Objectively the 1979 war was still a fairly terrible rout for Vietnam. The viet army wasn't badly equipped at all, but China had directly aided their military buildup before, had air supremacy and armor support.
Viet nationalists try to spin it as a win for Vietnam because China didn't occupy them and taking a page from nato/reich propaganda by wildly exaggerating enemy losses and writing off their own combat dead as civilians. That China captured 8 times as many prisoners as acknowledged by both sides despite being on vietnam territory pretty much says all you need to know about how one sided the ground conflict was.
The goal was a show of force against the Soviets, win disputed territories, destroy Vietnamese progress made using Chinese aid so it would not fall into the hands of enemy nations. 1 and 2 were achieved, 3 was partly achieved but very soon relations normalised anyways and both CN and VN economies improved so much that whatever aid China rendered them before was just pocket change.
The Chinese command was literally in charge of training and building the Vietnamese command in the previous war between America and Vietnam, its a bare faced coping lie from the West that they "weren't well equipped". Both sides had world class infantry/army leadership, Vietnam just chose to send its elite troops into Cambodia while sending conscripts to the North. In the end, the gamble arguably paid off because Vietnam kept control over Cambodia for awhile longer.
