Most of the so-called sinologists have been so used to finding “rational” explanations and justifications for China’s actions that they oust find it difficult to ask themselves whether Peking in fact possesses a viable policy framework. But the more dispassionate among them can no longer avoid this question after the Chinese have launched and persisted in the “punitive” attack on Vietnam. For it just does not make sense, however one may interpret Peking’s view of its national interest.
The Chinese have, of course, given an explanation. They have said that Hanoi has been conducting armed raids into their territory for over two years, killing and wounding thousands of their nationals, thus leaving them no alternative but to “punish” it. This is too absurd a proposition for any reasonably objective observer of the international scene to buy.
Unless the Vietnamese leaders are mad adventurers, they could not possibly have believed that they had anything to gain by provoking Peking. This was especially so after they had “settled” the problem of the people of Chinese descent by pushing them out of the country, concluded a treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union as an insurance against attempts at blackmail by Peking, helped overthrow the pro-China Pol Pot regime in Pnom Penh and install one suitable to them there.
Provocation
This is not to concede that the Vietnamese could have been conducting raids into China last summer when they had not intervened effectively enough in Kampuchea, but to argue that as rational men whose actions must be related to their objectives, the Vietnamese leaders had good reason after the fall of the Pol Pot regime to wish to ensure peace on their border with their big northern neighbour. For one thing, they had achieved their major objective and, for another, a substantial part of their army was tied up in Kampuchea.
It is obvious that the Chinese have manufactured the provocation theory because they have, with the exception of Mr Deng Xiaoping, been reluctant to admit that they have invaded a country that had intervened in the affairs of another which, though friendly, they were not obliged to defend under a formal treaty. But to disregard this patently absurd theory is not to find a viable and rational explanation for the invasion. To put it differently, Vietnam’s actions – expelling the people of Chinese descent, concluding a treaty with the Soviet Union and helping to overthrow the Pol Pot regime – too, cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for the invasion.
The attack, it should be obvious on careful reflection, could make sense not only if the Chinese were justified in regarding Vietnam as enemy number one but also if they had good reason to believe that they could humiliate it and its ally, the Soviet Union, and weaken it to the point where it could become incapable of imposing its will on its two other Indochinese neighbours – Kampuchea and Laos. But neither of these is a tenable proposition.
Vietnam is too small a country to deserve to be treated as enemy number one by Peking. By trying to revive the Indochinese federation à la the French, it can be said to be attempting to frustrate China’s “imperial” ambitions but only if Peking entertains such crude ambitions. Indeed, even in that event, it should have the good sense to realise that the task of undermining Vietnam’s “hegemonistic” ambitions is best left to Kampuchean (Cambodian) nationalism which has a long history of being hostile to Hanoi. Finally, if Peking resents Hanoi’s alliance with Moscow, as it apparently does, its attempt must be to weaken it by reassuring the Vietnamese and not to cement it further by attacking them.
The second test is even more important and more difficult for the Chinese to meet. Several points are significant in this regard. The Vietnamese possess the most battle-tested armed forces in the world. They have proved their mettle again and again. They are well provided with arms and ammunition so much so that they are far better equipped than the Chinese troops who have an advantage over the former only in respect of numbers. By concluding the treaty with the Soviet Union, Hanoi has made sure that it is not short of reinforcements whatever the scale of the conflict with the Chinese. Peking has no similar assured source of supply of arms right now because the proposed arrangements with the West have yet to be negotiated.
There are then the facts of geography of which surely the Chinese could not have been ignorant. As The Economist, London, puts it (February 17): “Vietnam has not attempted to match the Chinese build-up. For two probable reasons: most of the Vietnamese army is bogged down in Cambodia. And Vietnam has no wish to offer China a target for a punitive thrust on the model of its brief invasion of India in 1962. The region between Hanoi and the Chinese border is mountainous and about the poorest in the country. Vietnam is not about to send four or five divisions there to give the Chinese something to hit.
Reasons
“There are good political and military reasons for China to think twice about administering the punishment threatened by Mr Deng. For one thing, its army might have to go all the way to Hanoi to find any knuckles worth rapping. The political calculations behind attacking a capital city are clearly different from shooting up some soldiers in the hills. And a Chinese army strung out through the mountains all the way to Hanoi would be an inviting target for the Vietnamese air force, which could probably muster more and better aircraft, and certainly better pilots, than the Chinese. A Chinese air strike could fare even worse. China’s ageing jets would have to contend with the densest missile defences in the world near Hanoi or Haiphong.”
This was written before China began a regular invasion of Vietnam on February 17. Subsequent events have confirmed its validity. Mr Drew Middleton, military analyst of The New York Times, for example, wrote on February 22 that the war was not going well for China and that it has become a contest between Peking’s superior manpower against Vietnam’s sophisticated Soviet-built weapons and the superior quality of its troops. He added that the “lesson” China wanted to teach Vietnam was that military victory could be followed by withdrawal. “The victory has eluded the Chinese and prospects for gaining it appear dimmer as a consequence of the most recent developments, including the stiffening of Vietnamese resistance.” And as reported in the February 25 issue of this paper by Mr BK Joshi from London, Western intelligence agencies are in agreement with this assessment.
Above all, statements coming out of Peking cannot leave much scope for doubt that the Chinese, do not quite know how to get out of the mess they have landed themselves in. While they wish to withdraw they cannot, except at the risk of losing face. Similarly, while they do not wish to extend the scope of the conflict by moving into Vietnam’s flat lands – the Vice-Premier, Mr Wang Zhen has ruled that out – they cannot seriously claim to have “punished” the Vietnamese unless they do so. To give them the benefit of the doubt they can perhaps hold on to the mountainous border areas. But to what advantage and for how long?
Primitive
The attack on Vietnam could perhaps be regarded as an aberration, the result of pique, if China’s overall anti-Soviet and pro-Western posture was a viable one. But it is not. The US administration has clearly refused to buy China’s anti-Soviet obsession despite the presence of Mr Zbigniew Brzezinski in it. Indeed, Mr Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States appears to have been counter-productive to some extent because by his reckless utterances the Chinese strongman has made it difficult for American policy-makers to avoid facing up to the fact that they are being called upon to join an anti-Soviet crusade and finance Peking’s bid to emerge as an industrial-military giant. Indeed, it appears that the visit has heightened awareness in Washington that it is urgent for it to negotiate the SALT II agreement with the Russians.
The Chinese have talked a great deal of three worlds – the two super powers, the other industrially developed countries which resent the domination of the US and the USSR and the developing countries. But they are behaving as if they are still operating in a bipolar world where one has only to make anti-Soviet or anti-US statements (as the case or requirement may be) to receive assistance from the other side. They will soon discover that this primitive approach does not work.
All this leads to the speculation that China’s foreign policy moves are shaped more by the inter-play of personalities and forces at home than by an appreciation of the external reality. This speculation is as legitimate now as it was during the “cultural” revolution in the ‘sixties. In the present case of the attack on Vietnam, a poster appeared in Peking denouncing it – a clear enough indication that a fairly powerful faction in the leadership is unhappy over it. Some purges are also reported to have taken place in the top party echelons.
The Times of India 28 February 1979