On August 6, 2021, Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Kunming Asia and Southeast Asia International Logistics Research Institute(SSILR) jointly held the special activity of the Ninth CPC of China’s History Education Study Meeting. The theme of this meeting is to learn history and practice it. Professor Li Juhui of SSILR gave a lecture on "Reviewing the History of Aiding the Laos to Resist U.S., Ensuring the Security and Development." The participators were including Mr.Jin Hao(Secretary-General of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang), Mr.Zhao Liang and Mr.Pujia(the Research Office of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang), Mr Liu Jinxin and Mrs.Han Yan(the members of the Chinese Kuomintang Party), and Mr.Jin Cheng, Mr.Liu Daqing(the experts of SSILR) and others.On July 21, 2017, President Xi Jinping and other leaders of the Party and the state have visited “the Theme Exhibition Celebrating the 90th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Liberation Army:Remember the Glorious History, Strengthen the Army, Create a Great Cause for People's Liberation Army" in the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution. In the “Defend the Motherland and Oversea Military aidance” Section, it has firstly exhibited the history of Aiding the Laos and the Vietnam to Resist America, and it announced to the public the historical backgrounds, the real situations, the meaning of the wars and the deeds of the heroes who participated in these wars. In November of the same year, President Xi Jinping has wrote an article during his visit to the Laos: In the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese soldiers and civilians had actively supported the national independence and liberation of Laos. More than 200 Chinese martyrs had slept under this hot land where they had fought, they had built an indelible monument of China-Laos friendship by their lives.
After unveiled the mystery of the history of the wars to aid Laos and Vietnam to resist U.S., the performances of the soldiers who participated in the wars and the portraits and relics of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the protection of the world peace and the security of the motherland were solemnly treasured and permanently preserved in the highest cultural and honor honor hall of the China's revolution history--the Chinese People's Revolutionary Military Museum, and all of these had disseminated through the medias. This had not only made the witnesses who had participated in the two wars to feel great relief, but also allowed every contemporary soldiers to share the glory and let the broad masses of people to understand this period of history. As a veteran who has participated in the War of Aiding Laos to Resist America for three years, Dr.Li Juhui has experienced the trails of blood and fire, life and death, and witnessed the death of his comrades who have been buried in a foreign country. He has experienced hard and dangerous days in the sunny day and the muddy rainy day; the enemy planes have bombed in the sky, and the enemy special forces have harassed on the ground. He has still remebered how did the soldiers dare to use our backward weapons to compete with the most advanced air weapons of the US invader; how did they sacrifice their lives for their fellow soliders under the bombing of enemy planes, and how did they use their bodies as wires to ensure communication equipments; how did they fight against poisonous snakes, poisonous locusts, poisonous ants, and poisonous mosquitoes in the virgin forests; how did they fight with the illnesses like night blindness, rotten crotch peeling, rotten mouth corners, rotten armpits and the epidemic virus like malaria and others in a difficult environment. These memories have become clearer in these years and most times would be a nightmare, and this kind of emotion is difficult to express in words.
There were many dreams of the iron-blooded years,
and looking back to the smoke of gunpowder many nights.
The flag gallops and descends the mist of the demon,
the sword points to moutains and kills the demon.
The War of Aiding Laos to Resist U.S. was full of injustices,
and the angers on the Mekong River were still there.
The lion chased the invaders and the eagle flies higher,
Let’s build roads to connect the land and sky,
Let’s show the beauty of the coloful river.
the Chinese Aid to Laos Road Construction Headquartershas invited the main leaders from Muang Xai, Namtha, the two provinces of Laos to celebrate Chinese National Day and took a group photo together.
In the history of Chinese warfare, there is a famous saying: "food and fodder must be prepared in advance for the soldiers and horses." The experience of the aiding Laos to resist America proved the importance of logistics support, and we could say that sometimes the war was actually the war of logistics support and you could risk losing the battle if your logistics support could not keep up. In the war, logistics works have done by Chinese People's Liberation Army was not only very good, but also very distinctive.
The 22nd Branch of the Logistics Department was responsible for the logistics support tasks in the aiding Laos to resist U.S. war. In Laos, there were several military stations, gas stations, boarding and lodging stations, military depots, field hospitals and others in the engineering, artillery, and security forces of Laos and along the whole construction lines in Laos. They provided what the troops need indeed. The supports and demands for military supplies of the first-line troops (called "military logistics" as they are now) depended entirely on the logistics support troops who transported all the military materials from China to different locations where troops performed their tasks in Laos by Jiefang brand vehicles. If the car could not transport, it would be transported by the mules and horses teams at the military stations.
