Is this meant to make us believe that China is a free country?
"...on whose behalf 360,000 soldiers, mainly volunteers, died during the Korean war 53 years ago"
Sure. They were given a choice to join the People's Army or face a firing squad, so I guess they could be called "volunteers".
On the one hand we have communist China, where human life is so cheap that the citizens' body parts are worth more to the regime than citizens are, home to mass executions, constant and mysterious disappearances and retroactive abortion. A military megalith in terms of numbers.
On the other hand we have communist DPRNK, where human life is so cheap the citizens are worth more to the government as fertilizer than as farmers, home to mass executions and constant and mysterious disappearances as far away as Japan. Flyspeck on Earth's arse and militarily insignificant without China, satellite of China....
We're supposed to WORRY for some reason?
We're supposed to WORRY for some reason?
The supreme irony would be the UN called out to protect NK
against the Chinese.
You miss the point. "Volunteers" are basically like a militia; they weren't part of the People's Liberation Army, they could be sent in untrained and under-equipped, and if they lost, the ChiComs had plausible deniability and could save face.
I can't say how many of the "volunteers" were openly coerced and how many were so pervasively brainwashed and conditions that they honestly volunteered; there are enough atrocities in the Cultural Revolution without government encouragement to make it a fair question.