SinoDefence Forum

Lion

As everybody know. China invaded Vietnam to force them out of Cambodia but failed.

What mystify us is China despite suffering heavy casualties, They captured the critical Lang Son which will lead PLA to in road invasion of Hanoi but it never turn out that way. Instead of going forward to threaten Hanoi which will definite caused reaction from Vietnam regular division to move in and protect Hanoi. PLA stopped fighting, worst they retreat back in China border. Which wrote off all the hard gain it achieved.

They could just dig in Lang Son and played a defensive of bombardment game which was totally at PLA advantage due to their mass artillery concentration.

Soviet and China fought a brief border war in 1969 which Soviet lost and humilated but this new was keep mute by Western and Soviet media until uncovered a few years ago. The defeat was even harder to take when Soviet back down from US threat in the 1964 Cuban Crisis previously. It was a 2 major setback for Soviet Union. If Soviet suffered a further 3rd setback by not able to stand up against China for their Vietnam partner as they signed a pact of allies which Soviet wil assist in terms of military if Vietnam was threatened.

Soviet leadership may had shown determination to use nuclear to fight China if she did not halt her invasion towards Vietnam. It may had swing PLA decision to total withdraw from Vietnam of such a brief invasion.

pla101prc

a key attribute of "paper tiger" is that they dont really have the guts to launch a nuclear attack.
the reason Deng ordered the military to halt the attack is because Beijing has achieved its initial objective, that is to show Vietnam and the world that Soviet Union will not come to its aid.

Lion

But you must remember too that one of the key purpose of this assault is to show cambodia the allies that China is willing to support and protect. It wanted to force Vietnam to retreat from Cambodia or at least force a few division of Vietnam to move back to hanoi to ease pressure on Khmer Rouge.

None of it materialise. A push towards Hanoi will trigger a reaction from Vietnam leader. If PLA march towards Hanoi and Soviet still can't do a thing about it. It will indeed show the world the failure of Soviet leadership.
If PLA don't intend to push forward. At least holding on to Lang Son will be significant. None of the option is utilise and instead a hasty retreat from Lang Son. ???

Can't really understand the reason for doing that.

Neither way it was a military boast for Deng new leadership and back fire badly.

optionsss

Where did you get the idea China wanted to force Vietnam out of Cambodia? It has more to do with the disputed border issue, and as Deng said, a punititive attack on Vietnam.

pla101prc

you are right, the key is "punitive", the casualty on the Vietnam side was several times larger than that of the PLA (and PLA suffered a lot of casualty), the damage done to the infrastructure in north Vietnam took more than a decade to recover because of the extensive use of artillery. after this border war and some skirmishes at Laoshan and Zheyinshan later on you see the Viets calming down a lot more, at least they have stopped calling themselves the third strongest military LOL.

sidewinder01

Ya the Viets were quiet serious about the border issue after 1979 and kept on raiding the border until a bigger battle in 1984 in which their so called "elite Commando" that were supposely unstoppable during the war with the US were halted in a suprise raid on defense station defended by a platoon of chinese soldiers(most died). The PLA sort of just let the different GAs took turn getting experience at the border in a sort of relaxing way while the Viets were serious and the long border issue really caused some great dmg to their economic developtment and many other areas of modernization

Lion

You must be joking,right?

Why did China only start the large scale invasion after few weeks of Cambodia invasion by Vietnamese forces? If its purely just retaliation, why did PLA need to venture all the way to Lang Son?

What kind of lesson China wanted to teach Vietnam when itself suffer heavy casualty and its close Pol Pot allies still in exile and most of Cambodia still under Vietnam?

victtodd

I agree with you that part of the strategici thinking behind the 1979 war against Vietnam was to force Vietnam to withdraw their elite field army to China front and if possible crushed them once for all. This is the reason why Chinese army loitered for over a week (China declared to withdraw in March 5th and withdrawed from Lang Son on March 11th) after the seizure of Lang Son on March 4th. However the vietnams saw through China's intention and avoided a decisive battle.

The military pressure from Soviet was surely always part of China's consideration throughout the whole period, however it would be a far cry to claim it succeded to force China's withdral: if China was so afraid of Soviets, why do you think they decided to go ahead and punish Vietnam anyway in the first place? However the timing of China's withdrawl indeed might have something to do with Soviets.

