In February 1979, China invaded Vietnam and launched a 4-week attack on its southern neighbor. It was the most recent war China fought. In retrospect, the Sino-Vietnam war paved the way for China’s economic reforms and helped the country rise to dominance.
The mastermind of the operation was the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Deng Xiaoping. He designed a military operation to gain American trust and was successful in deceiving the West with his agenda of economic reforms.
This is the second part of the series that explores the CCP’s motivation for waging war. In Part 1, I discussed how Mao Zedong joined the Korean War to fight the United States in order to get help from the Soviet Union to build a modern Chinese military. The Korean War consumed 60% of China’s GDP and left the country with a debt of 3 billionThis is the second part yuan owed to the USSR. It took the Chinese more than a decade to pay off the debt in the 1960s. However, Mao got what he wanted. China signed dozens of contracts with the Soviets, and its aviation industry took off.
Twenty years later, another CCP leader, Deng Xiaoping, launched the Sino-Vietnam War. The CCP called it “self-defence.” And the Vietnamese call it the “war against Chinese expansionism.” Superficially, it appears that China attacked Vietnam over border disputes and Vietnam’s involvement in ending the China-backed Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The real reason that Deng attacked Vietnam was to gain the trust of the United States so that his economic reforms and opening-up policies could take off.
The Sino-Vietnam War
One year after Mao’s death, in 1977, Deng was politically rehabilitated and returned to power. Deng was busy planning China’s future. One of his major decisions was to reverse Mao’s planned economy by introducing elements of a market economy.
Deng knew that the success of his economic reform and opening up had to be based on the premise that China maintained a friendly relationship with the United States. Deng understood that if the United States accepted China, the rest of the world would too and his economic blueprint for China would succeed. But why should the United States accept China, he would certainly have wondered.
China and the United States had fought in Korea and again in Vietnam. China is a communist state with an ideology incompatible with American values. In Deng’s mind, whether the United States would be willing to accept China and support its opening-up policy remained in question.
It was 1977, two years after the end of the Vietnam War. The Americans had suffered great losses in Vietnam. Deng analyzed the relations between the United States, the USSR, China, and Vietnam and wanted to take advantage of the geopolitical situation.
During the Vietnam War, China devoted a lot of resources and sent soldiers to North Vietnam, wearing Vietnamese uniforms, to fight the South and the Americans. China and Vietnam, the two communist “brother comrades,” had conflicts among themselves, but didn’t allow them to escalate into a military confrontation.
China’s relations with the Soviets, however, were tense. They began to deteriorate after Stalin’s death, as Mao didn’t trust Stalin’s successor, Khrushchev, who denounced Stalin and advocated for a “peaceful coexistence” with the West. In addition, North Vietnam didn’t support China against the Soviets and further annoyed Beijing by signing a “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation” with the USSR. North Vietnam also had the Soviets pledge that they would aid Vietnam if it were attacked. The United States was, of course, engaged in the cold war with the Soviets.
Deng knew that the United States’ involvement in Vietnam was the country’s biggest military failure ever. From Deng’s view, in order to gain America’s trust, the best thing to do was to strike down one of the United States’ adversaries. The CCP wouldn’t dare attack the Soviets, but an attack on Vietnam was an indirect offence against the Soviets, something that the Americans would welcome.
But how does attacking one country gain the trust of another? Deng’s strategy is based on a concept called “certificate of submission” or “declaration of allegiance,” and it is how gangster organizations operate.
According to the Chinese definition, when a person joins a gang, in order to prove that he is not a spy sent by the authorities to infiltrate the organization, he needs to commit a crime, such as killing someone. By becoming an outlaw, he can effectively pledge loyalty to the gang. The gangster boss will then see the person as one of them.
Deng Xiaoping’s war against Vietnam was his “certificate of submission” or “declaration of allegiance” to the United States, according to Dr. Gao Shanwen, a leading Chinese economist. Deng’s idea was that by attacking Vietnam, America, the leader of the free world, would accept China into the international community. This is according to a leaked recording of a speech by Dr. Gao in 2018.
