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Following Terran's thread regarding the Korean War that can be viewed from this link (Korean War 70 years later Win Lose and A draw) . I feel that it is interesting to look back at another conflict and judge it in roughly a similar way.
The topic would be the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979, aka the Third Indochina war. I will call it the S-V War for short. 2020 would mark the 41st anniversary of the conflict.
To give a brief background on the war, if you look up a textbook example regarding "pointless wars" the SV-War would be a perfect candidate, alongside the War of 1812. The end game of the conflict was never truly defined by China beyond Deng's quote of " "The little child is getting naughty, it's time he get spanked." (original Chinese words: 小朋友不听话,该打打屁股了。)
Ostensibly the war was launched in response to Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia that was ruled by Chinese friendly Pol Pot at the time, though how the war would have helped reverse Chinese fortunes in Cambodia was never truly discussed.
For Vietnam the goal was very simple, repulsing the Chinese invasion.
The war started on the 17th of February 1979 and ended on the 16th of March 1979, both sides fielded huge armies with accordingly huge number of hardware and equipment. For a war that lasted just shy of 4 weeks the casualties was surprisingly horrendous. US estimated that both sides sustained almost 30,000 deaths and nearly 40,000 wounded each. And for such losses the gains were pitiful in return, apart from some extremely small territorial gains by China that was returned later in the 1990s, the border between the two countries were practically unchanged.
The immediate results of the war were mixed as both sides claimed victory based on differing standards .While the war did not restore Khmer Rouge rule to Cambodia, China was able to demonstrate that the USSR was unable to protect it's allies in extremely remote areas, Vietnam at that time was allied with the USSR that in turn was antagonistic to China. While the USSR did prove logistic, intelligence and training assistance to Vietnam it did not openly support it, of course China did assuage the USSR by stating that the war would be a limited one and did not use it's navy in the conflict and the PLAAF only provided limited support during the war.
The long term results of the war however are most substantial. While alot of military experts would say that it was during the first Gulf War that China realize the inadequacies of it's military, in my opinion however it should be the SV-War that deserves that credit. It was the first conflict China was involved in after the Cultural Revolution, and the PLA faced off against veteran VPA soldiers who had fought both the US-Vietnam war and the Cambodian-Vietnam war non-stop for decades. It was literally a rerun of the Korean War only that China found itself on the south side of the Yalu River so to say.
It was the SV-War that planted the first seeds of China's military modernization which during the 1980s saw the importation of numerous western systems. The Gulf War if anything mere drive home the importance of the reforms.
This is what I see from the SV-War. On the side note, one of the few lucky things that happen for China in this is how little effect the war had on Vietnam-Sino relationship in the future. That such a bloody war did not result in heighten enmity from Vietnam is truly a stroke of luck.
The topic would be the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979, aka the Third Indochina war. I will call it the S-V War for short. 2020 would mark the 41st anniversary of the conflict.
To give a brief background on the war, if you look up a textbook example regarding "pointless wars" the SV-War would be a perfect candidate, alongside the War of 1812. The end game of the conflict was never truly defined by China beyond Deng's quote of " "The little child is getting naughty, it's time he get spanked." (original Chinese words: 小朋友不听话,该打打屁股了。)
Ostensibly the war was launched in response to Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia that was ruled by Chinese friendly Pol Pot at the time, though how the war would have helped reverse Chinese fortunes in Cambodia was never truly discussed.
For Vietnam the goal was very simple, repulsing the Chinese invasion.
The war started on the 17th of February 1979 and ended on the 16th of March 1979, both sides fielded huge armies with accordingly huge number of hardware and equipment. For a war that lasted just shy of 4 weeks the casualties was surprisingly horrendous. US estimated that both sides sustained almost 30,000 deaths and nearly 40,000 wounded each. And for such losses the gains were pitiful in return, apart from some extremely small territorial gains by China that was returned later in the 1990s, the border between the two countries were practically unchanged.
The immediate results of the war were mixed as both sides claimed victory based on differing standards .While the war did not restore Khmer Rouge rule to Cambodia, China was able to demonstrate that the USSR was unable to protect it's allies in extremely remote areas, Vietnam at that time was allied with the USSR that in turn was antagonistic to China. While the USSR did prove logistic, intelligence and training assistance to Vietnam it did not openly support it, of course China did assuage the USSR by stating that the war would be a limited one and did not use it's navy in the conflict and the PLAAF only provided limited support during the war.
The long term results of the war however are most substantial. While alot of military experts would say that it was during the first Gulf War that China realize the inadequacies of it's military, in my opinion however it should be the SV-War that deserves that credit. It was the first conflict China was involved in after the Cultural Revolution, and the PLA faced off against veteran VPA soldiers who had fought both the US-Vietnam war and the Cambodian-Vietnam war non-stop for decades. It was literally a rerun of the Korean War only that China found itself on the south side of the Yalu River so to say.
It was the SV-War that planted the first seeds of China's military modernization which during the 1980s saw the importation of numerous western systems. The Gulf War if anything mere drive home the importance of the reforms.
This is what I see from the SV-War. On the side note, one of the few lucky things that happen for China in this is how little effect the war had on Vietnam-Sino relationship in the future. That such a bloody war did not result in heighten enmity from Vietnam is truly a stroke of luck.
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