China, USSR, N. Korea planned Japan invasion in Korean War: files

LONDON, Feb. 20 Kyodo

U.S. Army intelligence officials were told that China, the Soviet Union and North Korea planned to invade Japan during the Korean War, according to documents unearthed at the National Archives in London by Kyodo News.

A ''confidential source'' told officials the three countries were to attack Japan by air and submarine and the assault would also involve an invasion of Taiwan.

The informer said Joseph Stalin, Kim Il Sung and Mao Zedong all met in Moscow for around five days to formalize the plan on or around Dec. 3, 1950. They also discussed strengthening their alliance and agreed to complete their occupation of South Korea by April 1951.

The report by U.S. intelligence was passed to Britain's military adviser in Tokyo, Brig. A.K. Ferguson, who incorporated it into a report he sent to his bosses in London on Jan. 5, 1951.

Members of the G-2 intelligence section of the U.S. Far East Command (FEC) had doubts about the scheme but thought it could not be ruled out given the circumstances at the time. They did not think any of the countries named were capable of transporting the reported volumes of troops by sea to invade Japan.

Korean War specialists in Britain said they had never heard of a plan to invade Japan but did not think it would have been implemented. There are suspicions it could have been Communist propaganda fed to U.S. forces.

According to the source, a total of 500,000 Soviet troops would attack northern Japan, 500,000 North Korean soldiers would invade central Japan and one million Chinese troops would enter southern Japan and Taiwan. These forces would be aided in Japan by members of the Japanese Communist Party Youth Action Corps.

Britain's senior representative in Japan, Alvary Gascoigne, who made some comments on the U.S. report, said it was unlikely Mao and Kim would have been in Moscow on or around Dec. 3 due to major offensives taking place in South Korea.

U.S. intelligence suspected the information could have been passed on by someone acting on behalf of the Japanese Communist Party.

''The large figures used are typical of the Communist rumor that is fed to local supporters in an attempt to boost morale by the knowledge that the 'Great Soviet Union' is behind them,'' G-2 FEC wrote. ''On the other hand, various reports are being received of Soviet intentions to attack Japan, and the possibility should not be ignored.''

Certainly, events were not going particularly well for U.S. forces around the time the dispatch was written. On Jan. 4, 1951, Communist forces captured Seoul.

Peter Lowe, an expert in Japanese history at Manchester University in northern England, said, ''Stalin was careful not to escalate things into a global war. He felt the Soviet Union would not be ready for a world war until the mid 1950s. In any case, the magnitude of invading Japan and Taiwan would have been beyond the capabilities of the Soviet Union, China and North Korea.''

The Korean War began in June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. The North Koreans were later assisted by Chinese troops, while the Soviet Union also provided weapons and advice to their Communist neighbors.

The Communists felt threatened by American influence on the Korean Peninsula following the end of the Second World War.

South Korea was principally assisted by the United States and other Western nations. Many of the U.S. troops were dispatched from bases in Japan, raising fears that Japan itself could be vulnerable to an attack, and a U.S. warship was also sent to Taiwan following similar concerns.

There were also worries that Communists in Japan could foment some kind of civil war.

The Korean War, which involved a series of advances and withdrawals across the border by the two sides, ended in July 1953 with a cease-fire.

The British government files were opened to the public in 2003.

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