In his speech, Gao said Deng’s decision to attack Vietnam was a “declaration of loyalty” to the United States, which made the United States willing to embrace and support China firmly. Gao said he came to this conclusion after consulting with the key people who accompanied Deng on his trip to the United States in 1979, as well as US experts from China’s Academy of Social Sciences.
Deng arrived in Washington, DC, on Jan. 29, 1979, and began his historic visit. He was the first CCP leader to visit the United States. At the White House, after Deng and President Jimmy Carter completed their formal program and all the people left the room, Deng and Carter were alone with two interpreters. The Chinese interpreter was Ji Chaozhu, one of the people whom Dr. Gao consulted.
Deng told Carter, “We plan to attack Vietnam.” Other versions recorded Deng as saying: “The little friend is getting disobedient. It’s time he gets spanked.” According to Dr. Guo’s account, President Carter was shocked to hear that but took out a piece of paper and started to write down the weapons the United States could provide to China.
An expert on U.S.-China relations told Gao that the military assistance Americans provided to China exceeded the level of assistance provided to its allies. After Deng’s visit, the U.S. upgraded U.S.-China relations to a “friendly non-allied country.” According to Dr. Gao, Deng’s plan was successful for the following two reasons:
First of all, the United States suffered big losses in Vietnam, and the war ended so miserably for many Americans that they still had a “hangover.” A war with Vietnam would clear this up. Secondly, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a cold war. Vietnam was the Soviet Union’s “little brother” in Asia. China couldn’t rough up the Soviets but could strike down Vietnam to show its determination to break away from its Soviet “big brother.” And the United States would be thrilled to welcome that.
The above analysis, as provided by Dr. Gao, may not reflect the true sentiments of the Carter administration. But it is a good summary of the perceptions the Chinese had of the United States at the time. Deng returned to China from his U.S. visit on Feb. 8, 1979, and made the final decision to invade Vietnam the following day. A week later, on Feb. 15, he announced that China planned to conduct a limited attack on Vietnam, and two days later, on Feb. 17, 1979, the war broke out.
The war wasn’t easy for the CCP because Deng didn’t send his best troops to Vietnam. He was most concerned with the reaction from the Soviets, so he kept his best troops in the north, near the border with the USSR. The entire Shenyang Military Region, Beijing Military Region, and Lanzhou Military Region were on high alert regarding possible developments at the Sino-Soviet border while the war with Vietnam was fought in the South.
The Soviets, however, did not move against China. Dr. Gao said that President Carter had told Deng that the Soviets’ 150 conventional divisions were in Eastern Europe and that the Soviet military presence near the Sino-Soviet border was very limited. Another reason was the timing. Deng launched the war immediately after his return from the United States. The Soviets couldn’t figure out what deal China had made with the Americans, so they were careful about reacting.
Deng took a considerable risk in gambling an invasion against a neighbour but didn’t meet with a lot of consequences. Since Deng’s goal of waging war was to show his loyalty to the Americans, the war only lasted 3 weeks and 6 days and ended on March 16.
The Sino-Vietnam War opened up a whole new chapter in Sino-U.S. relations and geopolitics and laid the foundation for China’s economic reforms and rapid growth in the following 40 years. Dr. Gao said that without the Sino-Vietnam War, U.S.-China relations would not have been normalized, and China wouldn’t have enjoyed such fast economic growth.
But the Sino-Vietnam War was an invasion of another sovereign nation. If this happened today, would the United States act differently? If the United States had known Deng’s real intentions, would it have reacted differently then? Would it still have trusted the CCP and accepted it into the international community?
Dr. Gao’s speech received wide attention inside China, and he later denied that he ever gave the talk. I think he was put under a lot of pressure. But the hour-long recording is available online, and people can judge for themselves if it’s his voice or not.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Deng Xiaoping realized that the United States’ biggest enemy was gone and feared that the Americans would recognize the CCP as its adversary. Deng immediately instructed the CCP leaders to adopt a policy of “hiding our strength to bide our time.” Deng knew that sooner or later the Americans would stop trusting the CCP.
It took the Americans more than seven decades to recognize the CCP’s threat. But Beijing is still using Russia as a card to play games with the Americans. I hope the Americans are not fooled again. In the next part of the series, I’ll discuss the Sino-Indian War in 1962. Please stay tuned.
Watch Lei’s Real Talk on this topic
