Sino-Vietnamese War

Sino-Vietnamese War

The Sino–Vietnamese War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh biên giới Việt-Trung), also known as the Third Indochina War, was a brief border war fought between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in early 1979. China launched the offensive in response to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978 (which ended the reign of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge), which Chinese Vice-premier Deng Xiaoping saw as a Soviet attempt "to extend its evil tentacles to Southeast Asia and...carry out expansion there." (see also: Sino-Soviet split.) As Dr. Henry Kissinger notes: "Whatever the shortcomings of its execution, the Chinese campaign reflected a serious, long-term strategic analysis."

The Chinese entered northern Vietnam and captured some of the bordering cities. On March 6, 1979, China declared that the gate to Hanoi was open and that their punitive mission had been achieved. Chinese forces retreated back across the Vietnamese border, into China. Both China and Vietnam claimed victory in the last of the Indochina Wars of the 20th century; as Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia until 1989 it can be said that the PRC failed to achieve the goal of dissuading Vietnam from involvement in Cambodia. However, Moscow surely realized that any attempt at expanding its foothold in SE Asia would have involved risk of military confrontation with China. Followed by the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Vietnamese border was finalized.

China achieved its strategic objective of reducing the offensive capability of Vietnam along the China-Vietnam border by implementing a scorched earth policy. China also achieved another strategic objective of demonstrating to its Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, that they were unable to protect their new Vietnamese ally. Following worsening relations between the Soviet Union and China as a result of the Sino-Soviet split, as many as 1.5 million Chinese troops were stationed along the Soviet-Chinese border, in preparation for a full-scale war.