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preface
According to Reuters, US President Joe Biden will visit Vietnam in early September, when the two countries will sign a strategic partnership agreement and reach comprehensive cooperation in the political, economic, military and other fields.
You know, the United States has invested a lot in the Asia-Pacific region in recent years, and there is naturally no need to say more about the younger brothers such as Japan and South Korea, and this alliance with Vietnam will be a further squeeze on China's strategic space.
At the same time, the so-called international experts in the United States also began to hype up the contradictions between China and Vietnam, and the self-defense counterattack war against Vietnam that broke out more than 40 years ago was revived.
American experts even say that China has profited a lot in this war and has concealed it from the world.
So, in what context did the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam take place? Why does the United States say that China has gained a lot? And how did China "hide" from the whole world?
Vietnam is ungrateful and frequently provokes China
In 1969, when North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh died, Le Duan took over power, and after the Vietnam War, Le Duan tore his mask and revealed his true face.
As soon as the Vietnam War ended, Vietnam's chief of security threatened, "Chinese are very insidious, and we must be vigilant."
Le Duan also asked China to "return" some islands in the South China Sea.
However, these islands are China's inherent territory, and Ho Chi Minh has long acknowledged this, and China naturally will not agree to such an unreasonable demand.
Therefore, Le Duan took advantage of the topic to openly attack China in the international public opinion field, saying that "China has invaded and occupied Vietnamese territory."
Not only that, Le Duan also launched a surprise attack and sent troops to capture six islands in the South China Sea, further intensifying the conflict.
After the Vietnam War, the first task facing the Vietnamese people was to restore production and revive the economy, but Le Duan continued to use force, constantly expanding his armaments and provoking neighboring countries.
In December 1978, Le Duan intensified his efforts and invaded Cambodia, brutally massacring Communists in Cambodia.
Since Cambodia's military strength could not be compared with Vietnam's, soon the whole of Cambodia fell and became Vietnam's "satellite state".
After tasting the sweetness of expansion, Le Duan brazenly said that he would establish an "Indochinese Federation" to dominate the situation in Southeast Asia.
Immediately, Vietnam began to stir up trouble on the Chinese border.
It not only destroyed the land and houses of the border people, but also directly dispatched soldiers to attack mainland civilians, and a large number of border people could not bear to be disturbed, and their production and life were seriously threatened.
Previously, China had maintained a tolerant and low-key attitude, but Vietnam was too deceitful to bear it, and during his visit to Singapore, Deng Xiaoping publicly condemned Vietnam's ingratitude and behavior.
You know, in 1950 Chinese People's Liberation Army supported Vietnam and started the War to Aid Vietnam and Resist France.
During the Vietnam Civil War, the United States directly invaded Vietnam in order to support the puppet South Vietnamese regime, and just when North Vietnam was at the end of its life, China stepped forward.
It not only provided up to $20 billion in gratuitous aid, but also sent 300,000 artillery, railroad and engineering troops to help the Vietnamese fight the American invaders.
What is chilling is that Vietnam is not only ungrateful but also provoked China in every way, which has touched the bottom line of the Chinese people.
In April 1965, at the request of the Workers' Party of Vietnam, China decided to provide comprehensive and selfless assistance to Vietnam to support the Vietnam War of Resistance. The picture shows our army's support in opening mountains and building roads.
From June 1965 to August 1973, China successively dispatched anti-aircraft artillery, engineering, railway, mine clearance and logistics. The picture shows our anti-aircraft artillery units waiting in strict formation
While in Singapore, Deng Xiaoping asked, "What we do depends on how far Vietnam goes."
Since Vietnam has not listened to advice and repeatedly taught itself, the only way left for China is to fight back heroically.
Launch a counterattack and seize the victory
On February 17, 1979, a series of green signal flares rose from the command platform of China's southern Xinjiang front, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers were ready to launch, and the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam began.