In 1945, in order to fight against French colonial rule, the Lao Ishara Front was established. In August 1950, the Ishara Front of Laos convened the People's Congress and established the Anti-French Government with Prince Sufanu as Prime Minister. In 1951, the Ishara Front of Laos, the National United Front of Vietnam, and the Khmer Freedom Front established the Vietnam-Khmer-Laos People’s Alliance Front. In 1954, Laos won the struggle against France. The Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962 clearly recognized the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Laos. In order to turn Laos into a new colony and military base of the United States, the United States adopted various "aids", "advisors" and "military personnels", and using Southeast Asian Military Groups and the military bases as springboards such as Thailand and South Vietnam to implement plans to interfere and invade Laos. The United States fostered pro-American regimes and extreme-right military forces in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, provoked a civil war in Laos, and launched the Vietnam War. Facing U.S. aggression and the offensive of the pro-U.S. regime's army, the Lao people were not afraid of the power of violence, and under the leadership of the Lao People's Party and the "Patriotic Front", they established liberated areas, developed patriotic armed forces, and launched the war of resisting against the United States and national salvation.——"Laos is the bottle stopper of Southeast Asia", "If Laos is lost, the entire Indochina will be lost, and all the strategic materials in Southeast Asia will be lost." (Source: In a speech by President Eisenhower in the New York Times, August 17, 1959 )Premier Zhou Enlai has met with the leaders of Royal Government of Laos, Sini Pholsena(the head of the delegation) (the head of the Lao Patriotic Front delegation).
In 1956, in response to the needs of the struggle to resist the United States and national salvation, the Lao Patriotic Front was established. It was determined that the main task of the Lao National Democratic Revolution was to defeat the "special war" of the United States and become a truly independent and peaceful country. The Kingdom United Government was established in Laos in 1960, the Provisional National Unity Government of Laos was formed in 1962, the Vientiane regime was established by pro-American forces in 1964, and the United States sent planes to bomb Lao Liberated Areas; in 1971, South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos and the U.S. troops dispatched more than 40,000 warplanes. The "special warfare" carried out by the United States in Laos reached its highest stage. In June 1975, American military personnel withdrew from Laos, and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was established in December. During those years, every day, various U.S. aircraft flying from U.S. military bases in Thailand and South Vietnam and the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet dropped various types of bombs on Laos, dropped various types of chemical poisons, and destroyed villages, temples, schools, hospitals, towns and markets in Laos, and destroyed the lives and property of the Lao people. The United States used Thailand as a military base for aggression against Southeast Asia. A defense system was established through the seven provinces bordering Thailand and Laos, turning this area into a rear base for the United States in the Laos battlefield. This system included jet airports in Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani, Nakhon Ratchasima, Dhakali, Khon Kaen, and Nakhon Phanom. U.S. jets took off from these places every day to bomb and blast the cities, villages, roads and bridges of Lao Liberated Areas and northern Vietnam. The United States has built strategic roads such as Udon Thani-Nong Khai, Nakhon Ratchasima-Ubon Ratchathani, and Loei-Changkan, leading to Vientiane, Pakse, Xayaburi and other places in Laos. The two joint naval and air bases at Sattahip and U-Tapao built by the US military were the main bases for B52 bombers to take off and bomb the Liberated Areas of Laos and southern Vietnam. The number of US troops stationed in Thailand reached more than 40,000 in 1968, most of them were air force personnels.——"Although a nation is weak and small, but if it understands how to unity closely, with a tenacious spirit of struggle and with a fantastic strategic line of struggle, then no matter who the aggressor is, how many guns it possesses, or how stubborn and barbaric it is, the nation will surely win ." (Source: "The Victorious Struggle of Laos and Lao People Against American Neocolonialism", Phoumi Vongvichit, General Secretary of the Lao Patriotic Front, edited by Lao Patriotic Press, 1968)
On April 25, 1961, Chairman Mao Zedong,Premier Zhou Enlai, Foreign Minister Chen Yiand Prince Souvanna Phoum(Prime Minister of Lao Provisional Government),(Deputy Prime Minister) and(Minister of Foreign Affairs) held talks.
