Withdrawal of the last U.S. military forces from Vietnamin early 1973, allowed the revolutionary armies to win a series of impressive victories, establishing communist regimes throughout Indochina.

Indeed, by 1975 the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Pathet Laos in Laos, but above all the reunification of Vietnam under communist control, tended to confirm the fears of those who argued that the uncontrolled “dominoes” that would result in Southeast Asia enters the Soviet sphere of influence. However, everything turned out differently. The competing national interests of the Indochinese states, combined with the new realities of the Cold War in the 1970s—the sharp deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations and the rapprochement between Washington and Beijing—contradicted those who believed that a monolithic communist movement had subjugated Southeast Asia.

Invasion and victory in Cambodia

The forced reunification of Vietnam in 1975 as a result of the overwhelming military victory of the North Vietnamese over the Nguyen Van Thieu regime was not destined to return the country to a period of normality and economic growth. The socio-economic reforms carried out in the southern part of the country – the collectivization of agriculture, the abolition of private property and the introduction of central planning in the economy – did not contribute to a productive recovery after decades of bloody conflicts. At the same time, one million South Vietnamese, members of the “bourgeoisie” – businessmen, teachers and officers – were sent to labor camps and re-education camps, and more than one and a half million Vietnamese are estimated to have fled their homeland due to fear or economic hardship. Under these conditions, Vietnam’s dependence on the Soviet Union increased after the reunification of the country, and in 1978 the two states signed a cooperation agreement, with which Moscow took over the economic and military strengthening of Hanoi.

In Cambodia, everything turned out to be much more painful for the local population. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge and the country’s prime minister, believed in an extreme form of Maoism in which the desire for racial purity coexisted with the need to ensure self-sufficiency and cleanse the country of the “remnants of the bourgeoisie.” In an effort to create a communist utopia and a “new society”, the Khmer Rouge forced hundreds of thousands of city dwellers to leave urban centers and go to the countryside to do basic agricultural work. At the same time, the new regime proceeded to destroy temples, schools and libraries, while unleashing a relentless wave of persecution of ethnic minorities living in Cambodia, including thousands of Vietnamese. Under these conditions, in 1975-1978, a real genocide occurred in the Asian country, when one third of the population (from two to two and a half million) lost their lives as a result of Pol Pot’s policy.

These dramatic events in Cambodia did not leave Vietnam indifferent, which could not put up with the policy of genocide in the neighboring country, which was also directed against its Vietnamese inhabitants. In order to strengthen his position both within the country and in relation to Vietnam, Pol Pot began to tighten relations with the People’s Republic of China, which at that time, after the death of Mao Zedong and the coming to power of Deng Xiaoping, he was going through a transition to a new era in which modernization and further rapprochement with the United States were key priorities. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge’s bold and irrational decision to provoke border skirmishes and (limited) military raids against Vietnam prompted Hanoi to invade Cambodia in December 1978 to overthrow the Pol Pot regime, whose ties to the People’s Republic of China threatened the hegemonic role Vietnam sought to play in Indochina. . Indeed, within weeks, Vietnamese military forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrew Pol Pot, and installed a pro-Vietnamese government. Although Pol Pot’s forces have waged a protracted guerrilla war against the new regime ever since, the Vietnamese retained control of Cambodia until the final defeat of the Khmer Rouge in the early 1990s.

Beijing’s concerns about Hanoi’s role

Vietnam’s victory in the war with Cambodia provoked a sharp reaction from the PRC. Although in the 1950s and 1960s Beijing actively supported North Vietnam in its struggle against the French and then the Americans, since the early 1970s and especially after the unification of Vietnam, relations between the two states have been going through a period of protracted and growing crisis. The hegemonic role that Hanoi sought to play in Southeast Asia, the persecution of the Chinese population in Vietnam, and, above all, the rapprochement between Moscow and Hanoi, which increased the fear of the “encirclement” of China, made the Chinese more suspicious of their Vietnamese “comrades”, even before the Cambodian-Vietnamese war broke out. The fact that Hanoi pursued a clear pro-Soviet policy, especially after 1975, could not be easily accepted by the People’s Republic of China, which “demanded” neighboring communist states to recognize their leadership roles both regionally and internationally. level. After all, this perception was not inconsistent with the traditional “self-image” and worldview of imperial China, succeeded by Maoist China after 1949, as the “middle kingdom” around which international politics revolved.

The decision to start a war with Vietnam was made by the Chinese leadership at the end of 1978, even before the Vietnamese troops had completed the capture of Phnom Penh. Of course, this decision was not without objections and fears from the top officials of Beijing. What would happen, for example, if Moscow came to the aid of Vietnam? What would be the reaction of the international community to a Chinese invasion? Did the planned war threaten to derail Deng’s reform agenda? Fully aware of the likely consequences for the People’s Republic of China of its involvement in the war, Deng had no doubt that a “hard lesson” needed to be taught in Vietnam. That is what he conveyed to the leadership of the White House when he made an official visit to the United States in January 1979, trying to give new impetus to Sino-American relations.

Short-term conflict with heavy losses

American President Jimmy Carter, for his part, was not prepared to openly support China’s open attack on Vietnam, and for that reason he publicly condemned the Chinese invasion, which finally took place in February 1979. Behind the scenes, however, the Americans not only recognized Deng’s decision as correct, but at the same time assured him that the United States would support the People’s Republic of China in the event of a threat from the Soviet Union. Soon, indeed, Washington and Beijing will strengthen the Khmer Rouge in a guerrilla war against the Vietnamese in Cambodia. Once again in the 1970s, the two countries collaborated on operations in the Third World against the Soviets.

The Sino-Vietnamese war was supposed to last only four weeks, from February 17 to March 16, 1979, when Chinese troops were also withdrawn from Vietnamese soil. In any case, the outcome of the war fell short of Beijing’s expectations. First, the war exposed the serious weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army at the international level. It is significant that, despite the short duration of the conflicts, Chinese troops suffered significant losses: Chinese sources speak of 6,900 killed and 15,000 wounded, but modern studies give much higher numbers (25,000 killed and 37,000 wounded). Secondly, the Chinese invasion failed to significantly reduce the regional influence of Vietnam, which, despite great economic difficulties, retained its influence in both Cambodia and Laos. Finally, the 1979 war worsened China’s relations with Vietnam, which were not restored even after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

* Mr. Manolis Kumas is Associate Professor of History and Archeology at EKPA.

EDIT: EVANTIS HATZIVASSILEYOU