The Khmer people had long been wary of Vietnamese regional ambitions. According to Prince Sihanouk, ‘the Khmer people have serious reasons not to like the Vietnamese. Our neighbours in the east have, in effect, in the course of the centuries, “swallowed”
territories which had always belonged to Cambodia’.97 In relations with Vietnam, Sihanouk stated that he ‘always adopted a realist attitude … it was a very dangerous neighbour, to be handled with care’.98 Sihanouk concluded that the US would eventually retrench from the Southeast Asian region, thus making accommodation with North Vietnam inevitable. Unlike Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge did not wish to accommodate the Vietnamese due to Vietnam’s history of intervention in Cambodia, which had seen Khmer territory ceded to the Vietnamese. The opinion within the Khmer resistance government was that Vietnam was their ‘acute enemy’.99 Clashes between Khmer fighters and Vietnamese troops were reported throughout the mid-1970s. In an attempt to gain total control of Cambodia, the Pol Pot group ‘stepped up a campaign to denigrate Sihanouk’100 and sought to ‘blunt Vietnamese expansion, [and] pre-empt Hanoi’s effort to exert influence over Phnom Penh’.101 As Sihanouk’s role in Cambodia was increasingly marginalized, clashes between the Khmers and the Vietnamese communists escalated.102
The North Vietnamese tolerated these clashes in order to maintain sanctuaries along the Cambodia border. Similarly, while Cambodia wanted to avoid the emergence of a strong Vietnam in Indochina, the balance of forces within the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) was not ready for open confrontation with the North Vietnamese.103 In 1976, Pol Pot argued that the building of communism in Democratic
Kampuchea had to be hurried, in order to confront the Vietnamese with greater strength.104 According to a research study prepared by the CIA, the Khmer Rouge communists showed themselves ‘to be the most extreme of the world’s totalitarian regimes’.105 The regime adopted ‘unorthodox economic practices’, that included the total mobilization of the Cambodian people, abolition of private ownership and the departure from a money economy.106 The Cambodian urban population underwent forced resettlement into rural areas, which was justified ‘as a means to create a huge permanent labour force in the countryside’.107 In its desire to implement a communist system quickly, it is believed 21 to 26 percent of the country’s population were killed.108 Even those within the regime were subject to large-scale killings and routine purges.109
The Khmer Rouge began to assume a greater role in Chinese foreign policy between November 1973 and April 1974. China was concerned with increased Soviet aid to the Vietnamese, and saw enhanced relations with Cambodia as a means to balance a Soviet-aligned Vietnam.110 Enhanced relations between China and Cambodia were realized in a May 1974 agreement, which provided the Khmer Rouge with free military equipment and supplies.111 In April 1975, Cambodia negotiated a Chinese military aid package of 13,300 tons of weapons.112 By mid-September, ‘China was prepared to extend to Cambodia a total of US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid, including an immediate $20 million gift’.113 This was reportedly ‘the biggest aid ever given to any one country by China’.114
China anointed the Sino-Khmer alliance on 28 September 1977.115 However, Chinese leaders still sought to exercise a ‘moderating influence’ on the Khmer Rouge, and to point the regime ‘in the direction of a more traditional realpolitik foreign policy’.116 According to a November 1978 US Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, China may have been ‘unhappy with some of the policies of the present Khmer regime’, but it still considered ‘an independent Kampuchea allied with Peking an essential buffer against the expansion of Vietnamese, and by extension Soviet, influence in the area’.117 China hoped ‘to thwart Vietnamese ambitions by providing strong support for Kampuchea’. In its bid to prevent Vietnamese regional expansion, China became ‘the principal source of military and economic aid to Kampuchea’.
With Chinese aid and firm domestic control, Pol Pot began to eliminate all Vietnamese influence in Cambodia from 1977. Cambodia openly declared a cessation in diplomatic relations with Vietnam on 31 December 1977.118 This was construed by the Vietnamese as ‘the
creation of a “bridgehead of aggression” on behalf of the Chinese’.119 The Vietnamese feared that Pol Pot was consolidating the Khmer Rouge position internationally, and gathering Southeast Asian and Western sympathizers.120 Seeking to put a halt to this process, the Vietnamese decided to remove Pol Pot as leader of the Kampuchean communist party. A US Intelligence Assessment reported that ‘Hanoi seems determined to bring a more malleable regime to power in Phnom Penh, while China shows no sign of willingness to soften its support of the current Cambodian leadership’.121
Vietnam’s invasion and its after effects
Following the Vietnam War, Vietnam’s domestic situation was in disarray.
