On the morning of February 17, 1979, the People’s Republic of China began shelling the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam. Shortly thereafter, 100,000 PLA troops crossed the border into Vietnam. Five
columns of troops swept through the border areas, taking several cities in the area.
Why exactly did the Chinese attack their ally? The Chinese and Vietnamese Communist
Parties shared Marxist ideologies and Ho Chi Minh had repeatedly said that China
and Vietnam were comrades and brothers. The Chinese played a crucial role in helping the
Vietnamese eject the imperialist French and Americans. When Marxist comrades disagree,
they are supposed to settle their issues with arguments based on Marxist theories,
not artillery shells. What is the reason for this move?
As with all historical incidents, this military invasion comes as the result
of a long line of irritating offenses and quibbles spiraling into outright conflict.
The gap between the Vietnamese and the Chinese had been growing ever since the
Vietnamese Communist Party reunified the country at the end of the Vietnam War.
Vietnam and China has had a conflicted and complex relationship for centuries. This includes a near
1,000 year time period of colonization and a 20 year invasion at the hands of the Ming Dynasty
in the 15th century. So, you can say that there were some tensions. In the eyes of the Vietnamese,
Chinese intentions were not pure. The Chinese saw the Vietnamese as a junior partner and
not as equals — bristling whenever the Vietnamese tried to go their own way.
Yes China had supplied aid and resources (worth nearly $20 billion during a time
when China can definitely have used the money) for the war effort against the United States,
but that aid for the Vietnamese came with a condition — accepting
it meant that the Vietnamese could not accept any aid from the Soviets.
The Chinese on the other hand — they were angered by what they thought was Hanoi’s
lack of gratitude for providing that aid. Between this and the escalating
border clashes and explosions of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam,
Deng’s China felt that the Vietnamese had gotten too big for their britches and deserved a lesson
for their “insolence”. Perhaps this confirms the Vietnamese notion that the Chinese would forever
treat them as a junior partner, but such a notion was apparently lost on the Chinese.
Adding to this increasingly rancorous relationship between the Chinese and Vietnamese was the Chinese
Communist Party’s desire to warm to the West and further leave the Soviets behind.
It might better help you understand the Chinese Communist Party’s motives to know that at the
period of time, the Party saw the Soviet Union as its biggest foreign policy threat. The Sino-Soviet
Split had been on for a long time — starting with disputes between Mao and Khrushchev over
Khrushchev’s denouncement of Stalin in his Secret Speech. The Soviets would on occasion try for a
thawing of relations but how can the Chinese trust them when the USSR continued to position major
military forces at the Soviet-Chinese borders and conduct exercises with live ammunition there?
In July 1977, Deng Xiaoping emerged as China’s paramount leader — holding the
titles of Communist Party vice-chairman, Central Military Commission vice-chairman,
and chief of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff. He had seized power from Hua Guofeng,
Chairman Mao Zedong’s appointed successor in a momentous November 1976 meeting where Chen
Yun — economic czar, Deng confidant, and one of the Eight Elders of the Communist
Party — delivered a fiery speech that brought up the sins of the extreme left during the disastrous
Cultural Revolution. Deng marshaled forces to back Chen’s speech and the tide turned. Mao Zedong was
already dead, but now so would his policies — all those who allied with him fell from grace.
The ultra-left ideology wing no longer held the reins of power. The faction that emerged
believed in a more moderate agenda focusing on modernizing the economy and opening up to the
outside world. That meant warming relations with the United States which at the time
was seen as the undisputed global leader in technology and ideas. Invading and taming the
Vietnamese could conceivably be seen by the global community as a serious indicator of the honesty
of China’s intentions. Draw a line between the Communist Parties of China and Vietnam,
so to say. It would also prove to that same global community that China’s fighting forces can be
relied upon to competently fight alongside the West to push back Soviet influences.
Who knows. Really just one person and he has been dead for a long time. Deng Xiaoping drove the
Vietnam war effort pretty much singlehandedly and he seemed to harbor a (one might even
say that it was irrational) grudge against the Vietnamese. As Deng was the paramount leader,
there was no one in a position to question or go against him. Thus, the war moved forward.
For this incursion into Vietnam, Deng specifically instructed the army to limit the scope of the war
and seek only to achieve China’s political goals. This would keep China from getting bogged down
in Vietnam like America did (good lesson) while keeping the Soviet Union out of it.
