The book Korea: Canada’s Forgotten War outlines the cost

 The book Korea: Canada’s Forgotten War outlines the cost: 

 

The morning after an artillery attack in Korea in November of 1951, Canadian troops wait to take a soldier's body away for burial.

© Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada (2013).

 

A total of 516 Canadians died for the cause of peace in Korea. Of these, 312 were killed in action during the war itself. The others died from various causes in training, in transit, or in the war theatre, between 1950 and 1956. Over 25,000 Canadians fought in Korea during the war, while more than 7,000 others remained in that coun­try to help preserve the peace after the armistice was signed. By comparison, more than 325,000 Republic of Korea soldiers were killed, along with 33,629 Americans and 935 British troops..[2]

In the Korean War of the 1950s, China's military aid to Pyongyang prevented the US from defeating North Korea.[1]

The Chinese troops fighting in the Korean conflict lacked heavy artillery or air support and many other materials.  Their small arms were mostly captured from former enemies.[2] "The United Nations placed an embargo, with which Hong Kong had also to comply, on trade with China in a wide range of strategic goods." However, strategic goods were still shipped to China from Hong Kong and smuggling of goods from Macao to China took place. Macau served as a transshipment centre for petroleum and munitions into China during and after the Korean War in violation of a UN-imposed embargo.

Enlisted
Many of these images of men in civilian clothes enlisting to serve in Korea were taken at recruiting offices as the army expanded in the summer of 1950. All died in Korea, or in Canada from wounds suffered overseas.