and the last time Vietnam kicked China’s butt big time
That was decades ago when Vietnam had a battle tested army and before China changed its doctrine and upgraded its military with high tech . China would stomp them today if they want to.
China kept trying to goad them into large engagements. Don’t know why they thought that would work, since they were just a few years removed from conflict with us and generally avoided it as a rule.
Vietnam hasn’t fought a war in a long time.
Back in 1979 they had plenty of recent combat experience.
Now they won’t have that important advantage.
The Chinese have massively upgraded their tech. While Vietnam, as far as I can tell from published sources, has spent very little on armaments since the 1970s.
In 1979 both were at the same technology state, or perhaps the Vietnamese had a slight edge. These days the Chinese have a huge advantage, particularly in the air.
The Vietnamese may also suffer from a lack of ammunition and in particular of resupply. The large stocks of Vietnam war ex-Soviet ammo are long obsolete. They have no source of resupply (well, possibly India) that would be willing to risk facing Chinese air superiority to get it to them.
The Vietnamese have the advantage of position and terrain as before, possibly negating the massive Chinese superiority in armored units.
In 1979 the Chinese suffered from poor logistics due to the poor roads and rail through the undeveloped region north of Vietnam. I believe this situation has since been remedied.
“and the last time Vietnam kicked China’s butt big time”
The last time, a stagnant China attacked a nation armed with our own US leave-behinds. Today, it’s Vietnam that has stagnated, and China that has the latest generation weapons.
I think this to intimidate Vietnam into stepping down. Failing that, it would make a fine scenario for testing all that new equipment they have been building for the last decade, and send an unmistakable message to other nations in the region.