Abstract
Xiaoming Zhang’s book offers an updated and comprehensive treatment of the military conflict between China and Vietnam from 1979 to 1991, focusing on the Chinese side of the story. The Sino-Vietnamese military confrontation started with China’s brief invasion of Vietnam in early 1979, which was followed by a decade of border conflicts. The author devotes the first five chapters of the book to the 1979 invasion, analysing its causes, preparation, and the process, as well as the performance, of the Chinese and Vietnamese troops. The themes of the three remaining chapters are the border conflicts between 1980 and 1990, the impact of the military conflict on China, and the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese hostility, respectively. The book is concluded with some personal insights about Sino-Vietnamese relations and East Asian affairs.
The major arguments presented in the book are convincing and coherent, supported by primary and secondary sources written or published in Chinese, English and Vietnamese. Most primary sources used in the book are of Chinese origin, but the author did make a special effort to consult relevant sources from the Vietnamese side. Zhang sees the Chinese perception of the threat of the Soviet Union and Vietnam’s decisions to ally with the Soviet Union and invade Cambodia as the most important causes of the Sino-Vietnamese conflict. Deng Xiaoping was convinced that in order to create a peaceful environment to implement the reform programme, it was conducive for China to stop the expansion of Vietnam and the Soviet Union around China (pp. 48–51, 64–65, 145 and 214). Other causes of the war included the territorial disputes between the two countries, Vietnam’s mistreatment of its ethnic Chinese community, the need for military reform in China, the domestic politics of China (power struggle and Deng Xiaoping’s dictatorial leadership style), China’s desire to gain Western financial and technological support for its modernization program (pp. 2, 4, 43, 66 and 215–16), as well as Deng Xiaoping’s calculation that the Soviet Union would not attack China if the war with Vietnam could end soon enough (pp. 50–51). Zhang highlights Deng Xiaoping’s role in making the decision to go to war with Vietnam. He is not the first to ponder whether or not the 1979 war could have been avoided had Deng Xiaoping not been in power, but he gives the most thorough and persuasive answer to that question.
Zhang’s assessment of the performance of the Chinese troops is more negative than that of the Chinese government but much more positive than those of many Western scholars. He points out that although the Chinese military system suffered from the problems of ‘poor planning and intelligence, inefficient command and control, outdated operational tactics, and a backward logistical support system’ (p. 114), China’s military actions against Vietnam actually fulfilled the strategic goals of the Chinese leaders, albeit at a high cost (pp. 100, 120–123 and 168).
The discussions on the continuities between Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping are interesting and enlightening. Zhang contends that Deng inherited Mao’s very negative perceptions of the Soviet Union (pp. 6–7), and that the Chinese troops, who were under the direct command of Xu Shiyou and Yang Dezhi, two longtime followers of Mao, adopted many of Mao’s military strategies in conducting the war with Vietnam, including the idea of a people’s war, the belief in the importance of political indoctrination, the tactic of concentrating superior forces before launching an attack, and the tradition of two-dimensional ground warfare (pp. 68–69, 80–89, 100 and 125–131). One may add that the tactic of quick attack and quick withdrawal, adopted during the 1979 invasion, was also very similar to how Mao handled the 1962 war with India. Zhang believes that the combined effect of such continuities was more detrimental than beneficial to the Chinese troops.
Some of the author’s minor arguments are less convincing and can be controversial. For instance, Zhang’s assertion that the Indochinese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party ‘had almost no direct interactions with one another until the 1949 creation of the PRC [People’s Republic of China]’ (p. 15) is not fully compatible with some existing accounts. The statement that ‘China had invaded Vietnam several times to achieve regional domination but had rarely done so to acquire territory’ (p. 41) also goes against historical facts. Moreover, it seems that more evidence is needed to support the argument that ‘[b]y the eve of China’s invasion of Vietnam, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA’s) reputation had been severely damaged’ (p. 181).
Zhang’s intention in writing this book was to bridge the gap ‘between studies that focus too narrowly on the 1979 war and studies that look too broadly at Sino-Vietnamese relations’ (p.10). He has obviously succeeded in fulfilling this goal. This well-organized book, with its smooth and interesting narratives as well as deep and insightful analyses, makes a significant contribution to the study of contemporary Sino-Vietnamese relations.