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the old. Moreover, Zhou explained that China had its domestic problems need to be solved; thus a full-scale war was not a desirable option. The meeting brought an ease to the two parties, while Zhou and Kosygin both agreed to restrained the situation on the border and not to launch a nuclear war. Yet Mao took Kosygin’s words as delaying tactic of social imperialism, and there was still a war scare among China; the Chinese leaderships even indicated a large evacuation plan to leave Beijing on October 20, nonetheless, the war did not happen at the end of the year73.
4.3 Sino-Vietnamese War
Historical Background
China and Vietnam has had a close relationship in the first and second Indochina Wars. Vietnam had been colonized by France since 1858, when France tried to build its sphere of influence in Southeast Asia in the late 19th century74. During the WWII, Japan took over the authority of Vietnam from the French, Vietnam then was transferred to colony of Japan in March 1945. While Japan surrendered on August 15 of the same year, there was suddenly a power vacuum happening in Vietnam. The Communist Party of Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh, seized the point and established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Yet 20 days after the
73 Yang,Supra note 33, pp. 33-41.
74 By the end of the 19th century, France has accomplished the last part of its colonial empire puzzle in the Southeast Asia, which encompassed Vietnam (1858), Cambodia (1887), Laos (1893) and the Guangzhou wan of China as a concession (1900).
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establishment, the French landed in south Vietnam and launched a massive attack north-toward. The war was enduring from 1946 to 1954, known as the First Indochina War, which ended up with The Geneva Accords signed by the belligerents on July 20, 1954 and the French withdrew from the Vietnam. Following the French withdrawal, the U.S.
put its hand into Vietnam through keeping aiding to the anti-communist regime in South Vietnam. In March 1965, the American military landed in Da Nang, where was a port city of the South Vietnam. Since then, the Vietnam War, which is also called as the Second Indochina War, has started. The war continued nearly 10 years in Vietnam, in 1973 the Paris Peace Accords was signed by the two parties, and the U.S. retreated from Vietnam after that.
China supported Vietnam in both the first and second Indochina Wars. By aiding Vietnam with consultants, militaries, weapons and other material supplies, China played as a solid partner to Vietnam during the two Indochina wars. According to some estimates, in addition to the consultants and militaries dispatched to the Vietnam War, China provided Vietnam with fire arms, artilleries, bullets, warships, tanks, armored vehicles, aircrafts, …etc in the war field from 1950 to 1974; and it also helped the Vietnamese to build the logistic railways and radio stations.
During this period, China’s aids to Vietnam were amount to about RMB 4.26 billion75.
75 According to Ni, from 1950 to 1974, the total aids China supported Vietnam was added up to about RMB 4.26 billion; other estimates showed that the figure was about USD 20 billion. See Chuang-hui Ni, (2010), Shi Nian Zhong Yue Zhan Zheng. Hong
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Based on the in time support, there was a “comrade and fraternal”
relationship between China and Vietnam. Le Duan, the Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, once appreciated China’s help in the wars and mentioned, “The victory of the Vietnamese cannot be separated from the Communist Party of China, the China government and the fraternal Chinese people, who gave us with strong supports and enormous aids.
The Vietnamese will never forget this kind of generous help.76” Indeed, Vietnam was the one who has received the most aids from China, and which also lasted for a longest period while comparing with other countries who were aided. While the Vietnam needed China, China needed the Vietnam as well, since China saw the Vietnam as one of the objects they wanted to rope in the International Communist Movement77.
This intimate comradeship was lasting till 1975, when the separated Vietnams were united.
What Leads to War
Split between China and the Soviet Union has reached its peak at the end of the 1960s. The contending fields also transformed to the
Kong: Tian Xing Jian Press; Zhi-jun Wang, (2009), 1979: Dui Yue Zhan Zheng Qin Li Ji. Hong Kong: Thinker Publishing Limited. p. 13; Xiao-ming Zhang, (2005),
“China’s 1979 War with Vietnam: A Reassessment,” The China Quarterly, p. 855.
76 Ni, Supra note 75, p. 21.
77 David R. Dreyer, (2010), “One Issue Leads to Another: Issue Spirals and the Sino-Vietnamese War,” Foreign Policy Analysis, p. 303.
