Forty years ago, on February 17, 1979, a war broke out between the two leading socialist states of Asia at that time - China and Vietnam. The political conflict between neighboring states, which had been smoldering for many years, turned into an open armed confrontation, which could well have outgrown regional borders.
Just a few days before the outbreak of hostilities, the leader of the PRC, Deng Xiaoping, made his famous address, in which he said that China was going to "teach a lesson to Vietnam." The People's Liberation Army of China began preparing for this "lesson" long before Deng Xiaoping's speech.
At the end of 1978, the PLA military districts located on the borders with the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic - Shenyang, Peking, Lanzhous and Xinjiang, were put on high alert. This decision was taken by the Chinese military-political leadership for a reason. In Beijing, it was assumed that in the event of an attack by the PRC on Vietnam, a retaliatory strike from the north, from the Soviet Union and Mongolia, could follow. And if the Soviet Union then got involved in a war with China, then the war with Vietnam would automatically recede into the background. That is, China was preparing for a war on two fronts.
In early January 1979, the Guangzhou Military District in southern China was also put on alert, which was to take on the main burden of the war with a neighboring state. The powerful forces of Chinese troops were transferred to Yunnan province, which also had a border with Vietnam.
Despite the fact that Vietnam was many times behind China in terms of population, Beijing understood the complexity and danger of the upcoming conflict. After all, Vietnam was not an ordinary Asian country. For thirty-five years, Vietnam fought - from guerrilla wars against the Japanese and French to years of war with the Americans and their allies. And, most importantly, Vietnam withstood the war with the United States and achieved the unification of the country.
It is interesting that China provided assistance to North Vietnam for a long time, although the latter was under the ideological influence of the USSR and was considered the main conductor of the pro-Soviet course in Southeast Asia. When the unification of Vietnam was accomplished, Beijing quickly changed its policy towards the neighboring country. I immediately remembered all the very long and very negative relations between the two countries. China and Vietnam have fought each other many times in past centuries. The empires that existed on the territory of China sought to completely subordinate the neighboring states to their power. Vietnam was no exception.
In the mid-1970s, relations between the PRC and Vietnam began to deteriorate. This was also facilitated by the "Cambodian question". The fact is that the communists also came to power in neighboring Cambodia. But the Communist Party of Kampuchea, in which Salot Sar (Pol Pot) came forward in the early 1970s, in contrast to the Vietnamese communists, was oriented not towards the Soviet Union, but towards the PRC. Moreover, even by the standards of Maoist China, Pol Pot was excessively radical. He staged a massive purge of the Cambodian communist movement, which led to the extermination of pro-Vietnamese functionaries. Naturally, Hanoi did not like this state of affairs in the neighboring country. China, on the other hand, supported Pol Pot as a counterweight to pro-Soviet Vietnam.
Another and, perhaps, the most compelling reason for the Chinese conflict with Vietnam was Beijing's fears about the creation of a pro-Soviet security belt, which literally covered China from all sides - the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Vietnam. Laos was under Vietnamese influence. In Afghanistan, the pro-Soviet People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan also came to power. That is, the Chinese leadership had every reason to fear "being captured by the Soviet pincers."
In addition, in Vietnam itself, mass evictions of the Chinese began, until that time living in large numbers in the country's cities and playing an important role in economic life. The Vietnamese leadership viewed the pressure on the Chinese diaspora as a response to the policy of Pol Pot, who staged repression against the Vietnamese living in Cambodia, and then completely embarked on a policy of raids on Vietnamese border villages.
On December 25, 1978, in response to the Cambodian provocations, the Vietnamese People's Army crossed the Cambodian border. The Khmer Rouge were unable to provide serious resistance to the Vietnamese troops, and on January 7, 1979, Pol Pot's regime fell. This event further worried the Chinese as they lost their last ally in the region. Pro-Vietnamese forces came to power in Cambodia, also focused on cooperation with the USSR.
At about 4:30 am on February 17, 1979, the People's Liberation Army of China received an order to begin an offensive into the northern provinces of Vietnam. After shelling the border areas, Chinese troops invaded Vietnam in several directions. Despite the desperate resistance of the Vietnamese border forces and militias, the PLA managed to advance 15 kilometers deep into Vietnamese territory in three days and capture Lao Cai. But then the decisive attack by the Chinese was drowned out.
It should be noted here that by the time the offensive began on the territory of Vietnam, the PRC had concentrated 44 divisions with a total strength of 600,000 troops near its borders. But only 250 thousand Chinese soldiers entered directly into the territory of Vietnam. However, this number was enough for the first time - the Chinese were opposed by Vietnamese troops numbering 100 thousand people. The first line of defense was held by poorly armed border forces and militia units. In fact, the units of the Vietnamese People's Army were in the second line of defense. They were to defend Hanoi and Haiphong.