According to the instructions of the Central Military Commission, this is a local war with "limited purpose, limited time, limited area, and limited scale", striving for a quick victory.
"When the time comes, return fire", at 6 p.m. on the 17th, as the artillery regiment fired 10,000 guns in unison, the light of fire illuminated the northern border of Vietnam.
The PLA quickly built a ring defensive position, cutting off the route for the Vietnamese army to escape south by Cao Binh, and on the 27th, the PLA took advantage of the victory to pursue and go to the Lang Son area.
After a series of defeats, the Vietnamese army was discouraged.
In early March, the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam had achieved remarkable results, the 346th Division was completely annihilated by our army, the eastern and western fronts were more than 40 kilometers deep, and important towns in northern Vietnam were controlled by the PLA.
However, the effect of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam has been achieved, so on March 5, the mainland publicly announced that the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam has achieved the phased goal, and the Chinese army will be completely withdrawn from Vietnam.
On March 15, in just 10 days, all Chinese soldiers were evacuated.
During the withdrawal, the PLA also took back China's weapons and equipment to aid Vietnam, and destroyed railways, roads, power plants and other facilities in Vietnam, making China's position clearer.
This war can be called a model of local war, lasting less than a month, annihilating more than 47,000 enemies and capturing 2,000 people, so that Vietnam has no ability to fight back, and never dares to openly shout again.
Sino-Vietnamese War and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea
For China, the war of self-defense against Vietnam is of great significance.
It not only defended national sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also created peace for Yunnan, Guangxi and other places.
In the decades that followed, although there were still petty fights between China and Vietnam, there were no more large-scale conflicts.
But in the eyes of the United States, the importance of the war in self-defense is grossly underestimated, and many American experts say the war is far less influential than the Korean War.
In a sense, there is nothing wrong with this statement.
After all, the Korean War, in terms of scale, casualties, and strategic significance, was based on the counterattack in self-defense against Vietnam, but the two also had great similarities.
First, these are all wars in which China participates abroad in order to defend national security.
The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea naturally does not need to be repeated; the US military was aggressive and approached the Yalu River, and fighter planes swept over the northeast, which has seriously violated China's national sovereignty.
The same is true of the war of self-defense against Vietnam, and China would not have started a war if it were not for Vietnam's initiative to provoke.
It can be seen that both wars are well-known and just battles and inevitable moves to defend sovereignty.
Second, both wars ended in China's total victory.
In the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, China defeated the United States, the world's number one military power, which impressed all countries around the world.
In the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, China was not afraid of the Soviet Union and Vietnam, and quickly won the victory, which is also an exciting classic battle.
It can be seen that the two wars are quite similar, so why did the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea have a huge impact, but the self-defense and counterattack war against Vietnam was neglected for a long time?
The reason is also simple: after the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, China's international status increased sharply, and Western powers no longer dared to despise China.
In contrast, the follow-up impact of the Vietnam self-defense counterattack was not obvious, and it took many years to realize that it had also laid a solid foundation for China's development.
So, apart from dealing a blow to Vietnam, what is the point of this war?
The war against Vietnam created a strong China
First of all, China has improved its own situation and created good conditions for subsequent reform and opening up.
In the 5th and 60s of the last century, the relationship between China and the Soviet Union changed, and Western countries also held hostility to China for a long time.
In the early 70s, China's diplomacy made great progress, with small balls turning big balls, Go diplomacy, Nixon's visit to China, and every major event marked that China's relations with the West were relaxing.
In 1978, China and the United States formally established diplomatic relations, and the threat to China was further reduced.
Because the United States needed to use China's power to contain the Soviet Union in the Cold War, there was a honeymoon period between the two countries.
However, after all, there are huge differences between China and the United States, the United States does not trust China, even if it establishes diplomatic relations, it has not reached all-round cooperation, and the self-defense and counterattack war against Vietnam is precisely China's opportunity.
