Was the War Pointless? China Shows How to Bury It (China's war with Vietnam)

NY Times ^ | March 1, 2005 | HOWARD W. FRENCH

[Strategerist]

The North Vietnamese got MUCH more support from the Soviet Union than China. They never really were a Chinese satellite.

[scotiamor]

Another important point is China wanting to punish/stop the ethnic cleansing by the North Vietnamese of those South Vietnamese of chinese ancestry. Almost ALL of the boat people were ethnic chinese - Vietnam (Jane Fonda, John Kerry, Bill Clinton and the left's favorite country) killed over 500,000 boat people in an exodus of about 2 million. Because the ethnic Chinese were the ones with business skills, it set back Vietnamese economy by 25 years and even today, the Vietnamese basically function as a low skill labor pool for other Asian companies. Permanent slaves.

Similar to the price French Catholics paid when they slaughtered 100,000 French protestants (the Hugenots) in the St. Barthlemew's Day massacre. France missed the industrial revolution by 25 years or more, because the protestants were the skilled craftsmen. Those not killed fled to Germany.

[Fee]

After the US left, Vietnam consolidated their control of Laos and Cambodia and leaned towards the Soviet Union (by purging pro Chinese officials in the Vietnamese Communist Party and considered offering Cam Rham Bay as a Soviet naval station). China responded by instigating stone throwing incidents between their border units with Vietnam's border units. China attacked Vietnam to remind her who was the regional power. China mobilized 100,000 front line troops stationed in the southern region and Vietnam responded by defending with milita units (composed of war veterans) as a way of telling the Chinese that their second line troops can beat any front line Chinese troops. The war showed the Chinese leaders how backwards their military was. The PLA lacked modern communications, troop leaders lacked technical military skills because most of their garrison time was spent on studying the Thoughts of Chairman Mao and not military tactics. Officers were promoted based more on their knowledge of Maoist thought than military skills. The Chinese officers relied on set battle plans and were unable to cope when the plans went awry. Initially the Chinese forces would advance into Vietnam, not knowing that they had bypassed Vietnam troops hidden in hilly caves. These troops would come out and attack Chinese reinforcements and convoys. The border area where most of the combat occurred was jungle and hilly with little or no roads. The Chinese had rudimentary logistics (trucks and mules) to bring up supplies but it rapidly broke down because the front line troops were using more ammo than their logistics capability can bring up. Initially the Vietmanese tactic of yielding territory and attacking Chinese rear troops worked but it meant two border provinces would have to fall into Chinese hands. Vietnam ordered their troops to stop the hit and run approach and dig in around the provincal capitals and prepare to fight a fixed battle. That decision allowed the Chinese to bring up their artillery and attack an enemy who was in fixed positions. That was probably one of the decisive mistakes made by the Vietmanese. The destuction of these two towns using old fashion massed artillery forced Vietnam to commit regular forces. Both sides realized that the war was escalating and decided to call for a ceasefire. This is also the war that forced China to realize that the Maoist dogma that the soldiers political motivation is more important than having modern weapons was wrong. The rudimentary Chinese regular infantry troops loss over 10 percent casualties within one month of fighting mainly second line Vietmanese troops (border and militia). Lacking modern command and control, and radios, battle plans degenerated into frontal human wave assualt on Vietmanese positions. This war was a wake up call for the PLA to modernize their forces.

[scotiamor]

Another point on LBJ tapes, distinguished from the Nixon tapes. LBJ personally started and stopped the tape machine - so he very often postured for posterity --- that is, the real LBJ was never revealed; LBJ protrayed himself as deeply concerned about humanity, racial minorities, etc. The bastard who held congress tight by the balls was never revealed.

[lepton]

Oops. I was wrong. That particular Island has been Chinese.

[neverdem]

And, Vietnam belongs to China. China will not give up the resources of Vietnam.

I'm sure any Vietnamese will beg to differ.

Vietnamese History In-Brief

[Captain Rhino]

There is only so much that socialist solidarity can cover over. Vietnam was under the hegemony of China (either directly ruled or ruled through proxy Vietnamese) for some 800 years. No love lost between Vietnam and China.

At the time it was remarked that Li Peng could pick up a telephone in Peking and order all of southeast Asia taken by the Chinese Army. Was crossing the border the opening gambit in that game?

Getting across the border in the face of an army defending its own land turned out to be a lot more difficult than imagined. The NVA, after just spending the better part of two decades fighting (and yes, succeeding - albeit with terrible losses) against the most powerful armed forces in the world, the United States, turned out to be just a little more than a mouthful for the PLA.

On reflection, that tough little army may have, in sort of a perverse way, "saved" southeast Asia from another 800 years of Chinese munificence. Though still Communist, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have a far better chance of EVENTUALLY developing into free societies than under a distant and heavy Chinese Communist thumb.

