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Background Brief China-Vietnam Border War, 1979 Carlyle A. Thayer February 16, 2014

The following e-mail interview was initiated by VNExpress. Its editor chose to censor this article along with several others on the 1979 border war to comply with a directive from higher ups. QUESTION: Many Vietnamese are marking the 35th anniversary of Sino-Vietnamese Border War this year. What is your analysis of the reasons why China invaded Vietnam on February 17th, and why it withdrew its troops by March 16th? ANSWER: China invaded Vietnam on February 17 and withdrew its forces on March 16, 1979. When China invaded Vietnam Deng Xiaoping and the top generals in the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) thought they could accomplish their objectives in a matter of days. Their objectives were to force Vietnam to withdraw military forces from Kampuchea (Cambodia) and stop their attacks on the Khmer Rouge. China also had the objective of engaging Vietnam main force units and inflicting heavy defeats on two or more main force divisions. And China hop ed to destroy Vietnams northern defences and economic infrastructure by pushing in and seizing a number of provincial capitals. China did not accomplish it major objectives. It did not alter the military balance in Kampuchea and nor did it force Vietnam to withdraw troops from Kampuchea and rush them to the northern border. China did not succeed in destroying Vietnams main force units. Generally, the main force units were held in reserve. The fighting took place mainly between Chinas PLA and Vietnamese local forces and militia. China failed to accomplish both of these objectives in a matter of days. In the initial fighting China took very high casualties. China succeeded in overrunning several provincial towns, Lao Cai, Lai Chau, Cao Bang and Lang Son for example. China destroyed tunnels and other defensive fortifications. After 5th March when they withdrew, Chinese forces deliberately blew up and destroyed much of the economic infrastructure.

2 China set out to teach Vietnam a lesson but in the end it was China t hat was taught a lesson. China withdrew when it did as a face saving measure. Chinese leaders portrayed the conflict as a counter-attack in self-defence and after they seized Lang Son they declared victory and announced the unilateral withdrawal of th eir forces. The costs of China punitive attack on Vietnam were very high. PLA logistics was extremely backward and did not support the advance of PLA armour and infantry. What lesson did China learn? China learned that the PLA was incapable of conducting a peoples war under modern conditions.

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, China-Vietnam Border War, 1979, Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, February 16, 2014. All background briefs are posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer). To remove yourself from the mailing list type UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject heading and hit the Reply key. Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.