Dubbed as the “Self-Defensive Counterstrike against Vietnam” by China (对越自卫反击战), and “the War against Chinese Expansionism” by Vietnam (Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa), the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, as it is commonly known in the rest of the world, began in the early morning of February 17, 1979 with a massive Chinese blitzkrieg against Vietnam along the 800-mile border between the two countries.
søndag 18. august 2024
In Retrospect: The 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War and Its Consequences
In a grand struggle with the Soviet Union for the leadership role of the global communist movement, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) waged a full-scale war of aggression against communist Vietnam in February and March 1979. Vietnam had abandoned Beijing and joined Moscow as a mutual defense-treaty ally and invaded and toppled China’s Maoist puppet government, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The war was also triggered by an internal CCP power struggle: Deng Xiaoping wanted to consolidate his control over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to finally force the CCP General Secretary Hua Guofeng, Mao’s outmaneuvered chosen successor, to cede supreme power to him.
Dubbed as the “Self-Defensive Counterstrike against Vietnam” by China (对越自卫反击战), and “the War against Chinese Expansionism” by Vietnam (Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa), the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, as it is commonly known in the rest of the world, began in the early morning of February 17, 1979 with a massive Chinese blitzkrieg against Vietnam along the 800-mile border between the two countries.
Dubbed as the “Self-Defensive Counterstrike against Vietnam” by China (对越自卫反击战), and “the War against Chinese Expansionism” by Vietnam (Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa), the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, as it is commonly known in the rest of the world, began in the early morning of February 17, 1979 with a massive Chinese blitzkrieg against Vietnam along the 800-mile border between the two countries.
