Sino-Vietnam war in 1979 ended with Soviet Nuclear Threat

Why did China only start the large scale invasion after few weeks of Cambodia invasion by Vietnamese forces?

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This does not stand. Cambodian-Vietnam war started in 1975, four year before the sino-vietnamese war. Deng's intention to attack Vietnam was written on the walls during his visit to the US, and this was before the massive Vietnamese invasion to Cambodia in 1979. After Deng reached an understanding with the US, he also moved China's elite troops along the border with Soviet Union, as part of the war preparation. In essence, China only attacked when they thought they were ready.

Do you honestly think China is willing to help out a genocidal regime, while opening its doors to the western powers? What does this make China look? A few political gestures here and there, maybe, but a full scale war to bring the Khmer Rouge back? This is highly unlikely given the political situation.

If its purely just retaliation, why did PLA need to venture all the way to Lang Son?

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Historically, as long as the Chinese force captured Lang Son, the Vietnamese emperor would surrender. I think this is why PLA made capture Lang Son its objective, for the political reason. So long as China does not want to occupy Vietnam, Lang Son would be a good place to stop.

China had re-established and improved relations with the US and ASEAN just prior to the Sino-Vietnam War. One benefit of the action was that it reassured Thailand and ASEAN that China was a reliable supporter of the status quo and was an unequivocal demonstration that China was now in the anti-Soviet camp.

optionsss said:

This does not stand. Cambodian-Vietnam war started in 1975, four year before the sino-vietnamese war. Deng's intention to attack Vietnam was written on the walls during his visit to the US, and this was before the massive Vietnamese invasion to Cambodia in 1979. After Deng reached an understanding with the US, he also moved China's elite troops along the border with Soviet Union, as part of the war preparation. In essence, China only attacked when they thought they were ready .

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Most of the critical manpower and equipment preparation of PLA is done only after Cambodia being overrun in 1979. It 's preparation was captured by US satelite. Surely such huge reaction is response to provocation.

optionsss said:

Do you honestly think China is willing to help out a genocidal regime, while opening its doors to the western powers? What does this make China look? A few political gestures here and there, maybe, but a full scale war to bring the Khmer Rouge back? This is highly unlikely given the political situation..

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LOL.. China was already helping the genocidal regime. What is wrong with additional step of trying to push out vietnam occupation in Cambodia but China is not the only one doing that. CIA too supply Khmer Rouge with weapons and Intelligence. Every country serves with its own purpose. Just like US used to support Saddam Hussein.

optionsss said:

Historically, as long as the Chinese force captured Lang Son, the Vietnamese emperor would surrender. I think this is why PLA made capture Lang Son its objective, for the political reason. So long as China does not want to occupy Vietnam, Lang Son would be a good place to stop.

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With virtually no sign of vietnam troops and government wear down(just like what u claim the emperor did not surrender). I don't see any significant of Lang Son capture. Why PLA retreat from there after
that? They could have hold Lang Son for more longer and play defensive game which is a disadvantage to Vietnam troops. Worst, Vietnam provocation near border did not susbside after this war. Which eventually lead to second 1984 sino-vietnam war.

But lastly, I think PLA correct all its mistake of 1979 with 1984 Second sino-vietnam war. They did hold Laoshan and utilise it mass artillery power to wear out the vietnam troops.

Most of the critical manpower and equipment preparation of PLA is done only after Cambodia being overrun in 1979. It 's preparation was captured by US satelite. Surely such huge reaction is response to provocation.

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A quote from wiki

correlation proves causation, is a logical fallacy by which two events that occur together are claimed to have a cause-and-effect relationship.

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Deng already told the world China will attack vietnam during his visit to the US. This happened before the vietnam beaten down the Cambodia resistance.
Maybe the massive invasion help speed up the Chinese preparation and fueled the Chinese leaderships determination, but correlation and causation are different things.

LOL.. China was already helping the genocidal regime. What is wrong with additional step of trying to push out vietnam occupation in Cambodia but China is not the only one doing that. CIA too supply Khmer Rouge with weapons and Intelligence. Every country serves with its own purpose. Just like US used to support Saddam Hussein.

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Let's just say, giving money and weapons is different from starting a war, that is going to cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

With virtually no sign of vietnam troops and government wear down(just like what u claim the emperor did not surrender). I don't see any significant of Lang Son capture. Why PLA retreat from there after
that? They could have hold Lang Son for more longer and play defensive game which is a disadvantage to Vietnam troops.

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If China does not to occupy Vietnam, why would they stay? It's not like China have total control over the captured territory. Vietnamese militia would attack the Chinese supply and harrass the garrisons. Worse, it make Chinese allies wonder about China's true intentions. Chinese thought they made their point, but too bad vietnam just did not get the message.

Lion said:

Most of the critical manpower and equipment preparation of PLA is done only after Cambodia being overrun in 1979. It 's preparation was captured by US satelite. Surely such huge reaction is response to provocation.



