China and Vietnam have been going after each other for approximately 700 years. In fact, China, France, Cambodia and Laos (to name a few) have routinely invaded or declared war on Vietnam for those 700 years.
When we got involved in Vietnam in the 50s, it was because the French had finally been defeated (again!) at the battle of Dien Bien Phu tying to end the civil war that was ragng in Vietnam at the time.
The irony of Vietnam is that Ho Ch Minh wanted to establish an American-style democracy in Vietnam. But, when he approached the Americans for assistance in overthrowing the ruling party, we blew him off. That caused him to turn to the Chinese who were only too willing to help him out.
But, you are corrct. Bubba Jeff, who never served a day in the military and hated the military, never should have normalized relations with them while the Vietnam vets were alive. By the same token, Carter should never have forgiven the traitors and cowards who fled to Canada to avoid serving in ‘Nam. All that did was rub salt in the wounds of hundreds of thousands of Vietnam vets and made suckers out of those who died there.
I thought Ford had pardoned the draft dodgers.
We involved the French in Indochina because they made it clear after WWII that they had no money or public support to fight the Indochina War. We armed them to the teeth, including an aircraft carrier, uniforms/helmets, weapons, etc. - because WE wanted to contain communism. Photos of French troops in that war look just like our soldiers from WWII - they’re using a lot of the same equipment. France had to rely on a lot of colonial troops for the war, as well as native troops; to the end they believed that American air power would be used at Dien Bien Phu, because after all it was US that wanted the war. Like the Bay of Pigs troops, they learned the hard way...
Ho Chi Minh wanted independence as early as the Versailles conference in 1919, but wasn’t permitted to speak for it. Heck, we didn’t even give SOUTH Vietnam US-style democracy; if we had allowed an election, Ho Chi Minh would have won as a write-in candidate (so we simply didn’t hold elections).