The war would be fought in two stages:
> First, a two-pronged offensive with the first prong striking against the two cities of Cao Bang
and Lao Cai. The second prong would simultaneously hit at the city of Dong Dang. (February 17 to 25)
> Second, PLA forces would converge on Lang Son (February 26 to March 5)
Once these two stages have been completed the Chinese army would withdraw and claim
victory. The PLA allocated some 330,000 men for the mostly land-based attack.
As said earlier, the Vietnamese high command was baffled that the PLA would
actually strike them. But the Chinese propaganda machine had been running for
some time — calling the Vietnamese “dogs of the Soviet Union” and the “Cuba of the
East”. And then came a massive evacuation of 300,000 civilians out of the Heilongjiang and
Xinjiang areas — Soviet border zones. This would guard against a Soviet counterattack
from the rear and probably the most telling sign of an imminent attack.
Vietnam’s troops at the time had been away from the border areas — seeking to suppress a military
action in Cambodia. The only people left to fight against the PLA had been the Vietnamese regular
forces — some 150,000 troops from regional security and militia. Chinese Central Command
had apparently ignored these militias in their military assessments of the area and thus assumed
that they would have an overwhelming 8 to 1 advantage over the Vietnamese. This mistake would
cost many lives as it immediately became clear to everyone involved that the Vietnamese local forces
were well-trained and well-equipped. So it was more like 2 to 1, really, and that is not enough
to conquer a province when your resistance forces can count on the support of the local populace.
On February 17, 1979 at 5AM, a wave of artillery abruptly fired all along the
Sino-Vietnamese border. Shortly thereafter 100,000 soldiers and tank units advanced
forward across the border. Their goals were for the cities of Lang Son, Cao Bang, and
Lao Cai. Lao Cai was a special focal point as it hosted a railroad to Hanoi.
There was no air support because Deng and Central Command restricted Chinese
flying missions only to Chinese airspace. Central Command did not allow their middle
and lower ranking officers to make independent judgements or adjust to conditions. Thus the
PLA was forced to send waves and waves of human soldiers at a fortification. It worked better
than you might think as long as you were okay with thousands of your men dying.
Through sheer force of numbers they made progress. The PLA advanced 10 miles into
Vietnamese territory and took several border towns, crossing the river and
pushing to Lao Cai. They took two small towns en route to a larger city called Dong Dang,
whereupon they met their first regular army regiment — the Vietnamese “Flying Tiger Regiment”.
The Vietnamese speculated on the Chinese strategy. Are the Chinese looking to annex
the borderlands including Lang Son, Cao Bang, and Lao Cai? Are they looking to simply cause
economic damage? Or do they have bolder plans — seeking to strike at the heart of Vietnam itself?
On February 20, Beijing finally began to publicize what they had done — reporting
that they had caused “very heavy” losses on the Vietnamese. According to them, some
10,000 Vietnamese had been wounded or killed as opposed to just 2,000-3,000 on the Chinese side.
But the Chinese were taking it on the chin too. The PLA soldiers quickly
found out what the Americans already knew after two decades fighting Vietnam War:
Jungle fighting is hard. The PLA did not train well for these conditions and suffered immense
casualties from tunnel/jungle warfare, booby traps, land mines and the famous
bamboo stakes. The Vietnamese had fortified the border provinces with tunnels, caves,
and trenches and the well-armed militia knew how to use them. The rain came and bogged
everything down and the PLA troops had to resort to using horses and donkeys to transport goods and
weapons through mucky roads and rocky mountains. Infantry soldiers tied themselves to their tanks
so that they would not fall off, making for excellent targets when the enemy ambushed them.
Tank units suffered especially heavy losses — 87% of such experienced some form of damage.
Nevertheless, they made progress with the capture of Lao Cai (the one with
the railway) and Cao Bang. On February 21 and 22, the Chinese and Vietnamese reinforced their
forces and converged towards Lang Son, where the heaviest fighting would eventually take place.
Lang Son is a mere 85 miles from Hanoi. It is bordered by a rugged,
mountainous region at its north and an open plain at its south. Two PLA divisions
approached this city from Dang Dong and Loc Binh — cutting off all the roads in and out.
When Mao was alive, his strategy when fighting urban battles was to first
occupy the countryside surrounding the city so to make sure that their forces
do not get bogged down once they are inside. Here now, the PLA would follow that strategy,
having the city mostly surrounded by March 2. Thousands of corpses littered the highways with
casualties on both sides. The last area remaining was to the south with the Khua Ma Son mountains.