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communist camp, where the two once-brothers both wanted to gain supports from their own allies. China’s war with Vietnam in 1979 may be an extension which was reflecting the Sino-Soviet wrestling.
Many researches about the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 conjecture that territorial issue was not the only reason for China to launch the war at the time78. Though China and Vietnam did have territorial disputes on the land border where is adjacent to the north Vietnam and southwest China;
the two parties also had disagreements on the sovereignty of the islands in Tonkin Bay, as well as Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands in South China Sea. In 1887, the French colonist and the Qing government had had surveyed and demarcated on the border79; from 1957 to 1959, the CCP government and Vietnam had reconfirmed the existing border line. Yet after the unification of Vietnam, issue dispute on border lines bounced back.
While China and France demarcated the boundary line in 1887, they
78 Many researches and introduction resources recently point out that the territorial issues were not the only reason for the Sino-Vietnamese War bursting in 1979; most of them also mention that issues accumulation between China and Vietnam lead to the war. According to the survey of Correlates of War, the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 was coded into a war mainly caused by policy disputes, which means one declares intention not to abide by the policy of another state. See Dreyer, Supra note 75; Zhang, Supra note 75; Xiao-bing Li, edit., (2012), China at War. California: ABC-CLIO. pp.
412-413.
79 The Qing government and the French have agreed in the Treaty of Tientsin signed in 1885 to survey and demarcate the border between China and Vietnam, and they accomplished it in 1887.
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erected about 300 tablets on the land border between the north Vietnam and the south China. However, these tablets were moved, broken or missing after decades; boundary line between the two countries was indistinct already. Though the total contentious lands were only less than 100 square kilometers, conflicts on the border had been happening since 1974. According to a data from China, which shows the situation from 1974 to 1978, there were: 125 border incidents happened in 1974, 423 incidents in 1975, 926 incidents in 1976, 1940 incidents in 1977, and in 1978, 1180 bloody incidents happened on the border, which caused more than 300 deaths80.
On the sea, the 1887 Sino-Franco treaty also left a problematic legacy to China and Vietnam. While China asserted that the demarcation line only referred to the possession rights of the islands in Tonkin Gulf, Vietnam argued that it referred to not only the islands right, but the allocation of whole territorial waters. The contradiction had not burst out until in 1973, when Vietnam addressed to China that they wanted to broach a negotiation with foreign firms for exploring oil resources in Tonkin Gulf81. Similar episodes happened in the South China Sea, where sovereignties of Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands were contentious.
There was little economic value of these islands, nonetheless, when it comes to strategic position and economic zone accompanied these islands,
80 Ni, Supra note 75, p. 33, p. 71.
81 Library of Congress Studies (Deceber 1987): Vietnam,
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+vn0111) latest retrieved on May 31, 2013.
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both of the two countries became ambitious. According to some estimates, there were prolific oil and mineral resources buried under the water, and this transformed South China Sea into a battlefield. Vietnam has occupied some coral reefs of the Paracel Islands in the late 1950s, and unilaterally delimited part of Spratly Islands into their own territory in 1973. After Chinese government reaffirmed the sovereignties of islands of the South China Sea in January 1974, armed clash finally burst out in the water area around Paracel Islands between the two countries in the same year82.
The two countries held hostility toward each other not only for the disagreements on territorial issues. After the Sino-Soviet split emerged publicly in 1960s, Beijing and Moscow competed for supports of countries in the socialist camp actively. Vietnam was leaning gradually toward the Soviets at the point. It’s probably because Vietnam has always seen China as a threat from the north, which cannot be ignored as a matter of fact. Le Duan, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), once said “After beat up the American, we keep our million troops embattled …it’s because the threat which China gives us.83” China made their dismal image even worse, after Richard Nixon’s
82 There was a armed clash happened between China and Vietnam from 15 January 1974, the battle was lasting 6 days around Ganquan Island and Yongle Islands nearby Paracel Islands. It ended up with China recapturing three islands of the Yongle Islands occupied before by destroying the Vietnamese warships.
83 According to the white book published by foreign affairs of Vietnam in 1979, Vietnam admitted that they never really saw China as a comrade nor brother. In the history, Vietnam has reluctantly been China’s vassal state for a long time, and it was grievous experience to the Vietnamese. Wang, Supra note 75, p. 15.