[brooklin]

The island, Hainan(sp), may have been claimed by the Viet people, but it has been Chinese at least since ww2.

[SaltyJoe]

Actually, it's relatively recent that Vietnam has won it's own country. The Chinese have traditionally been their enemies. And if the Viets were fighting Chinese, they were fighting each other. Don't forget that before their last war with the Chinese, they fought:

the Americans,

the French,

AND the Japanese!

Before the French had sent many Catholic missionaries (and quite a few were brutally martyred...and not necessarily by the Viets), the Viets didn't even have a national identity. From the French language and schooling, Vietnamese built a written language. Because industrial powers, Eastern and Western, wanted the resource rich land (rubber especially), these Southeast Asian peoples slowly developed a strife born common identity. What is now Vietnam has almost always been hotly contested industrial, agricultural, and strategic real estate.

[GOP_1900AD]

And the plot thickens. It was a very "interesting" sequence of events. Most Western analyses of the sequence take the "Sino-Soviet Split" which was still "officially" the party line at the time in both Beijing and Moscow, as an article of faith. But let us imagine that, secretly, there still may have been some degree of coordination between the two. Bear with me here. Now, with that small bit of framing out of the way, let us examine the following sequence of events, all the while, keeping in the back of our minds, the geopolitical consequences of them:
1. The US pulls out of Indochina (1975)
2. The Mayaguez Incident, off the Cambodian coast (1975)
3. The Communist insurgency in Thailand is legitimated, amnestied and allowed to return to Bangkok (1976)
4. Pol Pot goes wild in Cambodia (1977)
5. With an apparent nod of Moscow, Vietnam invades Cambodia (1978).
6. Thailand, bereft of SEATO since the US withdrawl, gets nervous, especially after a few small Vietnamese incursions. Themselves believing in the "Sino - Soviet Split," they ask Beijing for regional support and security (1978)
7. The PRC invades Vietnam (1979)
8. Thailand further embraces Beijing and subtly moves further away from the US.

There is a term: "Scissors strategy." One might wonder about just what all these events were meant to accomplish, on the chess board. Was the real objective, to make Thailand blind to future PRC expansionism? To wit, within less than one year, a new superhighway, perfect for PLA tanks, TELs and other vehicles, will be completed, connecting Kunming (PRC), via Laos, with the current northern terminus of the Thai motorway system. Very interesting.

[marty60]

anything is possible now I believe. There are no conspiracy theories anymore. Everything is on the table.

[Fishing-guy]

That's similar to a theory I read at another forum. After the Vietnamese signed a mutual defense treaty with the Soviets, The Chinese wanted to teach the Vietnamese that the Soviets could not be trusted.

They sent their first-rate troops to the Sino-Soviet borders, then sent in the second-rate troops against the Vietnamese. After the Soviets did not come to the Vietnamese' defense, the Chinese withdrew their troops, having shown that the Soviets will not come to their defense.

It's an interesting theory. Don't know if it is true or not.

[Goodgirlinred]

So, is that the reason for the wars? Economic gain? I thought we were fighting over there to rid them of communist dictators.

[kesg]

Go ahead and add me to your ping list. Thanks.

[donozark]

More than theory. Soviets lost upwards of 3K KIA along border with China during Sino-Soviet War. People oft times say the Chinese wouldn't risk the lives of 25K KIA in the Sino-Vietnamese War, merely to "test" the Soviet Union's resolve (to defend Vietnam).

In fact, Mao had once said words to the effect, "What's 2 or 3 million dead Chinese when there are 800 million of us?" China reacted to what they felt was an "outflanking" by the Soviets.

This failure to act, on the part of the Soviets, caused a rift in relations with VN that has not healed to this day. It confirmed, in fact, that USSR was a "Paper Polar Bear."

[SaltyJoe]

You're right about fighting to rid the communist influence. It's for the same reason we went into Iraq.

It was the reason of the communists to take strategic reserves in Southeast Asia as was Saddam's reason to take Kuwait. It's not any different then how Stalin took Latvia, Lithuania, and the Ukraine to enslave and starve these people in funding the Soviet Union's modernization.

Communism is too inefficient and brutal to produce and must expand to rob others. Some may say the same of American capitalism, but that doesn't explain our nation's growth when we haven't expanded our MARKETS, not military might and footprint, to include others.

Communists are criminally minded and don't include "honest work" in their equation for natural success. Thus, criminals are blind to understanding how free nations are successful without militaristic invasions, murderous regimes, and judiciary theft. Criminals are only interested in their next high, orgasm, and power rush. They don't interest themselves in things that grow unless it's to steal it from those slaves who produce.

"The shadow cannot create" --Gandalf from Lord of the Rings