On January 28, 1979, Deng Xiaoping, then Vice Premier of the State Council of China, visited the United States. He was warmly welcomed in Washington, and for the first time in history, the Five-Star Red Flag flew side by side over the White House with the Star-Spangled Banner. When asked about China's vietnam policy, Deng Xiaoping calmly said: "Children are disobedient, it is time to spank." Half a month later, 200,000 Chinese troops launched a fierce attack on Vietnam.
The self-defense counterattack against Vietnam not only dealt a heavy blow to Vietnam, whichse confidence was extremely inflated after the victory in the Vietnam War, but also a major baptism for China, which had just experienced the disaster of the "Cultural Revolution". This battle laid the foundation for Deng Xiaoping's political position and opened the way for his subsequent reform of the army and economic reform and opening up. The world, including most of the Chinese at the time, was surprised by the sudden outbreak of the Sino-Vietnamese War. Because in the decades before that, China and Vietnam were "comrades plus brothers" relations.
The seemingly unbreakable relationship between China and Vietnam has created a rift. Among them, the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union played a key role as an external factor in Sino-Vietnamese bilateral relations. China had already begun a feud with the Soviet Union's big brother in the late 1950s, and in March 1969, the Treasure Island War broke out on the border between the two countries, and China and the Soviet Union broke up completely. Vietnam had tried to strike a balance between China and the Soviet Union, with the intention of spurring the two countries to compete over aid. However, China at the end of the Cultural Revolution was already in the midst of a deep socio-economic crisis, and there was no longer any power to bribe the country of 50 million people. So Vietnam betrayed China and defected to the Soviet Union, which made Chinese feel extremely cold.
While the Soviet Union was pushing back, the West showed goodwill toward China. Kissinger secretly visited China in 1971, followed by Nixon in February of the following year. This is undoubtedly a knife behind Vietnam. Zhou Enlai flew to Hanoi twice, but he failed to get the forgiveness of the "little brother". Vietnam climbed the Soviet Union, China also made a new friend of the United States, and the United States and the Soviet Union were regarded as mortal enemies by Vietnam and China, respectively, and it was the trend of the times to part ways. In the mid-to-late 1970s, there were hundreds of small disputes on the Sino-Vietnamese border, starting in 1976, and in just one and a half months from the beginning of 1979 to February 16, there were 129 border bloodsheds, resulting in more than 100 deaths and injuries to Chinese residents and border guards.
Before the war, China accused Vietnam of "repeatedly provoking border incidents and seriously harassing the daily life and production activities of Chinese border residents, and the Chinese side repeatedly issued warnings, but the Vietnamese side ignored it and insisted on going its own way", and the Chinese side could not bear it and punished it. After the outbreak of war, Vietnam accused: "The Northern Kou vainly attempted to invade the territory of its neighbors in order to fulfill its arrogant ambition to dominate Asia." ”
The Territorial Dispute between China and Vietnam is an issue. Between 1957 and 1959, the two parties reached an agreement to maintain the status quo and shelve the controversy. However, after the reunification of Vietnam, territorial disputes arose, but the total disputed area did not exceed 100 square kilometers. Another important reason for the intensification of bloodshed is the overseas Chinese issue. There are more than 1.5 million overseas Chinese in Vietnam, and after the reunification of the north and south, Vietnamese armed personnel unscrupulously entered Chinese houses and confiscated all property. Many overseas Chinese were driven to the New Economic Zone to become farmers, and many chose to commit suicide. The Chinese government has sent three secret notes to the Vietnamese government to protest the persecution of the Chinese, but to no avail.