LOL.. China was already helping the genocidal regime. What is wrong with additional step of trying to push out vietnam occupation in Cambodia but China is not the only one doing that. CIA too supply Khmer Rouge with weapons and Intelligence. Every country serves with its own purpose. Just like US used to support Saddam Hussein.






With virtually no sign of vietnam troops and government wear down(just like what u claim the emperor did not surrender). I don't see any significant of Lang Son capture. Why PLA retreat from there after
that? They could have hold Lang Son for more longer and play defensive game which is a disadvantage to Vietnam troops. Worst, Vietnam provocation near border did not susbside after this war. Which eventually lead to second 1984 sino-vietnam war.

But lastly, I think PLA correct all its mistake of 1979 with 1984 Second sino-vietnam war. They did hold Laoshan and utilise it mass artillery power to wear out the vietnam troops.

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Lion the reason that Lang son was so important was because it was the last point where vietnamese force can effective defend against invasions. as after Lang Son, it is all flat terran with no geographic advantage for the defender to use whatsoever, the invasion force could easily launch a large scale offensive action on their capital without much resistance and crush the vietamese with armoured units smoothly since its all flat land..

sidewinder01 said:

Lion the reason that Lang son was so important was because it was the last point where vietnamese force can effective defend against invasions. as after Lang Son, it is all flat terran with no geographic advantage for the defender to use whatsoever, the invasion force could easily launch a large scale offensive action on their capital without much resistance and crush the vietamese with armoured units smoothly since its all flat land..

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exactly, the PLA armoured units suffered great casualties during the initial stages of the war,in many cases the Viets just take out the first and the last tanks of a column and the ones in the middle are just sitting ducks. however once PLA took completely control the mountain areas, if they launch an attack from there, the Vietnam army would not stand a chance. i think the Chinese annihilated 316A division, one of the four most elite, and severely hindered another two (the other one is in cambodia), if they wanted to go further the Vietnamnese army would not have done anything about it.

That entire war/skirmish, can be considered an embarrassment for the PLA. It showed a complete lack of leadership in the higher ups. I mean I understand all the factors: bad ammo during the Cultural Revolution, not enough tank/planes, etc etc. But losing 20k is just too shameful.

Damingli85 said:

That entire war/skirmish, can be considered an embarrassment for the PLA. It showed a complete lack of leadership in the higher ups. I mean I understand all the factors: bad ammo during the Cultural Revolution, not enough tank/planes, etc etc. But losing 20k is just too shameful.

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Lol Please dont come to this forum and post if you are still 12 years old ok? The chinese did lose a lot of men and suffered grealy due to the lack of training and unreadiness all caused by the culture revolution, while the vietnamese has been fighting with one of th emost elite forces in the world for years. But your made up 20k death figure is no where close to the actually figure? Its 5k death even agreed by the vietnamese... and a significant amt of that death is casued by bad weapons and lack of logtics.... not KIA... once again, plz dont post random stuff up when you making it up ?

Interesting discussion, though in order to comprehend the ´complete story´ of the Sino-Vietnamese conflict during the 80's it has to be understood that Beijing had the main intention to demonstrate that the Soviet Union was indeed a ´Paper Tiger´ abandoning her Vietnamese ally in any critical situation and that the conflict did not end in '79 but went on to a second and even third round in '84 and '88.

Vietnam got clobbered in severe border skirmishes from March '84 on culminating in the battle of mount Laoshan in June '84 and Moscow did not even batting an eye. Some four years later Vietnam's Navy got a heavy working over in the Spratly's by PLAN and the mighty Морской Флот stationed in Cam Ranh sent only a couple of surveillance planes intently observing the slaughter. ... quod erat demonstrandum!:nono:

@Damingli85:
Allegations that PLA lost 20000 or even 25000 KIA during the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 are patently false. Leaked contemporary PLA documents show a number of around 7000 KIA and several PLA officers cited in mainland publications have also given figures between 6000 and 9000 men killed.
Besides why is it shameful to sacrifice 20000 soldiers for a strategic purpose? After all this means PRC is deadly serious and means business!
(Perhaps you were oblivious to the fact that the US lost 56000 men for nothing in Vietnam and is currently repeating this insane pattern of behavior albeit with ´only´ 4300 KIA in Iraq.)

sidewinder01 said:

Lol Please dont come to this forum and post if you are still 12 years old ok? The chinese did lose a lot of men and suffered grealy due to the lack of training and unreadiness all caused by the culture revolution, while the vietnamese has been fighting with one of th emost elite forces in the world for years. But your made up 20k death figure is no where close to the actually figure? Its 5k death even agreed by the vietnamese... and a significant amt of that death is casued by bad weapons and lack of logtics.... not KIA... once again, plz dont post random stuff up when you making it up ?

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I think the bad casualty of PLA is much more do with the secondary army deploy on Vietnam front. Nothing much do with lousy training and damages causes by cultural revolution.

Remember 1969 sino-soviet war at Zhen Bao Tai/island. Despite facing Russia armour and troops, PLA beat them back and capture quite a number of armour(few T-62) and infect serious damage on Soviet side. Not to mention Cultural revolution was still raging on.