The Hijacked War: The Story of Chinese POWs in the Korean War Hardcover – Illustrated, January 7, 2020

The POW issue covered the second half of the Korean war. While it was not a military maneuvering, it did represent the moral courage of the Truman administration. Deeply respectful!

I have to blame myself missing this book, how did this happen?i have to admit, i am writing this one while reading this book.When I was little, we hardly hear any stories about POWs, I don’t think this word existing in the communist dictionary anyway. We were educated that the communist troop already won the battles, anyhow, along with open-up, we occasionally could gain a glimpse on the captives during the Korean War, what we read wa how brutally they were treated in those camps, the Nationalists, those counterrevolutionaries, badly treated the pows, tortured them, but the wills of those communist soldiers were unshakeable, they fought against the enemies, and returned to the embrace of the motherland even with the last breath. Very rarely, we heard those POW were scrutinised and pushed aside during the Great Cultural Revolution. Other than those bits of pieces of information, it was and is still blank in the history. My mate, Chang David Cheng Chang’s book shall be interesting, what happened to those communist POWs? Why did they choose to go to Taiwan which was defeated by the Communist in 1949? What were the reasons driving them to do so? Where are the fates for those who chose TW? There are so many questions I have at least. I read the sample and bought it, I think David’s book will reveal this particular part of history and will restore the truth.the interesting information from this book: the Korean War was divided into two parts, a war on the territories and another half of the war was over the POWs. none of the players in this war, the US, Communist China and Taiwan were expecting this outcome, two thirds of the POWs from China defected to Taiwan...

I'm particularly impressed by the author's criticism on US gov's self-defeating and self-trapping policy to reindoctrinate the POWs. The reading experience is complemented by the benefit of all the hindsight one can get from the history of mainland China/TW in the past 70+ years. Kudos to the author for his thorough research and solid writing to shed light on this otherwise obscure page of contemporary history.

Dr. David Chang has produced a master piece on Chinese POWs in Korean War. This book is based on Dr. Chang's extensive research and in-person interviews in US, China and Taiwan. It was history written in blood, tears, and sorrows across the snows in Korean peninsula and the blue water of the Taiwan strait. Sadly, lots of the interviewees past in the last ten years. I was moved to see Dr. Chang dedicating this book to thousands of Chinese POWs in Korean War.

At the end of WWii 15000 chinese soldiers were prisoners in North Korea that did not want to return to main land China because of communist rule. The end of the war was delayed over a year because of how to deal with these prisoners. Most ended up in Tai Wan or the US. Very interesting story.