It was just the case when size mattered. To this day historians are speculating as to how many Chinese servicemen were involved in the year-long operation. But clearly there were enough to suspend the US and South Korean army’s push and all but cripple Washington’s plan to unite Korea by force. Before Beijing entered the fighting, US and Korean troops were on a rampage of successful operations in the North and were planning a victory parade. Surprise attack by the Chinese quickly changed that. The Chinese intervention in the war is described by historians across the Atlantic as the most heartbreaking, as on some occasions the allied troops of the US and South Korea lost 300 times as many soldiers as the Chinese volunteers. Moscow also joined the war, but Joseph Stalin ordered the Red Army to assist the Chinese intrusion. Frankly speaking, it was only about air support. One condition, though – soviet fighter jets could fight American jets no further than 100 kilometers into Korean territory. Nevertheless, the USSR reportedly lost more than 25,000 soldiers in its “light assistance” to the Chinese. Many believe it was the allied involvement of China and the Soviet Union that was crucial to the eventual failure to bring peace to the peninsula.

In the six decades since that war, the world has changed greatly. China’s main ally in that war – the USSR – no longer exists. China itself transformed into one of the most economically strong countries on the planet. But some things remain unchanged after all – the Korean peninsula is still divided by the 38th parallel, with North and South Korea still technically at war. News of possible hostilities between the two make waves in the global media just about every year. And China – despite now being one of Washington’s main trade partners – is still strongly defiant of US foreign policy.

In the US, veterans of the Korean War often refer to themselves as “forgotten”. Maybe because the 1950s fighting on the peninsula somehow dissipated between the heroics of World War II and the controversies of the Vietnam war. But it is a completely different story and a mirrored approach to the events in south-east Asia. The marking of the 60th anniversary of Beijing’s participation in the Korean War is not large-scale in China, it is not an official state holiday. But given that president Hu Jintao labels survivors of the Chinese intervention as “heroes” and plans a trip to Pyongyang next week to mark the date, it seems clear that this part of history is not forgotten in modern-day China. No matter how different it is from the 1950s.

Alexey Yaroshevsky, RT