On March 3, the PLA launched an attack to take that area and complete the capture of
Lang Son. As with before, tanks and infantry swarmed towards a fortified hill. It worked
as planned and the hill had been captured in just 10 minutes. They then blew up adjacent Vietnamese
artillery firing positions to complete the encirclement and capture Lang Son.
The End Deng and the Chinese
high command had from the very start of the attack emphasized that this excursion would not
last long. They publicly announced that this was limited war with limited aims — that goal is to
keep the Vietnamese in line. On February 23rd — a week into the fighting — ambassadors and reporters
were told that the war would last “about another week”, “about 10 days”, and “a few days more”.
The Chinese did this because they knew that if the war dragged on then larger
powers would have to get involved and they really wanted to keep the Soviet
Union from intervening. This succeeded as the Soviets would in the end stay
out of it as long as the scale of the fighting remained “limited”.
Thus on March 5, a week or so after the remarks on February 23rd, Beijing announced
that they had "advanced 30 ... to 80 miles, taken the capitals of Lang Son, Cao Bang,
and Lao Cai and 17 other countries and cities, and damaged severely 4 regular
divisions and 10 regiments of the enemy forces." The Party’s political goals had
been achieved and the PLA began to withdraw. The Vietnamese for their part decided not to
escalate the situation and allowed the retreat to happen in an orderly manner.
You have to give credit to the Communist Party to sticking to their word. Army commanders or
government hawks can easily engulf the whole thing into a much larger conflict. After all,
your men gave their lives to take this territory and now you want to give it all back to the enemy?
Deng is a different political leader than Mao, but as military leaders they have similar strategies —
annihilate the enemy force, usually by encircling the enemy. One of the major generals in the war
said that the central leadership told him to “use a butcher’s knife to kill a chick” — meaning to
use razor sharp strikes to destroy the enemy’s vital areas while avoiding the enemy’s strengths.
But when central command believes that they can seize the strategic advantage
then they will endure heavy losses. Even when the Vietnamese defenders seemed well-fortified,
the Chinese pushed their infantrymen into close massed combat to take that location — which does
not seem all that fun to me. I have read a few books on the Vietnam War before and was
struck by the brutal and cruel nature of close combat with the Vietnamese. The Chinese army
commanders constantly asked for the help from aerial bombing for support but central command
had restricted flights to being only over Chinese airspace for political reasons. Thus,
the infantry was on their own and as a result they took immense casualties.
There are a lot of varying sources about how many Chinese casualties the PLA took. Beijing
initially said 20,000 killed or wounded during the short 3-week battle period. Hanoi said that they
inflicted about 42,000 casualties on the Chinese. Other estimates say 25,000 PLA killed and 37,000
more wounded. And yet another says just 6,900 dead. Regardless of however you set the numbers,
a lot of Chinese soldiers fell here. In comparison, United States suffered some
356,962 killed or wounded over a span of 20 years. The PLA would have reached that number in a year.
How the People’s Liberation Army performed in the Sino-Vietnamese war does not tell
us much about how it might fight a future one. There is very little information at all about
what exactly happened. It happened so fast so you can only really rely on partisan sources.
Our conclusions are almost totally dependent on what the Chinese claim in their documents.
But even Party officials in their documents knew that the PLA underperformed on an
operational basis. Army planners had arrogantly claimed that it could take Hanoi in just a
week using only a fraction of their total forces. The reality was that it took 16 days and 10 full
divisions to capture a third of that distance. And they did not even face the proper Vietnamese
army! The weapons were backwards, tactics needed to be updated from when Mao was alive,
and most troublingly morale was low. The top-down command structure meant
that soldiers felt that their lives were being wasted and documents recorded situations in one
underperforming part of the army where some units were “forced” to advance — whatever that means.
Things have changed a lot now and today the PLA is a much different fighting force. But
the fighting gives you a good sense of how the Chinese Communist Party sees war. To the
Communist Party, war and the PLA are tools that aid in the Party’s political goals.
If the Party manages to achieves those goals then the PLA too has succeeded,
regardless of how well the army itself fought and many soldiers are maimed or dead.
In many ways it reminds me of the tactics of the Red Army. The Party believes that
it successfully delivered a message to Vietnam — thus the PLA succeeded too.