From: yjhbhc@dante.lbl.gov (Joe Huang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Re: A Dirty War (Was Re: No Dogs or Chineses)
Date: 23 Jul 92 20:22:21 GMT
Reply-To: yjhbhc@dante.lbl.gov (Joe Huang)
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.106

On the motives for the Sino-Vietnam war of 1979,:

Chunde writes:
>
>> 2. Another objective [of 1979 Sino-Vietnam Border War] was to stop Vietnam
>> abuse ethnic Chinese, which resulted around 300,000 refugees fled to China
>> alone.

Sanyee writes :

>    ...Do you know the Khmer Rouge had wiped out the ethnic
>Chinese in Cambodia?  A great part of refugees were actually from Cambodia.
>...but have you ever seen CCP say anything to protest it?  CCP is still the
>best friend of the Khmer Rouge, isn't it?
>
>    The objective of this dirty war is to rescue the murderous Khmer Rouge.
>To CCP's dismay, Vietnam didn't bother to move its army to the north.  Stop
>abuse of ethnic Chinese?...

I think the primary reason for the war was to punish Vietnam for 
siding with the Soviet Union, and that the Kampuchean and Oversea 
Chinese issues were pretexts for the invasion. 

I was visiting China for the first time in the summer of 1978, and 
for lack of any other reading materials, read the official 
publications every day. I still remember roughly the progression 
of events leading up to the 1979 war.  

After the North Vietnamese victory in 1974, China hoped that Vietnam
would be at least neutral in the Sino-Soviet split. However, when 
Vietnam joined the Comecon in March 1978, the Chinese retaliated by 
stopping their aid program to Vietnam and recalling all Chinese
advisors (I found this supremely ironic since the same thing was
done to the Chinese by the Soviets in the early 60's) and launching
a major anti-Vietnam propaganda campaign, including huge displays 
about the mistreatment of ethnic Chinese and border skirmishes in
public parks, in front of hotels, etc.

The ethnic Chinese (Vietnamese Huaqiao) were caught in the middle 
of this political warfare and suffered the consequences. The
Vietnamese rounded up tens of thousands of Huaqiao, many of whom had 
lived in Vietnam for generations, put them on trucks, and drove them 
across the border to China (mid to late summer 1978). I unexpectedly 
came across a huge settlement area for such Vietnamese Huaqiao while 
making a trip to Sanyuanli outside of Guangzhou, and chatted with 
some of these new arrivals (they were easy to spot because of their 
behavior and clothing). They seemed bewildered but thankful to be 
out of the battle zone, although several said they hoped to eventually 
go to Hong Kong or the U.S. The official press put the number of 
expelled Huaqiao at 300,000.

The Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea around Christmas 1978 was the 
last straw for the Chinese government. Vietnam had first flaunted
their pro-Soviet alliance, then humiliated China by kicking out
ethnic Chinese, and now overthrown China's only reliable client 
state like a stack of	cards. The ease with which the Vietnamese 
army took over Kampuchea changed the image of the Khmer Rouge 
from revolutionary fanatics to a bunch of teenage thugs. To salvage 
their national pride, Deng and others felt they had to "teach" 
the Vietnamese a "lesson" militarily. 

I still have no idea who got the best of whom in this pedagogical war.
The Chinese say that the Vietnamese were on the brink of collapse,
Western reports are skeptical, and the Vietnamese have been mum.
Leaving aside the military assessment, it's hard to tell what the 
invasion accomplished. Vietnam did not change its pro-Soviet policies, 
the expelled Huaqiao were not repatriated nor compensated for their
losses , the Vietnamese army remained in Kampuchea until last year,
and the Khmer Rouge are still out of power (where I hope they will
remain forever).

Joe Huang