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China: 'It's glorious to participate, to oppose America, to support Korea, and to protect the home and the nation'. Propaganda poster (1951)

Family and friends seeing a 'People's Volunteer Army' volunteer off to fight on the communist side in the Korean War.

The Chinese intervened in the Korean War on 25 October 1950 when Mao Zedong ordered an initial 200,000 PVA troops to cross the Yalu River into Korea and engage the UN (predominantly US) forces there.

China sent an estimated 1,350,000 troops to fight in Korea; of these about 180,000 died, though some estimates have put the total PVA deaths as high as 450,000.

China emerged from the Korean War united by a sense of national pride, despite the war's enormous costs. The Chinese people have the point of view that the war was initiated by the United States and South Korea. In the Chinese media, the Chinese war effort is considered as an example of China's engaging the strongest power in the world with an under-equipped army, forcing it to retreat, and fighting it to a military stalemate. These successes were contrasted with China's historical humiliations by Japan and by Western powers over the previous hundred years.