Well, that is the thing, I do not see any way Truman could avoid relieving MacArthur AND preserve US democracy. If a general already wildly popular at home and abroad can overrule an unpopular president and dictate foreign policy to him, it will not be long before he is dictating domestic policy as well, and decides to formally replace de jure civilian "authority" with de facto military authority. Truman was strategically correct; I am just not sure avoiding the current Korean situation, or even the Cold War (and if Truman goes into China before the Soviet split we end up fighting them, too, though by that time we would probably have them in a vicious pincer they have NEVER faced) would have been worth the cost of American fascism.

Further clarification: A peninsular war with Korea would last days, or one with China? I agree China would not have long to decide whether to defend North Korea if we attacked, but also expect they would do so in under five minutes (not hyperbole.) They might have no choice; again, Beijing is only three minutes from North Korea by Teapodong-2. I just cannot see them allowing even a "temporary" US (or allied South Korean) occupation of North Korea; it would be hard to imagine even without the Century of Humiliation and Chinas current nationalism and economic resurgence, but with all those things together? No way.

China has always, or at least since around the birth of Christ, considered Korea one of its provinces. It has often been so in all but name, and Imperial Japan combined with the Wests prostration of China is the only reason maps have not reflected that since the Nineteenth Century. It is to Japan and China what Alsace and the Saar are to France and Germany, or Poland to Russia and Germany. I imagine you already know all this, but that is the basis of my perspective here, or at least part of it. Also throw in the Opium Wars, Open Door, Taiwan, our growing economic competiton and Chinese youth whose government has told them for a generation the US has no business meddling it their internal affairs (read: All of Southeast Asia.)

I just see no tenable way China CAN stand aside, whether or not it wants to do so. Its leaders may be forced to the same calculated risk as ours: Not whether to fight a war they do not want, but on their terms or ours. I doubt I need to tell you or them wars are always better fought on ones own terms than ones enemys.