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visit to China in 1972, the Vietnamese protested that they felt they were
“selling out84”, since the U.S. was seen as a long-term enemy to Hanoi.
In China’s eye, Vietnam chose to stand with Soviet Union and showed their ambition to be a dominator in Southeast Asia with no hesitance.
After giving the U.S. a heavy blow in the Vietnam War and being united, the Vietnamese once granted themselves as “the third military great power” of the world85. At the same time, Vietnam tried to stretch their arm into the Southeast Asia countries. Since the French colonism rooted in Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were always seen as one unity.
After the French retreated and the three countries obtained independences respectively, Ho Chi Minh never gave up trying to build an “Indochina Union” led by Vietnam, which seen as hegemonism and expansionism to China86. Yet it was agreeably to the Soviet Union to gain one more ally and strengthen their influence in Southeast Asia through this relationship.
Hanoi and Moscow shared the same interest on against the U.S. and China at the time. In June 1978, Vietnam joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) led by the USSR, and lent the Tonkin Gulf to the Soviets as a naval base in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, Vietnam signed a friendship treaty with the Soviets at the end of 1978.
According to the treaty, the Soviets provided military aids to Vietnam, and one should rush to support the other once encountering conflicts87.
84 Dreyer, Supra note 77, p. 303.
85 Wang, Supra note 75, p. 14.
86 Dreyer, Supra note 77, p. 305.
87 Vietnam and the USSR signed the “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation” in 2
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The friendship treaty between Hanoi and Moscow made China be under pressure of encirclement, they accused Vietnam as a “regional hegemony” while the Soviets was the “global hegemony”. China also criticized Vietnam as “Asian Cuba”88.
In July 1977, Vietnam signed a friendship and peace treaty with Laos, which gave Hanoi much room to interfere Vientiane. Hanoi also tended to sign a similar treaty with Phnom Penh, yet the negotiation failed. After Hanoi accused Cambodia for slaughtering Vietnamese diasporas and invading Vietnamese territory, in December 25, 1978, a war was launched by Hanoi, the pro-China regime in Phnom Penh called for Beijing’s help, yet it was taken over in January 197989.
Before Vietnam denounced Cambodia’s mistreatments to Vietnamese diasporas and launched a war, the CPV also started a “clear the border” policy aiming at the Chinese diasporas in Vietnam. In October 1977, the Chinese diasporas in the northwest and north Vietnam were banished, bloodsheds of killing the Chinese on the border also happened. After protesting to Hanoi for mistreatments to the Chinese diasporas, Beijing called back the ambassador in Vietnam, helped the
November 1978, according to the sixth clause, Vietnam and the Soviets would immediately consult each other once either encountered attacks in order to eliminate the threat. Bruce A. Elleman, (2001), Modern Chinese Warfare: 1795-1989. United States: Routledge Publishing. pp. 287-288.
88 Dreyer, Supra note 77, p. 303.
89 Ni, Supra note 75, p. 47.
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diasporas back into China in June 1978; and all the aids to Vietnam was called off90.
Beijing and Hanoi had reached the nadir of their relationship by the end of 1978. The constant harassments on the Sino-Vietnamese boundary, the mistreatments to Chinese diasporas, Soviet-Vietnamese ally in Southeast Asia, and the attack on Cambodia, all of these concerned China.
Beijing made up its mind to contain the situation in its backyard which seemed to be out of control. On December 7, 1978, after Vietnam invaded Cambodia, China denoted that they would conduct a “limited war”, which limited on the goal, time, region and scale. While on his visit to the U.S. on January 28, 1979, Deng Xiaoping mentioned, without a necessary enforcement, the disturbing problems between China and Vietnam would never come to an end, so that China had to “teach Vietnam a lesson.91” Beijing declared a war to Hanoi in February 1979, also called as “punitive” or “counterattack” war in China.
The War Course
After the Central Military Commission was convened in Beijing in December 1978 and made a decision to open a war with Vietnam, the
90 Ibid., pp. 66-67.
91 Zhang, Supra note 75, pp. 851-853.
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military regions in China were preparing themselves to join the fight.
