| Sino–Vietnamese War (Third Indochina War) Associated with the Cold War, Cambodian-Vietnamese War |
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Invasion of Vietnam by the People's Republic of China. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
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China |
Vietnam |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Deng Xiaoping Yang Dezhi Xu Shiyou |
Le Duan Pham Van Dong Văn Tiến Dũng |
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| Strength | |||||||
| 200,000+ (later increased to 400,000[1]) PLA infantry and 400 tanks from Kunming and Guangzhou Military Districts[2] | 70,000–100,000 regular force, 150,000 local troops and militia[3] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Western estimation : 26,000 killed, 37,000 wounded and 420 tanks destroyed[4]
Chinese claim: 6,954 killed, 14,800 wounded.[5] |
Western source: 30,000 killed, 32,000 wounded and 185 tanks destroyed[6]
Vietnam claims: 100,000 civilians killed, no figures of military[2] |
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| Sino-Vietnamese War | |||||||||||||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 對越自衛反擊戰 | ||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 对越自卫反击战 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese | Chiến tranh biên giới Việt-Trung | ||||||||||||||||
The Sino–Vietnamese War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh biên giới Việt-Trung), also known as the Third Indochina War, known in the PRC as Chinese: 对越自卫反击战; pinyin: duì yuè zìwèi fǎnjī zhàn; literally "Defensive Counterattack against Vietnam" and in Vietnam as Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa (War against Chinese expansionism), was a brief but bloody border war fought in 1979 between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The PRC launched the offensive in response to Vietnam's 1978 invasion and occupation of Cambodia, which ended the reign of the PRC-backed Khmer Rouge.
The Chinese invaded Northern Vietnam and captured some of the northernmost cities in Vietnam. On March 6 China declared that the gate to Hanoi was open and that their punitive mission had been achieved and retreated back to China. Both China and Vietnam claimed victory in the last of the Indochina Wars of the 20th century; as Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia until 1989 it can be said that the PRC failed to achieve the goal of dissuading Vietnam from involvement in Cambodia. China achieved its strategic objective of reducing the offensive capability of Vietnam along the Sino-Vietnam border by implementing a scorched earth policy. China also achieved another strategic objective of demonstrating to its Cold War foe, the Soviet Union, that they were unable to protect their Vietnamese ally. As many as 1.5 million Chinese troops were stationed along China's borders with the USSR at the time and were prepared for a full-scale war.
Vietnam first became a French colony when France invaded in 1858. By the 1880s, the French had expanded their sphere of influence in Southeast Asia to include all of Vietnam, and by 1893 both Laos and Cambodia had become French colonies as well.[7] Rebellions against the French colonial power were common up to World War I. The European war heightened revolutionary sentiment in Southeast Asia, and the independence-minded population rallied around revolutionaries such as Hồ Chí Minh and others, including royalists.
Prior to their attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese occupied French Indochina.[8][9] The Japanese surrender in 1945 created a power vacuum in Indochina, as the various political factions scrambled for control.
The events leading to the First Indochina War are subject to historical contention.[10] When the Viet Minh hastily sought to establish the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the remaining French at first welcomed the new regime, but then staged a coup to regain their control.[9][11] The Kuomintang supported French restoration, but Viet Minh efforts towards independence were helped by Chinese communists under Soviet Union's power. The Soviet Union at first in directly supported Vietnamese communists, but later directly supported Hồ Chí Minh.[12][13] The Soviets nonetheless remained less supportive than China until after the Sino-Soviet split, during the time of Leonid Brezhnev when the Soviet Union became the key ally to communist Vietnam.
The war itself involved numerous events that had major impacts throughout Indochina. Two major conferences were held to bring about a resolution. Finally, on July 20, 1954, the Geneva Conference (1954) resulted in a political settlement to reunite the country, signed with support from China, Russia, and Western European powers.[12] While the Soviet Union played a constructive role in the agreement, it again was not as involved as China.[12][14] The U.S. disapproved of the agreement and swiftly moved when the Vietnamese gained their independence.
The Chinese Communist Party and the Viet Minh had a long history. During the initial stages of the First Indochina War with France, the recently founded communist People's Republic of China had to continue the Russian mission to expand the communist. therefore, they have to help the Viet Minh and become the connector between Soviet and the Viet Minh. In early 1950, The Viet Minh fought independently from the 'Chinese Military Advisory Group' under Wei Guoqing. This was one of the reason for China to cut the arm supports for the Viet Minh.
After the death of Joseph Stalin, relations between the Soviet Union and China began to deteriorate. Mao Zedong believed the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had made a serious error in his Secret Speech denouncing Stalin, and criticized the Soviet Union's interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, in particular Khrushchev's support for peaceful co-existence and its interpretation. This led to increasingly hostile relations, and eventually the Sino-Soviet split. From here, Chinese communists played a fade role in helping their Friendly Communists because Viet Minh didn't support China against Soviet.
The Soviets and the Vietnamese became important allies together because if Vietnam was successful in uniting under the Communist north, Communism in the far-east would find its strategic position bolstered.
To the PRC, the Soviet-Vietnamese relationship was a disturbing development. They feared an encirclement by the now-hostile Soviet sphere.
The PRC started talks with the USA in the early 1970s, culminating in high level meetings with Henry Kissinger and later Richard Nixon. These meetings contributed to a re-orientation of Chinese foreign policy towards the United States. Meanwhile, the PRC also supported the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The PRC (and later, their new American allies) supported Pol Pot who caused the Cambodian genocide.
Although the Vietnamese Communists and the Khmer Rouge had previously cooperated, the relationship deteriorated when Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot came to power and established Democratic Kampuchea. At China's command, Pol Pot had initiated war in south Vietnam to lure Vietnamese main troops from the North to the South.
In spite of realizing the PRC purpose to put Vietnam into bi-directionally attacks situation, Vietnam had to move their main forces south to defend their homeland. The Soviets announced that they were supporting the Vietnamese against Cambodian massacring. They sent heavy transport planes to help Vietnam move their main forces.
In late 1978, the Vietnamese military rushed to Phnom Penh quickly and ended the Khmer Rouge regime. However, the main forces continued to occupy Cambodia two years to help the new government stabilize.
While the first war emerged from the complex situation following World War II and the second exploded from the unresolved aftermath of political relations with the first, the Third Indochina War again followed the unsolved problems of the earlier wars. The fact remains that: "Peace did not come to Indochina with either American 1973 withdrawal or Hanoi's 1975 victory" as disputes erupted over Cambodia and relations with China.[15]
The PRC, now under Deng Xiaoping, was starting the Chinese economic reform and opening trade with NATO nations, in turn, growing increasingly defiant against the USSR. On November 3, 1978, the USSR and Vietnam signed a twenty-five year mutual defense treaty,[16] which made Vietnam the "linchpin" in the USSR's "drive to contain China."[17]
On January 1, 1979, Deng Xiaoping visited the USA for the first time and spoke to American president Jimmy Carter: "Children who don't listen have to be spanked." (original Chinese words: 小朋友不听话，该打打屁股了。).[18] On February 15, the first day that China could have officially announced the termination of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, Deng Xiaoping declared that China planned to conduct a limited attack on Vietnam.
The reason cited for the attack was the mistreatment of Vietnam's ethnic Chinese minority and the Vietnamese occupation of the Spratly Islands (claimed by the PRC). To prevent Soviet intervention on Vietnam's behalf, Deng warned Moscow the next day that China was prepared for a full-scale war against the USSR; in preparation for this conflict, China put all of its troops along the Sino-Soviet border on an emergency war alert, set up a new military command in Xinjiang, and even evacuated an estimated 300,000 civilians from the Sino-Soviet border.[19] In addition, the bulk of China's active forces (as many as one-and-a-half million troops) were stationed along China's borders with the USSR.[20]
In response to China's attack, the USSR sent several naval vessels and initiated a Soviet arms airlift to Vietnam. However the USSR felt that there was simply no way that they could directly support Vietnam against the PRC; the distances were too great to be an effective ally, and any sort of reinforcements would have to cross territory controlled by the PRC or U.S. allies. The only realistic option would be to indirectly re-start the simmering border war with China in the north. Vietnam was important to Soviet policy but not enough for the Soviets to go to war over. When Moscow did not intervene, Beijing publicly proclaimed that the USSR had broken its numerous promises to assist Vietnam. The USSR's failure to support Vietnam emboldened China to announce on April 3, 1979, that it intended to terminate the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance.[16]
On February 17, a PRC force of about 200,000 supported by 200 Type 59, Type 62, and Type 63 tanks from the PRC People's Liberation Army (PLA) entered northern Vietnam.[21] The Chinese force consisted of units from the Kunming Military Region (later abolished), Chengdu Military Region, Wuhan Military Region (later abolished) and Guangzhou Military Region, but commanded by the headquarters of Kunming Military Region on the western front and Guangzhou Military Region in the eastern front.
Some troops engaged in this war, especially engineering units, railway corps, logistical units and antiaircraft units, had been assigned to assist Vietnam in its struggle against the United States just a few years earlier during the Vietnam War. Contrary to the belief that over 600,000 Chinese troops entered Vietnam, the actual number was only 200,000. However, 600,000 Chinese troops were mobilized, of which 200,000 were deployed away from their original bases during the one month conflict. Around 400 tanks (specifically Type 59s) were also deployed.
The Chinese troop deployments were observed by US spy satellites, and the KH-9 Big Bird photographic reconnaissance satellite played an important role. In his state visit to the US in 1979, the Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping was presented with this information and asked to confirm the numbers. He replied that the information was completely accurate. After this public confirmation in the U.S., the domestic Chinese media were finally allowed to report on these deployments.
The Vietnamese government claimed they left only a force of about 70,000 including several army regular divisions in its northern area. However, the Chinese claimed to have encountered more than twice this number. During the war, Vietnamese forces also used American military equipment abandoned during the Vietnam War.
The Chinese entered Northern Vietnam and advanced quickly about 15–20 kilometers into Vietnam, with fighting mainly occurring in the provinces of Cao Bang, Lao Cai and Lang Son. The Vietnamese avoided mobilizing their regular divisions, and held back some 300,000 troops for the defence of Hanoi. The Vietnamese forces tried to avoid direct combat, and often used guerrilla tactics.
The initial Chinese attack soon lost its momentum, and a new wave of attack was sent in. Eight Chinese divisions joined the battle, and captured some of the northernmost cities in Vietnam. After capturing the northern heights above Lang Son, the Chinese surrounded and paused in front of the city in order to lure the Vietnamese into reinforcing it with units from Cambodia. This had been the main strategic ploy in the Chinese war plan as Deng did not want to risk an escalation involving the Soviets. The PVA high command, after a tip-off from Soviet satellite intelligence, was able to see through the trap, however, and committed reserves only to Hanoi. Once this became clear to the PLA, the war was practically over. An assault was still mounted on the PVA 314A division defending the city. After three days of bloody house-to-house fighting, Lang Son fell on March 6. The PLA then took the southern heights above Lang Son[22] and occupied Saba. By now, the PLA could claim to have crushed several of the Vietnamese regular units including the 316A Infantry Division, the 308th Infantry Division, the 3rd Infantry Division, the 345th Infantry Division and the 346th Infantry Division,[5] but they also suffered extensive casualties themselves. The combination of high casualties, a badly organized command, harsh Vietnamese resistance and the risk of the Soviets entering the conflict stopped the Chinese from going any further.
On March 6, China declared that the gate to Hanoi was open and that their punitive mission had been achieved. On the way back to the Chinese border, the PLA destroyed all local infrastructure and housing and looted all useful equipment and resources (including livestock), which were mainly donated by China to support Vietnam's economy prior to the war, completely paralyzing the economy of northern Vietnam.[5] The PLA crossed the border back into China on March 16. While China claimed to have crushed the Vietnamese resistance, Vietnam claimed that China had mostly only fought against border militias. This allowed both sides to claim military victory, as both sides claimed to have taught their opponent a lesson.[23]
The number of casualties is disputed, with some Western sources putting PLA casualties at about 10,000 throughout the war. Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng told western media in 1980 the Chinese troops had suffered 9,000 deaths and about 10,000 wounded during the war.[24] The new leaked information indicates that China only suffered 6,954 lost.
Like their counterparts in the Chinese government, the Vietnamese government has never announced any information on its actual military casualties, but from estimate Vietnamese side had 42,000 soldiers killed and 70,000 militias also killed by the Chinese PLA. The Nhan Dan newspaper[25] the Central Organ of the Communist Party of Vietnam claimed that Vietnam suffered more than 100,000 civilian deaths during the Chinese invasion[25] and earlier on May 17, 1979, reported statistics on heavy losses of industry and agriculture properties.[25]
The aftermath of the war had different effects. China and Vietnam each lost thousands of troops, and China lost 3,446 million yuan in overhead, which delayed completion of their 1979–80 economic plan.[26] To reduce Vietnam's military capability against China, the Chinese implemented a "scorched-earth policy" while returning to China, causing extensive damage to the Vietnamese countryside and infrastructure.[27] Although Vietnam continued to occupy Cambodia, China successfully mobilized international opposition to the occupation, rallying such leaders as Cambodia's deposed king Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodian anticommunist leader Son Sann, and high-ranking members of the Khmer Rouge to deny the pro-Vietnam regime in Cambodia diplomatic recognition beyond the Soviet bloc. China improved relations with ASEAN by promising protection to Thailand and Singapore against "Vietnamese aggression". In contrast, Vietnam's decreasing prestige in the region led it to be more dependent on the Soviet Union, to which it leased a naval base at Cam Ranh Bay.[28]
Border skirmishes continued throughout the 1980s, including a significant skirmish in April 1984. Armed conflict only ended in 1989 after the Vietnamese agreed to fully withdraw from Cambodia. This conflict also saw the first use of the Type 81 assault rifle by the Chinese and a naval battle over the Spratly Islands in 1988 known as the Johnson South Reef Skirmish. In 1999 after many years of negotiations, China and Vietnam signed a border pact, though the line of demarcation remained secret.[29] There was a very slight adjustment of the land border, resulting in land being given up to China, which caused widespread complaints within Vietnam.[30] Vietnam's official news service reported the implementation of the new border around August 2001. Again in January 2009 the border demarcation with markers was officially completed, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Vu Dung on the Vietnamese side and his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, on the Chinese side.[31] Both the Paracel (Hoàng Sa: Vietnamese) (Xīshā: Chinese) and Spratly (Trường Sa: Vietnamese) (Nansha: Chinese) islands remain a point of contention.[32]
The December 2007 announcement of a plan to build a Hanoi-Kunming highway was a landmark in Sino-Vietnamese relations. The road will traverse the border that once served as a battleground. It should contribute to demilitarizing the border region, as well as facilitating trade and industrial cooperation between the nations.[33]
The conventional wisdom among Western military analysts is that the war was a failure of Chinese strategy, as Vietnam continued to occupy Cambodia for another decade. These analysts explicitly separate the Chinese attack in 1979 from the continued international pressure on Vietnam throughout the 1980s, and credit the latter for Vietnam's ultimate withdrawal from Cambodia.[34]
However, Henry Kissinger argues that "conventional wisdom is based ... on a misapprehension of the Chinese strategy" and views it as a successful bid to demonstrate the limits of Soviet power.[35] Lee Kuan Yew points out that Deng Xiaoping had made public statements attacking the Soviet Union prior to the war, and concurs: "The Western press wrote off the Chinese punitive action as a failure. I believe it changed the history of East Asia." [36]
Deng Xiaoping told Henry Kissinger that "There wasn't a defense line left all the way to Hanoi" and mused about whether it would have been a good idea to have advanced further into Vietnam.[37]
On March 1, 2005, Howard W. French wrote in The New York Times: Some historians stated that the war was started by Mr. Deng (China's then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping) to keep the army preoccupied while he consolidated power...[38]
The Chinese official name for the war was 对越自卫反击战 (duì yuè zìwèi fǎnjī zhàn), roughly translated as 'self-defense counterattack against Vietnam'.
There are a number of Chinese songs, movies and TV programs depicting and discussing this conflict with Vietnam in 1979 from the Chinese viewpoint.[39][40][41] These vary from the patriotic song "Bloodstained Glory" originally written to laud the sacrifice and service of the Chinese military, to the 1986 film The Big Parade which carried (as far as possible, in China at that time) veiled criticism of the war.
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