Enemies Will Certainly Be Defeated

The Sino-Vietnamese War, also known as the Third Indochina War, was a brief border war fought between the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in early 1979. China launched the offensive in response to Vietnam’s invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978 (which ended the rule of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge). Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping saw this as a Soviet attempt “to extend its evil tentacles to Southeast Asia and…carry out expansion there”, which reflected the long-standing Sino-Soviet split. As the former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger noted that “[w]hatever the shortcomings of its execution, the Chinese campaign reflected a serious, long-term strategic analysis”. The Chinese entered northern Vietnam and captured some of the cities near the border. On March 6, 1979, China declared that the gate to Hanoi was open and that their punitive mission had been achieved. Chinese forces retreated back across the Vietnamese border into China. Both China and Vietnam claimed victory in the last of the Indochina Wars of the 20th century; as Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia until 1989, it can be said that China failed to achieve the goal of dissuading Vietnam from involvement in Cambodia. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Vietnamese border was finalized.