News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: China To Help Find Korean War POWs

Date: September 14, 2000

China to Help US Find Missing US Soldiers

BEIJING, Sept 13 (AFP) - China has taken a big step forward in helping the United States find American soldiers missing in action and prisoners of war (POW) of the Korean War by allowing officials to interview Chinese who ran POW camps in North Korea, US officials said Wednesday.

Robert Jones, US deputy assistant secretary of defense, said China's ministry of foreign affairs this week arranged for him and his staff to interview several Chinese who helped manage the Korean War camps. He called the meeting a major step forward. "I believe that the Chinese government holds the key to information about our POWs held during the Korean War," Jones said.

The US government is looking for about 8,200 missing Americans from the Korean War, 2,300 of which were prisoners of war. Chinese cooperation is crucial to finding out what happened to the Americans, as China operated many POW camps in North Korea during the war and hold records regarding those Americans, Jones said. A man in his 70s who managed lists of POWs at the camps provided information that laid the foundation for future exchanges on those individuals, Jones said.

Chinese camp workers could provide crucial information on where the prisoners were held, whether any may still be alive and where the ones who died in prison were buried, Jones said.

Jones was also informed during his visit to China this week that two sites where US warplanes crashed during World War II had been pinpointed in Tibet. The Chinese had provided information that would lead to the excavation and recovery of the remains.

"We have no specific information ... We will try to determine as much information as we possibly can about the aircraft, were they release aircraft? Were they flown by Americans?" Jones said.

Jones said US investigators would likely visit those sites next year. China has been less cooperative on the Korean War than the Vietnam War and World War II, Jones said. The Korean War is the only conflict in which the Americans and Chinese fought each other. The Americans supplied a majority of the United Nations troops fighting on the side of South Korea and the Chinese supplied troops and weapons to North Korea.

US officials had received cooperation from the ministry of foreign affairs, but had not had as much access to information as it would have liked partly because it was unable to meet with any militray officials until this visit. Jones also requested Chinese assistance in tracking down 12 Americans who were in a plane lost off the coast of China on Aug. 22, 1956 during the Cold War. He said 124 Americans were missing from the Cold War when the United States conducted intelligence gathering activity near the borders of China and the former Soviet Union.

Jones' said his office was also trying to follow up on eight outstanding cases of American soldiers missing in China from the Vietnam War. The Americans were in planes that strayed across boundaries into China, and were shot down.

"It's very important for everyone to understand that this is a humanitarian issue," Jones said.

"The mission is to try to determine information related to the recovery of missing Americans so that we can return them to their families, families who have waited some 50 years for answers in the case of the Korean War."