REPATRIATION WARS: THE POLITICAL CULTURE AND IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICT WITHIN UN POW CAMPS DURING THE KOREAN WAR

During the Korean War, POWs within UN POW camps participated in riots and mass-demonstrations, as anxieties over repatriation increased. Not all POWs who were against repatriation were against Communism and not all POWs who wanted repatriation were radical Communists. However, almost all Chinese and Koreans living in post-World War II East Asia during this period experienced increasing pressure to pick a side. The US, North Korea, South Korea, China, and Taiwan all manipulated the POWs’ fight over repatriation to support specific ideologies and legitimize new regimes. Regardless of whether a POW was ideologically motivated, the POW issue was definitely a direct result of the Cold War mentality which perpetuated the recent civil wars in China and Korea. Thus, the appalling level of POW violence in the UN camps revealed how the Cold War ideological struggle was deeply complicated by the lingering civil wars in China and the Korean peninsula.