[Strategerist]

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

[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.