Sino-Vietnamese War (1979): What was the end results of it ?

Viktor Jav said:

Considering how the objectives were never truly defined that is a generous assumption.

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It is not a generous assumption to say that China achieved its objectives in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war.

I've already listed multiple objectives and outcomes that were favourable to China.

What did Vietnam get out of occupying Cambodia and turning to the USSR?
Nothing but a Prussian-style militarised state, an 11 year insurgency in Cambodia and continued backbreaking poverty.

Plus you accept that China and the USSR came to a deal over a limited war in Vietnam.
Given that is the case, it means China deemed a limited war as sufficient to achieve its core objectives.

Viktor Jav said:

I will refer back to the very top post for this. Depending on what kind of conflict Vietnam found itself it, the USSR would have assist it.

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How could the USSR assist Vietnam in a larger scale war?

Vietnam is isolated from external resupply, because it would face active opposition from China, plus support from Thailand and the USA.
That combination of states can enforce an effective blockade of Vietnam, because the Soviet Union is just too far away.

So the Soviet Union would have to start a land war on the Chinese-Soviet borders.

The Soviet Union can't win such a conflict, and the US would have happily sent as many weapons as needed to bleed the Soviets like we saw in the Soviet-Afghanistan war.

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And if the war were to go nuclear?

Well, I imagine both Chinese and Soviet cities would end up being nuked.
Then what happens in with NATO and the European Union in Eastern Europe?
Eastern Europe is only a short distance to what is left of the Russian economic, industrial and population heartlands.

In comparison, the security of the Soviet Union doesn't require Vietnam.
Therefore, the Soviets really didn't want to get involved in a war against China over Vietnam.

@Viktor Jav

During the Polish Crisis of 1980-1981, the Soviet Politburo unanimously decided that Soviet troops would NOT be sent into Poland to suppress Solidarity.
And that Andropov thought "if Poland fell under the control of Solidarity that was the way it would be"



So the Soviet Politburo made the decision that they wouldn't send in the Soviet military to occupy Poland, and that the Polish Communist Party could be abandoned, and that the Soviets may have to accept a democratic Solidarity government in Poland.

That same Politburo in Moscow was in charge during the Sino-Vietnamese war, which was 1-2 years before the Polish crisis.

So what makes you think the Soviet Union was willing to start a war against China, in support of Vietnam?
The Soviets didn't even have the will for a military occupation of Poland.
And Poland is critical to the Soviet Union in the event of a war with NATO war.

In comparison, the loss of a distant Vietnam has zero military impact on the security of the Soviet Union.

Viktor Jav said:

With reunification of Vietnam they have the whole south to make as strategic depth. And money and depth are rather subjective things, in war time you don't really care about how much you get paid.

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Maybe back in those days. Today it wouldn't matter how much south they have considering their territory shape, coastline, and an increasingly powerful and modernised PLAN.

Viktor Jav said:

Considering how relationships between China and Vietnam were frayed for several years before the war one has to wonder how many industrial facilities were relocated to other parts of the country due to strategic concerns. Vietnam is by no means a blind to it.

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No matter how much North Vietnam may have wanted to relocate its industrial facilities from the North to the South, this was simply not feasible.

Southern Vietnam has just been devastated during the war with the USA. That war only finished 5 years ago in 1974.
They would have had to spend all their resources simply rebuilding what was destroyed, never mind relocating facilities.

The territory of North Vietnam has been at war and under attack, almost continuously since 1954.
They simply didn't have much in the way of industrial facilities.
Northern Vietnam accounts for half the population, so there is a limit to how much industry you can relocate to the South.

Viktor Jav said:

With reunification of Vietnam they have the whole south to make as strategic depth. And money and depth are rather subjective things, in war time you don't really care about how much you get paid.

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Strategic depth assumes you can use the South to supply/reinforce/affect the North.

But North Vietnam and South Vietnam are only connected by a thin strip of coastal road, which can be cut off because Hainan Island dominates North Vietnam.
And South Vietnam is still in the process of rebuilding after the US-Vietnam war.

Viktor Jav said:

But then again, what Vietnam and China is today has very little to do with the Sino Vietnam war, but rather with economic steps taken by the respective countries afterwards vis a vis the economic opportunities available for them .

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Yes. But remember that Vietnam made a choice to align with the Soviet Union against China.
That meant Vietnam had no economic opportunities available because Vietnam made enemies of its neighbours who surrounded them.

Thailand also sees Vietnamese expansion into Cambodia as a threat.
ASEAN overall, fears the expansion of communism because of the Vietnamese alignment with the USSR.
The US still has trade sanctions on Vietnam, and pressures the rest of the West to boycott Vietnam.
China is an enemy whose Army continues to occupy some Vietnamese territory for 10 more years, until Vietnam finally gives up its Soviet Alliance in 1989.

So Vietnam chose to be completely friendless in Asia, and is surrounded by *enemies*.

Viktor Jav said:

Considering how relationships between China and Vietnam were frayed for several years before the war one has to wonder how many industrial facilities were relocated to other parts of the country due to strategic concerns. Vietnam is by no means a blind to it.

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Your wonderings are irrelevant in the face of historical facts.

Seems like your lowkey China bashing extends now to trying to revise historical facts and isn’t just limited to current affects like the Coronavirus.

There are people here who are relaying accounts from people who have lived through the times and events that we are now discussing, some of whom probably had first hand experiences to boot.

You would do well to pay attention and learn, as I assumed was the reason for you to start this thread. Or am I too generous and you opened this thread to find another way to try and criticise and disparage China, given your admitted belief in wildly exaggerated western PLA casualty figures?

Some views of Chinese folk
1) Reorganize the turmoil for future disarmament
2) Integrate domestic preparations for reform and opening up
3) Stifling a rising power on the border
4) Prolonged bloodletting of the Soviet economy
5) Show the attitude of deviating from the social camp to the West

plawolf said:

Or am I too generous and you opened this thread to find another way to try and criticise and disparage China, given your admitted belief in wildly exaggerated western PLA casualty figures?

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This seems to be a recurring theme in this forum: Person A chooses to take a Western source of information seriously. Person A is summarily accused of being a China basher!

I wish people here would treat their fellow forum members with more dignity.