{"id":1326,"date":"2025-11-04T12:18:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T17:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/?p=1326"},"modified":"2025-11-04T12:18:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T17:18:25","slug":"a-second-class-citizen-in-the-chinese-peoples-volunteer-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/2025\/11\/04\/a-second-class-citizen-in-the-chinese-peoples-volunteer-army\/","title":{"rendered":"A \u201cSecond-Class Citizen\u201d in the Chinese People\u2019s Volunteer Army"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u5218\u5b50\u82f1 Ziying Liu<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u5218\u5e73 Ping Liu<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer: Ran Liu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewee: Ping Liu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ping Liu (\u5218\u5e73), the son of a former member of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army in the Korean War, Ziying Liu (\u5218\u5b50\u82f1), was born in Beijing, China in 1961, where he continues to live today. In the interview, Liu talked about his father\u2019s experiences growing up in a wealthy family with a Catholic background in today\u2019s Inner Mongolia, and later enlisting in the Nationalist Army, the People\u2019s Liberation Army, and the Chinese Voluntary Army, which brought him to Beijing, Hebei Province, Korea, and eventually back to Beijing. Liu highlights his father\u2019s anecdotes\u2014including his relationship with the Korean people and his attitude towards prisoners of war\u2014from the Korean battlefield. He also discusses his father\u2019s reflection on his military career in both the Nationalist and the Communist Armies, and this unique experience serving in both forces affected both his and his father\u2019s interpretations of war and modern Chinese politics. The interview covers topics such as personal experiences of war, the Chinese Civil War, Chinese intervention and the People\u2019s Voluntary Army in the Korean War, the Cultural Revolution, prisoner-of-war experiences, the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, and Catholicism in China. The interviewee is the interviewer\u2019s father. The interview was conducted via WeChat Video Call due to the distance between the interviewer and the interviewee. The interview was conducted in Mandarin Chinese by Ran Liu, a third-year History major at Colby College who is interested in the cultural, social, and political history of China and the Chinese presence in international warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n