From 1961 to 1978, at the request of Laos, the Chinese government implemented the strategic support of aiding Laos against the United States. In diplomacy, Chinese government comprehensively supported the Lao National Democratic Revolution’s struggle to resist the United States and national salvation; in military, the engineering and anti-aircraft artillery troops were the key troops to ensure the military logistics support; in economy, Yunnan Province was responsible to implement the central governmental and local aiding plans. In February 1968, according to the minutes of the talks between China and Laos on the construction of roads signed in Beijing, China sent an engineering team to help Laos build border roads and to equip them with necessary air defense weapons. The Chinese Army’s establishment of the Laos Road Construction Command has successively dispatched more than 110,000 people to assist Laos in building 822 kilometers of strategic roads, and invested more than 2,250 units of various major construction machinery. In the war,totally carried out 95 air operations, 35 aircraft were shot down and 24 were injured. The Chinese-aided Lao Anti-U.S. troops fought stubbornly under the war environment and built roads against the Laos through arduous construction and air operations. They paid the price of blood and lives. 269 of the Lao-aid troops died heroically, of which 210 were died in cemetery of Mongsai and BanNanshe, Laos. The Yunnan Foreign Aid Office has recorded a total of 1.189 billion RMB in economic assistance through various channels such as local trade, technical assistance, sporadic assistance, and border exchanges.
——"History cannot be chosen." "The key to sound relations between states lies in the friendship of the people, and the friendship of the people lies in the mutual understanding of each other." (Source: "Into the 50 Years of China and Laos", Zhang Ruikun, Hong Kong Tianma Publishing Co., Ltd., 2017)
The bloody battles of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army that sent troops to aid Laos to resist the U.S. for more than ten years was an important military struggle in the contemporary wars history. It has made significant contributions to the independence, freedom and liberation of Laos. It has shown the fighting spirit of Communist Party of China who was dare to fight, good at fighting and brave in fighting; shown the great spirit of Chinese people and the Chinese army to maintain international fairness and justice. The soldiers who participated in the cruel wars in the harsh environment with the hard living situations created the spiritual wealth like following the CPC’s command, serving the people, being brave and good at fighting, selfless dedication, and patriotism. And the spiritual wealth is also the fine tradition inherited and maintained by the Chinese Communists, who are facing major changes unseen in a century in the complicated international environment.
On July 31, 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over the 32nd Collective Study of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee and emphasized that realizing the Chinese Liberation Army’s one Centenary Goal is a major decision made by the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission to grasp the requirements of the era of a strong country and a strong army. It is a major task related to national security and development security. Looking back on the CPC’s centuries of struggle, insisting on the CPC’s command of guns, and building its own people’s army are the party’s major conclusions in the struggle between blood and fire.
Dr.Li Juhui, Male, born in December 1952, a member of the Communist Party of China, enlisted from the 30th Middle School in Kunming in February 1969, and served in the 701 Group, the 5th Detachment of the Anti-American Aid to the Lao.In May 1969, he went to Laos to carry out the task of aiding Laos and anti-US road construction project. In March 1972, he returned to China to build the 307th Regiment of the Shenyang Military Region Engineer Corps to perform the task of building the frontier defense and reserve force barracks.In June 1974, it was reorganized into the Hydrogeological Unit of the Infrastructure Engineering Corps to perform hydrogeological survey tasks. Served as a soldier, correspondent, surveyor of the battalion department, engineering laboratory inspector of the headquarters, clerical accountant, and chief technician of the regiment’s infrastructure construction agent. During his missions abroad and in china, he was awarded the title of "Five Good Warriors", the command award, and the second prize of scientific and technological progress in the "1:20 Hydrogeological Survey" issued by the Ministry of Geology. He graduated from Changchun Institute of Geology, majoring in hydrology and engineering geology. In January 1983, when he transferred to Kunming University of Science and Technology to teach, he graduated from the double-degree program of political management of Beijing Capital Normal University. He has served as lecturer, director of teaching and research section, director of new technology application research institute, senior engineer, and professor. He used to be the deputy director of the International Exchange Committee of the China Enterprise Culture Promotion Association and the director of the Southwest Workstation, the deputy secretary general of the China Western Development Promotion Association and the chief representative of Yunnan Province. The current secretary and deputy dean of Kunming South and Southeast Asia International Logistics Research Institute.
