When CHINESE soldiers did not want to return to CHINA!!!
On August 5, 1953, Operation Big Switch began. Over 75,000 Communist prisoners were returned to North Korea and China, which handed over 12,722 prisoners from the United Nations Command.
Over 22,000 Communist soldiers decided to seek asylum rather than return to their home countries; 88 defected to India, instead. And a handful of Americans refused to be repatriated.
In the pic: Two Indian soldiers carrying a weeping Chinese POW to the exchange point in Panmunjom, North Korea, for return to the Communists after the Korean War in the early fall of 1953. He was among 65 Chinese soldiers who asked to be repatriated to their homeland.