Bellicose peace: China’s peace signature campaign and discourses about “peace” in the early 1950s
Bellicose peace: China’s peace signature campaign and discourses about “peace” in the early 1950s
In the early 1950s, China engaged in several military actions, most notably in the Korean War. Nevertheless, the World Peace Council, an international organization sponsored by the Soviet Union, praised the country as a “fortress for the protection of world peace” in 1954. This hinged upon a very specific, bellicose understanding of “peacefulness,” which did not mean the rejection of war, but war against the “right” enemy. I discuss this understanding, its function within the international community, its embeddedness in international political thinking, and its promulgation among the Chinese population, using the example of a campaign in 1950 to collect signatures on a World Peace Council–authored appeal against the atomic bomb. Self-promotion as a peaceful nation in the bellicose sense served a variety of purposes for the young People’s Republic of China (PRC), most importantly the goal to instill bloc thinking in the PRC’s population and to gain prestige within the new international order of the Cold War.
Korean War, World Peace Council, aggressive war, mass campaigns, “just war” theory
250–280
Forster, Elisabeth
5b83dcba-7458-48bc-bd25-e2833d542bb4
1 May 2020
Forster, Elisabeth
5b83dcba-7458-48bc-bd25-e2833d542bb4
Forster, Elisabeth
(2020)
Bellicose peace: China’s peace signature campaign and discourses about “peace” in the early 1950s.
Modern China, 46 (3), .
(doi:10.1177/0097700419851460).
Abstract
In the early 1950s, China engaged in several military actions, most notably in the Korean War. Nevertheless, the World Peace Council, an international organization sponsored by the Soviet Union, praised the country as a “fortress for the protection of world peace” in 1954. This hinged upon a very specific, bellicose understanding of “peacefulness,” which did not mean the rejection of war, but war against the “right” enemy. I discuss this understanding, its function within the international community, its embeddedness in international political thinking, and its promulgation among the Chinese population, using the example of a campaign in 1950 to collect signatures on a World Peace Council–authored appeal against the atomic bomb. Self-promotion as a peaceful nation in the bellicose sense served a variety of purposes for the young People’s Republic of China (PRC), most importantly the goal to instill bloc thinking in the PRC’s population and to gain prestige within the new international order of the Cold War.
Text
Forster Bellicose peace (Author Accepted Version)
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 1 May 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 2 June 2019
Published date: 1 May 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
I would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Puck Engman, Daniel Leese, Elisabeth Schleep, and Isaac Taylor for their invaluable feedback on this article. My thanks also go to the peer reviewers for their very detailed and constructive feedback. The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been funded by the Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, Freiburg im Breisgau.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
Keywords:
Korean War, World Peace Council, aggressive war, mass campaigns, “just war” theory
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 423743
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/423743
ISSN: 0097-7004
PURE UUID: 1a6ac0c4-d4a7-4b48-8ce9-d42094fb63c8
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 28 Sep 2018 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:07
Export record
Altmetrics
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics