The Sino-Vietnamese War

The alliance frays

China had been the Viet Minh’s ally in the First Indochina War, but relations cooled after the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s as Vietnam declined to side with China. During the Vietnam War North Vietnam relied on Soviet arms and aid, and China feared that a Vietnam close to Moscow would encircle it from the south. In the early 1970s China turned towards the United States, receiving Kissinger and Nixon, and after Mao’s death in 1976 and Deng Xiaoping’s rise it pursued reform and opening and co-operation with Washington against the Soviet Union. 1

After victory in the Vietnam War in 1975 Vietnam called itself the world’s third-largest military power, which heightened Chinese apprehension. China saw Vietnam as pursuing regional hegemony over all Indochina, a suspicion hardened when Vietnam called for a “special relationship” among the three Indochinese countries — a demand the Khmer Rouge regime of Democratic Kampuchea rejected. 1

1978: the Hoa, the border and Cambodia

After reunification in 1975 the conflict erupted on several fronts. From 1976 Vietnam required the ethnic Chinese (Hoa) in the south to take Vietnamese citizenship or leave, and after a discriminatory policy of March 1978 large numbers fled to southern China; as many as 250,000 Hoa applied to be repatriated. Border disputes multiplied too: clashes over 164 undemarcated places totalling 227 square kilometres rose from 125 in 1974 to 2,175 in 1978. In the Youyi Pass incident of August 1978 Vietnamese troops and police drove 2,500 refugees across the border into China. 1 2

Cambodia was the decisive issue. China gave political, logistical and military support to Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge after they took power in 1975, but border clashes turned the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam into enemies. In June 1978 Vietnam joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, and Soviet military aid rose from $75–125 million in 1977 to $600–800 million in 1978. In July China cut off all aid to Vietnam and recalled its experts, and the Vietnamese Communist Party named China a “direct and dangerous enemy”. On 3 November the Soviet Union and Vietnam signed a 25-year mutual defence treaty. 1

“Teaching a lesson”

In September 1978 the PLA General Staff agreed on a military campaign to force Vietnam out of Cambodia, check Soviet and Vietnamese ambitions in the region and stop border encroachments. On 8 December the Central Military Commission ordered the Guangzhou and Kunming military regions to be ready by 10 January. On 25 December Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea, took Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979 and installed Heng Samrin; the Chinese embassy fled into the jungle with the Khmer Rouge. 1 3

On 29 January 1979 Deng Xiaoping made his first visit to the United States and told Carter that China could not accept Vietnam’s “wild ambitions” and was prepared to teach it a lesson. According to Brzezinski, Carter reserved judgment, which Chinese diplomats took as tacit approval. Back home, Deng made the final decision to attack on 9 February. To deter Soviet intervention China put all its forces on the Sino-Soviet border on emergency alert and evacuated some 300,000 civilians from the border. 1

The war of February–March 1979

On 17 February some 200,000 PLA troops with 200 tanks entered northern Vietnam, the PLA’s first major operation since the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Xu Shiyou of the Guangzhou region commanded the eastern front towards Cao Bằng, Lạng Sơn and Quảng Ninh, and Yang Dezhi of the Kunming region the western front in the northwest including Lào Cai. Vietnam held back its regular divisions and fought a guerrilla war with border militia and provincial troops, keeping forces for the defence of Hanoi and bringing units north from Cambodia and the south. 1 4 5

Between 18 and 25 February Vietnam sent the 327th and 337th Divisions of the 3rd and 4th Military Regions to the northwest, from 6 to 11 March brought the 2nd Corps back from Cambodia to Hanoi, and moved air regiments north from the centre and south. The PLA had seen no major combat since the early 1950s and most of its weapons and vehicles were obsolete, whereas the Vietnamese were battle-hardened and armed with modern American and Soviet weapons; even so, the PLA was judged to have fought well. 1

After advancing 15–20 kilometres the Chinese attack stalled and eight more divisions were committed. Having taken the heights north of Lạng Sơn, the PLA paused before the city to draw Vietnamese units back from Cambodia, and after three days of street fighting took Lạng Sơn on 6 March. That day China declared that “the gate to Hanoi is open” and its punitive mission accomplished, while Vietnam ordered a nationwide general mobilisation. The Soviet Union supplied intelligence and equipment, airlifted Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and sent ships, but did not intervene directly. Its deliveries included 400 tanks and armoured personnel carriers and 20 jet fighters, and 5,000–8,000 Soviet military advisers were in Vietnam in 1979. 1 6)

Withdrawing Chinese troops used scorched-earth tactics, destroying infrastructure and carrying off livestock and equipment, which crippled the economy of Vietnam’s northernmost provinces. The PLA crossed back into China on 16 March, and both sides declared victory. Casualties remain uncertain: leaked Chinese military sources put Chinese dead at 6,954, while Vietnamese sources claimed 44,000–62,500 Chinese casualties; China estimated 57,000 Vietnamese soldiers and 70,000 militia killed, and the Vietnamese press reported more than 10,000 civilian deaths. 1

After the war: purges, refugees, Cambodia

Citing possible collaboration, Vietnam sent some 8,000 Hoa from Hanoi to southern “New Economic Zones” in spring 1979 and resettled northern minorities. When the former Politburo member Hoàng Văn Hoan, known as pro-Chinese, defected to China via Karachi in July, the party purged pro-Chinese elements and those who had surrendered during the war, expelling 20,468 members in 1979 alone. Confiscation of Chinese property and expulsions continued. 1 7

Prisoners were exchanged in May–June 1979: China held 1,636 Vietnamese and Vietnam 238 Chinese. The war’s cost of 3.45 billion yuan delayed China’s 1979–1980 economic plan. Kissinger judged that China had exposed the limits of Soviet strategic reach, and speculated that the wish to compensate for that ineffectuality contributed to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan a year later. 1

The war did not force Vietnam out of Cambodia. But by threatening a second invasion and backing Khmer Rouge guerrillas, China made Vietnam pour resources into the border and the occupation, and by rallying Sihanouk, Son Sann and the Khmer Rouge it kept Heng Samrin’s regime unrecognised outside the Soviet bloc. Vietnam grew more dependent on Moscow and leased it the naval base at Cam Ranh Bay. Lee Kuan Yew wrote that the Chinese punitive action the Western press wrote off as a failure “changed the history of East Asia”, and Deng used the PLA’s poor showing to push through military reform. 1

Border war in the 1980s and normalisation

Border clashes continued through the 1980s, peaking in 1984–1985. In April 1984 Chinese troops attacked and took the Laoshan heights at Vị Xuyên in Hà Giang province, and in March 1988 a naval battle was fought at Johnson South Reef in the Spratlys, where China took six reefs in this period. Armed conflict ended in 1989 when Vietnam agreed to withdraw fully from Cambodia. 8) 9 1

Normalisation was agreed at a secret summit in Chengdu in September 1990, and the two countries formally normalised relations in November 1991. A border treaty of 1999 adjusted the land frontier, leaving some land lost in the fighting, including the traditional Ải Nam Quan gate, on the Chinese side and causing resentment in Vietnam. China calls the conflict the “self-defensive counterattack against Vietnam”; Vietnam calls it the “war to defend the northern border”. 1 10