This was characterized by ‘acute food shortages, a steadily sagging economy, rampant official mismanagement, and cadre misbehaviour’.122 Unable to receive aid from countries such as the US and China, Vietnam was driven further into the arms of the Soviet Union. Vietnam joined the Comecon, a Moscow based economic arrangement, in August 1978.
On 3 November 1978, it signed a treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Moscow, which resulted in a massive shipment of Soviet military hardware to Vietnam.123 A closer relationship with the Soviet Union provided economic and military aid, as well as security assurances against an aggressive China. However, the increase in Soviet-Vietnamese relations led to a further decrease in Sino-Vietnamese relations.124 China viewed the treaty as a direct threat, believing it represented ‘another step in the Soviet effort to establish a collective security system in the region, ultimately directed against China’.125
China responded with a diplomatic effort to strengthen its regional relationships.126 The most important of these was enhanced relations with Thailand, which China believed could be used in a Vietnamese containment strategy.127 Two days after Vietnam signed the treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union, Deng travelled to Bangkok to seek more formal security cooperation.128 Deng assured the Thai Prime Minister, General Kriangsak Chamanan, that Beijing would end its support for the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) and would punish Hanoi for its hegemonic behaviour.129 He also stated that China would help enhance Thai security against the Vietnamese threat. While Kriangsak did not immediately agree to a formal alliance, the meeting set the groundwork for future enhanced relations.
With Soviet economic and security assurances, Vietnam now felt in a position to take action against an increasingly aggressive Cambodia. A
hostile Cambodia posed a serious threat to Vietnamese security. Apart from Cambodia’s close physical proximity to Vietnam, Cambodia’s relationship with China allowed an external power a regional presence in Indochina. It was vital for Vietnam that Cambodia be prevented
‘from becoming springboards for attacks on its territory or havens for organizing insurgencies’.130 Vietnamese attempts to remove Pol Pot began during 1977, with a series of shallow military incursions that sought to trigger a military coup in Phnom Penh, or to spark a civil war.131 When these attempts failed, the Vietnamese attempted to create a liberation movement within Cambodia in mid-1978. While successful, the Vietnamese came to the decision that the strategy was too protracted. As such, in December 1978, the Vietnamese decided on a third strategy, ‘the highly visible big unit war’.132 The first phase of the assault commenced on 25 December 1978, when between 150,000 and 220,000 Vietnamese troops invaded neighbouring Cambodia.133 On 7 January 1979, Pol Pot was driven from Phnom Penh by Vietnamese troops, supported by some 20,000 dissident Cambodians.134 Elements of the Khmer Rouge survived, including approximately 20–40,000 troops, which withdrew to the jungle.135 On 8 January, a Vietnamese puppet government, titled the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation (FUNSK), was installed, headed by Heng Samrin, a former Khmer Rouge defector who fled to Vietnam during the regime purges.
On 31 December 1978 and 3 January 1979, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Kampuchea, Ieng Sary, charged Vietnam ‘with intensifying acts of aggression against his country, including ground and air attacks, pillaging, burning and killing’.136 Sary requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to condemn Vietnam’s attack.137 On 4 January, a Vietnamese representative transmitted two December FUNSK declarations to the UN, which charged that ‘the regime of Prime Minister Pol Pot and Foreign Minister Ieng Sary of Democratic Kampuchea had usurped power, transformed the revolutionary forces into mercenaries for the Chinese authorities, and threatened the Kampuchean people with extermination’.138 A Vietnamese representative transmitted further documents to the UN on 8 January concerning the liberation of Phnom Penh, stating that ‘any meeting of the Security Council to hear the representative of the Pol Pot regime would constitute intervention in the internal affairs of the Kampuchean people’.
The UN Security Council met from 11 to 15 January at the request of Democratic Kampuchea, and from 23 to 28 February at the request of Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the US. At each
meeting, a draft resolution calling for cessation in hostilities and a demand for strict adherence to non-interference was rejected, owing to the negative vote of the USSR [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics].
