China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975
Qiang Zhai
The University of North Carolina Press; 304 pages; $19.95.
Prof. Qiang Zhai projects a different China vis-a-vis Vietnam, one which pursued both ideology and realpolitik initially and later realpolitik mostly. Hanoi was caught between Moscow and Beijing. Ho Chi Minh went to China on August 7, 1960 to promote unity between the two but failed.
The author has relied on recently released archival sources and other material to write a lucid, fascinating account of big power politics. New Delhi would not dream of releasing any archival material for this period or even from 1947-50.
The book establishes, as John Lewis Gaddis summarises, "that China's military assistance was critical to the Viet Minh in their war against the French prior to the Geneva settlement of 1954... . That the Russians and the Chinese did, ... force the Viet Minh to accept the 1954 division of the country but that the Chinese later regretted this, a sentiment that contributed both to the Sino-Soviet split and to Beijing's support for the North Vietnamese escalation of the war against South Vietnam and the Americans in the early 1960s."
China sent some 320,000 support troops to North Vietnam during the 1965-68 period. Over a thousand of them were killed there. Mao was prepared to fight the Americans directly had they attempted a ground invasion of North Vietnam.
Yet, North Vietnam failed to consult China when it began negotiations with the Americans in 1968. Chinese influence over North Vietnam diminished from that point, while that of the Soviet Union grew.
The Chinese had great difficulty in explaining Nixon's 1972 Beijing visit to North Vietnam. They tried to compensate by stepping up military supplies to Hanoi during the final stages of the ceasefire negotiations. Despite his rapprochement with the U.S., Mao strongly supported the coming to power of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in 1975. The roots of the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 lie in what we can now see to have been the fragmentation of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance during the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
At the Geneva Conference in 1954 Zhou Enlai was determined to ensure that Laos and Cambodia were free from Vietnam's influence. "During the Cambodian crisis of 1970, Beijing pursued a two-track policy of backing Sihanouk and exploring possible cooperation with Lon Noi in hopes of preserving China's influence in the country. In the last two years of the war, while continuing to assist the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam] in its final drive to unify Vietnam, Beijing also increased aid to the anti-Vietnamese Khmer Rouge in order to contain the expansion of Hanoi's influence in Cambodia."
From the late 1960s, Vietnam moved closer to Moscow, which became its "envoy" of the West, and vice versa. "Chinese leaders, however, were jealous of this Soviet role in Vietnam. They treated Vietnam as a pawn in their strategy against Moscow."
Prof. Qiang Zhai pays a well-deserved tribute to Vietnam: "While policymakers in Hanoi constantly feared being betrayed by their big allies, they were not submissive puppets of Beijing or Moscow. In fact, they were highly self-willed and independent actors who were able to make their own strategic choices, particularly during the Second Vietnam War, often without consulting China or the Soviet Union."
Copyright © 2003, Frontline.
Rappel: la Chine n'hésitera plus tard à attaquer le Vietnam