end of the peninsula near Pusan but were able to stop the North Korean advance and recapture Seoul
  • Chinese sent one million soldiers to push the Americans and South Koreans back, leading to a deadlock until 1953 when a truce was accepted
• Vietnam War (1957-1975)


  • Began when communist guerilla fighters, the Viet Cong, attacked villages in South Vietnam to pressure the nation to accept communism and Ho Chi Minh's rule
  • US began sending military advisors and supplies to South Vietnam, and later invaded Cambodia to remove North Vietnamese forces
  • South Vietnam plunged into political turmoil, and the US launched bombing campaigns against North Vietnam
  • After years of fighting, a ceasefire was signed in 1973 but was violated by North Vietnam in 1975, leading to the fall of Saigon
• The Korean War revealed that the United States was not just at odds with the Soviet Union, but with the communist ideology in general
• Douglas MacArthur believed that with the truce in Korea, the United States had failed to bring a conclusion to the war on communism
• In 1930, the pro-communist Ho Chi Minh formed the Indochinese Communist Party with the intention of establishing communism all over Indochina
• The 17th parallel, a demilitarized zone, separated North Vietnam and South Vietnam
• The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution provided the United States with legal justification to take military action in Vietnam, but some claimed the attack in the Gulf of Tonkin was fabricated
• Political leaders in Washington, DC denied Westmoreland's wishes for an all-out invasion of North Vietnam because they believed it would bring "an unacceptable risk of confrontation with the USSR"
• During his administration, US President Richard Nixon began to withdraw American troops and replace them with South Vietnamese soldiers in a policy known as "Vietnamization"
• The US Department of State had decided to decrease American involvement in Vietnam because of the fear that it might further hinder the effort to open relations with China
• Who was elected president of South Korea in 1948?

  Syngman Rhee