The Soviet Union objected to these resolutions, as it considered FUNSK ‘to be the genuine and sole representative of the Kampuchean people, and that the situation in that country was an internal matter’.139 The Council extended an invitation to the delegation of Democratic Kampuchea, and a representative reiterated that ‘his country was the victim of large-scale aggression by Viet Nam (sic), supported by the USSR’. In a letter to the UN on 20 February 1979, Vietnam transmitted the text of a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, signed at Phnom Penh on 18 February by Heng Samrin and Pham Van Dong.140 This effectively consolidated Vietnam’s influence in Cambodia and hegemonic position in Indochina.
China’s plan to teach Vietnam a lesson
Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia drew an immediate Chinese response.
In a letter to the UN dated 7 January 1979, China charged that Vietnam ‘had invaded Democratic Kampuchea, was occupying a large part of the country and, with USSR support, intended to annex Kampuchea by force and set up an “IndoChinese Federation” under its control’.141 In a meeting between President Carter and Premier Deng on 29 January 1979, Deng argued that ‘the Vietnamese now are extremely arrogant. They now claim to be even the third most powerful military nation in the world, after the United States and the Soviet Union … we consider it necessary to put a restraint on the wild ambitions of the Vietnamese and to give them an appropriate limited lesson’.142 With regard to potential Soviet reprisals, Deng believed that the Soviet Union ‘did not have adequate forces to conduct any large military operations against China immediately’.143 He expressed the belief that ‘if our action in the South is quickly completed, they won’t have time to react … we need your [the US] moral support in the international field’.144
However, Carter was not quick to give this support. He informed Deng that ‘this is a serious issue. Not only do you face a military threat from the North, but also a change in international attitude … it could result in escalation of violence and a change in the world posture from being against Vietnam to partial support for Vietnam.’
Carter followed this with an oral presentation to Deng on 30 January, confirming the US belief that a punitive strike against Vietnam ‘would be a serious mistake … the United States could not support such action, and I strongly urge you not to approve it’. Deng was unmoved by Carter’s presentation, insisting that China ‘are forced to make the decision to take necessary self-defense operations against Vietnam. This operation will be restricted and limited in scope … it may play a certain role to check the ambitions of Vietnam and will benefit peace and stability of this region’. Having informed the US of China’s intentions, Deng then set out to woo the ASEAN countries, embarking on a nine-day tour through Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, with the task of assuring ‘these countries of China’s benevolent role as guardian of regional security and to enlist their support in the confrontation with Vietnam’.145
China’s military action against Vietnam came approximately two weeks after Deng’s visit to Washington. US Secretary of Defence, Harold Brown, believed this was ‘clearly Deng’s intent … to use security relations with us [the US] as a means of constraining the USSR’.146 On 10 February 1979, Vietnam transmitted an urgent message to the UN from its Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, which ‘charged that China had recently intensified armed activities at the Vietnamese frontier in preparation for war’.147 On 17 February, the Chinese government issued a statement arguing that ‘because Vietnamese authorities had ignored China’s warnings and repeatedly encroached on Chinese territory and attacked Chinese frontier guards and inhabitants, China had been forced to counter-attack’.148 On 18 February, a representative from the Soviet Union charged ‘China with aggression against Viet Nam, blatantly flouting international law and exposing the essence of Peking’s hegemonic policy in Southeast Asia’.149
The Sino-Vietnamese border war was fought in three stages, beginning on 17 February, and ending with a complete withdrawal on 16 March.150 It involved 400,000 Chinese troops,151 and was the largest People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military operation undertaken since the Korean War.152 The attack caught Hanoi off-guard, forcing them to resist the Chinese advance whilst requesting immediate aid from Moscow. The Chinese claimed the war to be a victory, with more than a dozen border cities captured and 57,000 Vietnamese soldiers wounded or killed.153 The Vietnamese claimed they lost several cities, but only after killing and wounding 42,000 Chinese troops.154 However, the PLA were willing to absorb heavy losses, as long as the conflict achieved its strategic goals. The PLA believed
these goals had been achieved, and that the war had succeeded in
‘exposing Moscow’s inability or unwillingness to back Vietnam’.155 While the use of force against Vietnam had been condemned by the US, albeit ambiguously, and raised the suspicions of regional states such as Indonesia and Malaysia, ultimately there was very little backlash, regionally or internationally.