Military History

The Political History of Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, and the Chinese Concept of Active Defense

• Introduction
• The Concept
• The Cause
• The Soviet and American Recations
• The Result
• Bibliography

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The Political History of Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979,
and the Chinese Concept of Active Defense

by Xinhui

In addition, China tried hard to improve its relations with Japan, signing a treaty in August 1978, which appeared to be critical of the Soviet Union's foreign policy in Asia by specifically condemning "hegemonism." Japan on the other hand express worries about her oil shipments from the Middle East will be interrupted by the Soviet naval forces stated in the Cam Ranh Bay. Politically with both United States and Japan's backing, Deng believed the active defense against Vietnam could be carried out.

While the military did not perform well in Vietnam, the PLA did succeed by sheer weight of numbers in sizing its objectives. Before the PLA withdraw, all major cities in the Sino-Vietnam border were in PLA hand (Lang Son, Lao Cai, ha Giang, Cao Bang, Dong Ke, That Ke, and Mon Cai). The withdrawal was completed by March 17, but not before the PLA systematically demolished the economic and transportation infrastructure in the area under Chinese occupation. [16]

Failed military objectives aside such as destroying Vietnamese regular divisions and forcing Vietnam to withdraw from Cambodia, Beijing largely achieved its main political objectives. According to John Garver:

"It demonstrated to the world that the Soviet Union and its allies could be successfully challenged. It maintained China's credibility as an ally, and enable warning relations such Japan, United Stated and Thailand." [17]

There are other objectives that were achieved. Vietnam has now been presented as a military problem for the USSR and she obviously cannot be sustained in any real direct conflict with the PRC. If China wanted to, she could have absorb the losses and still destroy Vietnam. Deng showed he was more then willing to send second line troops to attack a fortify enemy to achieve political goals. In any future conflict, the USSR must consider sending aid to Vietnam instead of relying on Vietnam to carry her own weight. The destruction of infrastructure in northern Vietnam makes large-scale military operation very difficult if not impossible to carry out.

To conclude, China will react when she felt threaten. But sending more then 20,000 PLA soldiers to their deaths is what Terry McCarthy called "good strategy, bad tactics" I would like to use Mao's famous quote in description of the Sino-Vietnamese War in the contest of Sino-Soviet conflict:

"You can't know the reaction of the tiger if you don't touch his ass." [19]

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