The fundmental reasons of China's withdrawl are, first part of the war's purpose was already fulfilled, which is to punish Vietnam for being such a pawn of Soviets; second, the attempt to divert Vietnam field army back from Combodian apparently failed. Third, from the start, China never planned to occupy on a long-term basis a big chunk of Vietnam, which would be strategically unwise and run counter to PRC's principles.

To sum it up, the new leadership with Deng xiaoping at its core handled the war handsomely, surely it didn't backfire as was manifested by what happened to the two countries in the next decade. It was a bold strategic maneuver intending to kill several birds with one stone. The timing of the initiation and withdrawl were well-planned, but on tactical level, the same can not be said about the execution.

Schumacher

The immediate withdrawal of Vietnam from Cambodia may not have been the only goal of the Chinese attack.
The former PM Lee of Singapore said on more than one occasions that the likelihood of Vietnam, with full backing of USSR and fresh from the great boost of defeating US, not stopping at Cambodia & continuing west & then south to eventually threaten his nation, not to mention those in between, was taken very seriously and that the fact that Vietnam did stop there was not unrelated to the Chinese demonstration of their capability to reach Hanoi.
So you be the the judge whether China achieved its goal in the war.

cliveersknell

Do not forget the 2nd war in 1985. Chinese forces captured a hill in western part of Northern Vietnam, held it through 1989, Vietnam sent battle hardened troops to retake it , but failed miserably.
r's
Clive

optionsss

This does not stand. Cambodian-Vietnam war started in 1975, four year before the sino-vietnamese war. Deng's intention to attack Vietnam was written on the walls during his visit to the US, and this was before the massive Vietnamese invasion to Cambodia in 1979. After Deng reached an understanding with the US, he also moved China's elite troops along the border with Soviet Union, as part of the war preparation. In essence, China only attacked when they thought they were ready.

Do you honestly think China is willing to help out a genocidal regime, while opening its doors to the western powers? What does this make China look? A few political gestures here and there, maybe, but a full scale war to bring the Khmer Rouge back? This is highly unlikely given the political situation.

Historically, as long as the Chinese force captured Lang Son, the Vietnamese emperor would surrender. I think this is why PLA made capture Lang Son its objective, for the political reason. So long as China does not want to occupy Vietnam, Lang Son would be a good place to stop.

Spike

China had re-established and improved relations with the US and ASEAN just prior to the Sino-Vietnam War. One benefit of the action was that it reassured Thailand and ASEAN that China was a reliable supporter of the status quo and was an unequivocal demonstration that China was now in the anti-Soviet camp.

Lion

Most of the critical manpower and equipment preparation of PLA is done only after Cambodia being overrun in 1979. It 's preparation was captured by US satelite. Surely such huge reaction is response to provocation.

LOL.. China was already helping the genocidal regime. What is wrong with additional step of trying to push out vietnam occupation in Cambodia but China is not the only one doing that. CIA too supply Khmer Rouge with weapons and Intelligence. Every country serves with its own purpose. Just like US used to support Saddam Hussein.




With virtually no sign of vietnam troops and government wear down(just like what u claim the emperor did not surrender). I don't see any significant of Lang Son capture. Why PLA retreat from there after
that? They could have hold Lang Son for more longer and play defensive game which is a disadvantage to Vietnam troops. Worst, Vietnam provocation near border did not susbside after this war. Which eventually lead to second 1984 sino-vietnam war.

But lastly, I think PLA correct all its mistake of 1979 with 1984 Second sino-vietnam war. They did hold Laoshan and utilise it mass artillery power to wear out the vietnam troops.

optionsss

A quote from wiki
Deng already told the world China will attack vietnam during his visit to the US. This happened before the vietnam beaten down the Cambodia resistance.
Maybe the massive invasion help speed up the Chinese preparation and fueled the Chinese leaderships determination, but correlation and causation are different things.

Let's just say, giving money and weapons is different from starting a war, that is going to cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

If China does not to occupy Vietnam, why would they stay? It's not like China have total control over the captured territory. Vietnamese militia would attack the Chinese supply and harrass the garrisons. Worse, it make Chinese allies wonder about China's true intentions. Chinese thought they made their point, but too bad vietnam just did not get the message.

sidewinder01

Lion the reason that Lang son was so important was because it was the last point where vietnamese force can effective defend against invasions. as after Lang Son, it is all flat terran with no geographic advantage for the defender to use whatsoever, the invasion force could easily launch a large scale offensive action on their capital without much resistance and crush the vietamese with armoured units smoothly since its all flat land..