How, with such a numerical superiority of the PLA, the Vietnamese army managed to stop its offensive rather quickly? First of all, this was due to the excellent fighting qualities of the VNA personnel, border troops and even the militia. The fact is that decades of wars with the Japanese, French, and Americans were not in vain for the Vietnamese. Almost every Vietnamese soldier of the appropriate age, as well as the militia, had experience of participating in hostilities. These were tested and fired soldiers, moreover, very ideologically motivated and determined to defend their home country to the last drop of blood.
Nevertheless, at the end of February 1979, the advancing PLA forces managed to capture Caobang, and on March 4, 1979, Lang Son fell. This made Hanoi already on March 5, 1979 announce the beginning of a general mobilization. The Vietnamese leadership was determined to defend the country with all possible forces and means. However, on the same day when the Vietnamese leadership announced mobilization, China announced the cessation of the offensive of the People's Liberation Army and the beginning of the withdrawal of its units and subdivisions from the territory of Vietnam. The strange war, as soon as it began, came to an end.
It is interesting that, despite the availability of both China and Vietnam access to the sea, the proximity of sea borders, as well as the existing maritime disputes about the ownership of the Spratly Islands, there were practically no hostilities at sea in February 1979. The fact is that since the summer of 1978, ships of the Pacific Fleet of the USSR Navy have been in the South China and East China Seas. A squadron of 13 large warships was stationed in the South China Sea. Also, the Soviet Union used the former American naval base Cam Ranh for the needs of its Navy.
At the end of February 1979, after the outbreak of hostilities, the Soviet squadron received serious reinforcements and already consisted of 30 warships. In addition, there were Soviet diesel submarines in the region, which arrived from the Far Eastern bases of the Pacific Fleet of the USSR Navy. The submarines created a protective cordon at the entrance to the Gulf of Tonkin, which protected it from invasion by ships of other countries.
After the outbreak of the war between China and Vietnam, the Soviet Union and the countries - allies of the USSR in the Warsaw Pact Organization began to supply Vietnam with weapons, ammunition, and other strategically important cargoes. But on the whole, the position of the USSR turned out to be much more "herbivorous" than the Chinese leaders had assumed. Units and formations of the Soviet Army and Navy stationed in the Far East and Transbaikalia were put on full alert, but things did not go beyond this and declarative condemnation of China's aggression by the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Despite the fact that the Chinese army managed to capture a number of important areas in the north of Vietnam, on the whole, the war showed the weakness and technical backwardness of the PLA. Numerical superiority could not guarantee Beijing a "blitzkrieg" against its southern neighbor. In addition, despite the absence of any real measures on the part of the Soviet Union, Deng Xiaoping, known for his caution, still did not want to bring the situation to a real confrontation with the USSR and other countries of the socialist camp. Therefore, he chose to declare the victory of Chinese weapons and withdraw troops from Vietnam. Naturally, Hanoi also announced their victory over the Chinese aggressors.
In April 1979, on the initiative of Beijing, the Soviet-Chinese treaty of friendship, alliance and mutual assistance was terminated, which the PRC did not terminate even during the period of open confrontation with the Soviet Union. A new era began in world politics, and the prudent Chinese leaders, probing the Soviet Union, understood this perfectly. On the other hand, there is a version that Deng Xiaoping, unleashing a war with Vietnam, wanted to demonstrate to his opponents in the party and state leadership of China that the PLA needs the fastest and strongest modernization. But was the Chinese leader really cynical enough to make such human sacrifices to test the fighting efficiency of his army?
Despite its short duration, the war between China and Vietnam was very bloody. Chinese historians estimate the PLA's losses at 22,000 killed and wounded. Vietnam lost about the same amount, again according to Chinese estimates. That is, in just a month of the conflict (and the hostilities continued until about mid-March, after Beijing's decision to withdraw troops), from 30 thousand to 40 thousand people died.
It should be noted that the withdrawal of troops in March 1979 did not end the Sino-Vietnamese conflicts. For ten years, China and Vietnam periodically entered into minor armed conflicts on the border. For example, when in June 1980 the Vietnamese People's Army, carried away by the pursuit of the retreating Khmer Rouge, invaded neighboring Thailand from Cambodia, the PLA units stationed on the border with Vietnam began shelling the Vietnamese border territories.
In May 1981, the PLA again launched an attack on Hill 400 in Lang Son province with the forces of one regiment. The Vietnamese troops did not lag behind, which on May 5 and 6 made several raids into the Chinese province of Guangxi. Throughout the 1980s, shelling of Vietnamese territory by PLA units continued. As a rule, they were undertaken when Vietnamese troops in Cambodia attacked the positions of the Khmer Rouge who had gone over to the guerrilla war.
Relations between the two neighboring states relatively normalized only by the beginning of the 1990s, which was associated, first of all, with the general change in the global political situation. Since 1990, the Soviet Union no longer posed a threat to Chinese political interests in Southeast Asia, and in 1991 it ceased to exist altogether. China has an important new adversary in the Asia-Pacific region - the United States of America. By the way, at present, the United States is actively developing military cooperation with Vietnam - with the country with which Washington fought one of the bloodiest wars in its history half a century ago.
