News-Info-Alerts

Re: Does China Hold Answers?

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: March 30, 2003

"U.S. looks to Chinese archives, aging soldiers to track Korean War missing
By TED ANTHONY
The Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) -- The United States hopes dusty communist files and aging Chinese soldiers can help solve some of its most tenacious military mysteries: the fates of long-lost American servicemen who went missing during the Korean War.

The U.S. Embassy said Saturday that Beijing and Washington have agreed to cooperate more closely in the effort to review Chinese records for clues to what happened to more than 8,100 American forces unaccounted for from the 1950-53 Korean War.

The announcement came as the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense who oversees POW and MIA affairs, Jerry D. Jennings, concluded a visit to Beijing to discuss the matter with officials from China's foreign and defense ministries, and the Red Cross Society of China.

"Chinese records may well hold the key to helping us resolve many of the cases of American POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the Cold War," the embassy quoted Jennings as saying.

He did not say how many American servicemen the United States was seeking information about.

"The government of China has been very cooperative in our investigations of World War II and Vietnam losses," Jennings said. "Both sides suggested ways to enhance cooperation on Korean War cases and acknowledged that we have limited time to achieve this goal."

Time is short because the dwindling number of veterans and firsthand witnesses to any Korean War-era POW- or MIA-related issues gradually are dying off. A soldier in his early 20s during the first year of the Korean War would be in his mid-70s today.

China backed its neighbor, North Korea, during the Korean War, while the United States led forces fighting for the South. The conflict exacerbated the enmity and suspicion between China's communist government and the United States, and the two countries did not establish diplomatic relations until 1979.

The United States wants Chinese civilian researchers to troll old archives -- both national and provincial -- on behalf of Washington. It also is seeking material from the Dandong Museum, in a Chinese city near the North Korean border, relating to two F-86 pilots missing in action from the Korean War, the embassy said.

Last year, China hosted teams of U.S. specialists to investigate two World War II-era aircraft crash sites and one Cold War crash site. At least one of the investigations has turned up remains, and follow-up visits are scheduled at those locations.

U.S. officials also want to resume contact with Chinese People's Liberation Army veterans from the Korean War to gather information about Chinese POW camps during the war.

Though North Korea and China remain allies in a world where the number of communist nations is dwindling, Beijing has cultivated a closer relationship with Washington and has been forced to balance its friendship with Pyongyang with recent U.S.-led condemnation of the North's nuclear program.

Calls to China's Foreign Ministry on Saturday night went unanswered.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press."