Because of the friendship treaty of Vietnam and the USSR, China also had to take account into the possible reaction from the Soviets. In addition to Soviets possible rescue, the Vietnamese took over weapons left by the American army who had retreated from the Vietnam War. It was said the left-over weapons were valued up to USD 20 billion92, which were considered could surpass that of China’s. Moreover, the Vietnamese army was thought to be more sophisticated and could be more adapted to the battlefield since they were just experienced a harshly ten-year war.
Contrary to the Vietnamese who had advantages, circumstances on the China’s side were awkward, in that China just went out from the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), upon which domestic society and military morale were crumbling. There seemed to be a gap between China and Vietnam, making made two of them not equal footing.
The CMC and the Chinese leaderships decided to have a limited war accompanied with a “kill the chicken with a butcher’s knife” strategy93, setting a goal to finish the war in a short time and then retreat. On December 8, 1978, the CMC demanded an order that the Guang Zhou and Kun Ming military regions were obligated to eliminate the frontier guards of the Vietnamese, wrecking their military facilities so as to could make a counter- attack against the Vietnamese invasion and keep the peace on the
92 Wang, Supra note 75, p. 14.
93 Which means, using much strength than needed to make sure the final victory.
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boundary94.
China assembled their military in January 1979 on the Sino-Vietnamese border and there were at least 225,000 military on readiness. At the same time, over than 100,000 logistics awaiting nearby the battlefield. Vietnam also dispatched over 100,000 military around their north boundary and Hanoi, yet the main force was kept in Cambodia at the beginning of the war95.
Finally the war commenced, on February 17, 1979, the Chinese government issued an announcement pointing out that their border troops were forced to launch counterattack in that Vietnam had been invading China’s territory and attacking Chinese people for a long time96. At 5:00 a.m., the Chinese troops stationed in Guangxi and Yunnan Province in south border started to attack Vietnam’s north frontier and invaded Vietnam. By February 26, the Chinese had taken over about 20 counties and provincial capitals including strategic positions like Dong Dang and
94 Zhang, Supra note 75, pp. 857-863; Wang, Supra note 75, p. 305.
95 To date, much of information of the 1979 war was unreleased and classified by the two governments including the numbers of arm force and casualty. According to some researches, the military number put into the 1979 war by the Chinese government ranging from about 200,000 to 600,000. There were about 100,000 Vietnamese military at the beginning of the war. What can be sure is: the Chinese military was times over the Vietnamese military. See Ni, Supra note 75, pp.93-97; Wang, Supra note 75, p. 284; Zhang, Supra note 75, p. 861; Li, Supra note 78, p. 411.
96 “Fen Qi Huan Ji Bao Wei Bian Jian”, Remin Ribao, the front page, February 18, 1979.
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Lang Son in northern Vietnam, which caught Hanoi off-guard. Yet Vietnam called their troops immediately back from Cambodia and reinforced the defense with Vietnamese local militia. The fighting favored the Vietnamese since they were more familiar with the terrain, what worse for the China side was deficiency of the logistic and their lack of experience of coordinating on the battlefield97. In early March, the Vietnamese once forced the Chinese out of Lang Son by an efficient and fierce fighting; yet it did not end until March 4, when the Chinese took over Lang Son again98.
On March 5, Chinese government declared that since they had reached their goal to defend territory and give Vietnam a lesson, they were the victor in the war and started to withdraw. All the Chinese troops were retreated on March 16, and the war was over. The Vietnamese also declared the victory, since they did not retreat the troops in Cambodia, yet they did not chase after the Chinese.
Aftermath
Both of China and Vietnam claimed victory in the 1979 war;
however, neither of them released casualty numbers of the war. In fact, much information about the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War remained restricted and controlled—at least in China. Resources are not easy to be reached, until recently some publishing has released the rough numbers.
97 Zhang, Supra note 75, pp. 860-864.
98 Li, Supra note 78, p. 412.
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According to Ni, the total numbers of death in the 1979 war on Chinese side is about 12,00099; casualty numbers provided by Wang are about 15,412 death, 5,103 wounded, out of 320,133 joined the war; Zhang gives the number of death is 25,000 killed and 37,000 wounded, while Vietnam
According to Ni, the total numbers of death in the 1979 war on Chinese side is about 12,00099; casualty numbers provided by Wang are about 15,412 death, 5,103 wounded, out of 320,133 joined the war; Zhang gives the number of death is 25,000 killed and 37,000 wounded, while Vietnam