In January 1979, when Deng Xiaoping visited the United States, during a conversation with President Carter, Deng Xiaoping bluntly said that Vietnam undermined peace in Southeast Asia and must learn its due lesson.
Carter worriedly said the United States had learned a "lesson" in Vietnam and was not optimistic about China's military action.
Deng Xiaoping promised to solve the problem within a month, both to strike at Vietnam and to keep the situation under control.
Deng Xiaoping visited the United States and talked with President Carter
Later, the development coincided with Deng Xiaoping's promise, and the United States once again saw China's formidable military power.
Therefore, after the beginning of reform and opening up, the United States opened its doors and carried out extensive trade exchanges with China, and China's coastal cities were quickly integrated into the international trading system.
Second, the Chinese military has made great progress.
In the self-defense and counterattack against Vietnam, the PLA achieved shocking results, but there were also some problems in the process.
After the Sino-Vietnamese War, the Central Military Commission profoundly summed up the lessons learned from the war and carried out drastic reform of the armed forces.
As a result, measures such as "million-strong disarmament" and "rejuvenation of cadres" were introduced one after another, and the PLA also began the process of modernization.
Today, the People's Liberation Army is the second most powerful army in the world, and the Dongfeng missile and J-20 fighter are at the top of the world's military science and technology, and all this is inseparable from the military reform that began after the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam.
The United States fanned the flames, and the undercurrents in the South China Sea surged in
Looking back, sending troops to Vietnam was not a whim, but a deliberate decision, as former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said, "Deng Xiaoping was thinking in the long run, completely different from the way of thinking of American leaders."
Because of this, the United States did not understand why China launched the Vietnam War, and it is only today that Americans suddenly realize.
It turned out that in the First World War against Vietnam, China laid the foundation for the development of the following decades, but the United States and even the entire Western world knew nothing about it.
China's reform and opening up changes
No wonder, too, that American experts say China "hides from the world."
But in fact, it is not that China deliberately conceals it, but that China's decision-making is too far-sighted to exceed the imagination of Westerners.
Of course, the United States is not bringing up the old affairs to praise China's foresight, but only to bring the contradictions between China and Vietnam back to the table, so as to sow discord between the two countries and serve the geopolitical strategy of the United States.
In recent years, the Biden administration has indeed put a lot of effort into containing China.
First, he manipulated the younger brothers of Japan and South Korea to constantly attack China, and later played the "trump card" of Taiwan, wanting to use cross-strait relations to force China to compromise with US hegemony.
However, almost all of these measures have been broken down by China.
The United States united with Japan and South Korea, China actively promoted the "Belt and Road" and united Central Asian and African countries, the United States provoked in the Taiwan Strait, and China's Eastern Theater launched a large-scale sortie to conduct armed exercises in the Taiwan Strait with live ammunition.
After some competition, the United States not only did not get a bargain, but because of the huge investment in East Asia, the domestic economy was sluggish and the people's livelihood was deteriorating.
Now, the United States has played the Vietnam card again, trying to use the historical conflict between China and Vietnam and territorial disputes in the South China Sea to undermine relations between China and Vietnam.
epilogue
In the face of the aggressive United States, the mainland Foreign Ministry once asked in a loud voice, "In the South China Sea, the United States has no time to take care of its own security, so how can it protect its allies?" ”
Indeed, the distance between the South China Sea and the mainland is more than 2,000 kilometers, which has exceeded the combat radius of the US aircraft carrier, but it is within the range of the Dongfeng missile.
Therefore, neither the United States unites Japan and South Korea, nor instigates Vietnam and the Philippines, it cannot pose a real threat to China.
On the contrary, countries such as Vietnam will only suffer an unnecessary price by tying the US chariot.
In the face of the US Asia-Pacific strategy, China has the confidence to counteract, thanks entirely to the increasingly powerful strength of the PLA, and all this happens to be the valuable political and military legacy left to us by our ancestors in the Sino-Vietnamese War.
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