China once had its own localized Christmas customs.
One example: gifting an apple on Christmas Eve (平安夜), a wordplay for peace and safety. Apolitical. Personal. Harmless.

That space is disappearing.

In recent years, Dec 24–25 has been increasingly reframed by the Chinese Communist Party as a date to commemorate the so-called “victory over America” in the Korean War—quietly displacing Christmas as an “undesirable Western symbol.”

But the historical record is far less triumphant.

China entered the war not merely to repel U.S. forces, but to help unify the Korean Peninsula under a communist government. That objective failed. The war ended in stalemate, restoring roughly the same boundary as before—an outcome far closer to what the United Nations and the United States sought: containment and maintenance of the status quo.

The human cost tells an even clearer story.

Estimates vary, but Chinese forces alone suffered roughly 180,000–400,000 killed, with total casualties (killed, wounded, missing) commonly estimated well above 700,000.
By comparison, U.S. fatalities were about 36,000, with total casualties around 130,000, alongside allied UN losses that were significantly lower than those of China and North Korea combined.

In other words:
• Objectives unmet
• Territory unchanged
• Casualty ratio heavily one-sided

A war that ended where it began—at enormous human cost—is now branded a civilizational triumph, useful mainly as a political tool to overwrite culture.

An apple exchanged between young people was tolerated.
History, rewritten for power, replaced it.

That says less about Christmas—and more about who insists on owning the calendar, the past, and even small human rituals.