In the circle of Chinese civilization, in addition to the undoubted boss China, other countries deeply influenced by Chinese civilization, no matter how big or small, strong or weak, also seem to have a dream of a great power.
Vietnam, which borders southern Xinjiang, is no exception.
Whether it was part of China, Vietnam or when it became a vassal state of the Central Plains when it broke away from the Central Plains Dynasty and became a vassal state of the Central Plains, it always had the ambition of a great power that was not commensurate with its size.
Even, when the Central Plains Dynasty declined, Vietnam once regarded itself as "Little China", which is still the case after time entered modern times.
In 1979, North Vietnam, led by the Communist Party of Vietnam, defeated France and the United States to complete the reunification, and Vietnam's morale reached its peak.
In particular, with an army of 1.2 million troops that had been tempered by 30 years of war and received a large amount of weapons and equipment from China and the Soviet Union, Vietnam's expansionist mentality began to expand dramatically. They are trying to dominate Indochina and realize Vietnam's great power ambitions that have been dreamed of for a thousand years.
It was against this background that Vietnam decided to follow the line of the French colonizers and establish the so-called Indochinese Federation.
Therefore, in 1979, while annexing Laos and provoking China in the north, Vietnam, which was extremely inflated, also took advantage of the boiling discontent in Cambodia to send troops to invade Cambodia, not only driving out the Khmer Rouge regime, but also sending heavy troops to control the whole of Cambodia.
In order to maintain the rule and reduce the cost of occupying other countries by military force, it is natural to support the regime that obeys its own orders. At that time, Vietnam chose to prop up the Han Samlin regime.
Han Sanglin originally served as a division commander of the Khmer Rouge and secretary of the provincial party committee. In 1978, he fled to Vietnam for political reasons, and the following year he returned to China with the Vietnamese army that invaded Cambodia, and established a pro-Vietnamese regime with the support of Vietnam.
After the fall of Democratic Kampuchea, Han Samlin established a new puppet government, the Cambodian People's Republic, with the support of Vietnam, and himself served as chairman of the People's Revolutionary Committee.
The new Cambodian government, supported by the Vietnamese army and government, also established its own political party, the Cambodian People's Revolutionary Party, founded in 1981. Han Sanglin is naturally the general secretary of this people's revolutionary party.
As we all know, Vietnam was extremely ambitious in 1979, trying to annex Laos and Cambodia and establish the so-called Indochinese Federation.
However, under China's self-defense and counterattack war against Vietnam, under the continuous decline of the Soviet Union, and under the opposition of the international community, Vietnam's ambition to dominate the Indochina Peninsula ultimately failed.
In fact, as an agrarian country, and an agrarian country that has just emerged from 30 years of war, it is no exaggeration to say that Vietnam is in ruins.
And such a small agricultural country, which has maintained an army of millions for a long time, and at the same time launched wars of aggression against Cambodia and Laos and a border war against China, and the war lasted for more than 10 years, it is conceivable that even with the assistance of the Soviet Union, Vietnam's economic pressure is extremely exaggerated.
In fact, although the Vietnamese army has always had a huge advantage in the process of invading Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam has also been carrying a huge economic burden.
Because it is necessary to maintain three battlefields at the same time, the military expenditure of the Vietnamese army has long accounted for about 60% of Vietnam's fiscal revenue. Despite the continuous assistance of the Soviet bloc led by the Soviet Union, the protracted war caused a huge economic crisis in Vietnam.
In particular, after the failure of Vietnam's New Economic Policy, Vietnam's economic growth rate is extremely low, the grassroots people's lives are very poor, and the domestic economy is on the verge of collapse. At that time, inflation in Vietnam reached an astonishing 1,000%.
And all this was also embodied in the Vietnamese army, which launched a war of aggression. At that time, the morale of the Vietnamese army in Cambodia was generally low, casualties were increasing day by day, and war-weariness and war-phobia in the army were becoming more and more serious.
Not only that, but the round of fighting on the Sino-Vietnamese border made the Vietnamese army extremely tired, and the casualties were increasing and the consumption was increasing.
In Cambodia, which it was trying to annex, many resistance forces resolutely opposed the Vietnamese aggression and persisted in guerrilla warfare. Moreover, with the assistance of Western countries such as China and the United States, Cambodia's resistance has grown stronger and stronger, and by the mid-to-late 80s, it had grown to 70,000.
The war is becoming more and more unfavorable, and in the international arena, the Soviet Union, which is the most critical support for Vietnam's ambitions, is mired in the quagmire of the war in Afghanistan and unable to assist Vietnam, and on the other hand, the Soviet Union itself has become more and more serious economic, political, and a series of other problems, which also make the Soviet Union have no intention of caring about anything else.
Against this background, Vietnam, which was increasingly feeling powerless, began to wake up from the fanaticism of the Indochinese Federation.
In July 1986, the death of Le Duan, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, cleared the most crucial obstacle for Vietnam to resolve the Cambodian problem. So finally, after several rounds of negotiations, in September 1989, all the Vietnamese troops and weapons and equipment stationed in Cambodia withdrew from Cambodia.
As a result, Cambodia regained its independence. So, during the ten years of Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, what happened to the Phnom Penh government and the Cambodian People's Party, which were single-handedly supported by Vietnam?
Generally speaking, a puppet regime supported by the aggressor is bound to be unpopular with the people, and it is difficult for such a regime to survive for a long time without the support of the aggressor.
Vietnam is a prime example of this, after the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in 1973, although the American military left a large amount of weaponry and assistance to the South Vietnamese regime it supported.
However, the unpopular South Vietnamese army was almost vulnerable to the North Vietnamese offensive and lost power in just 55 days, which shocked the whole world.
However, the Phnom Penh regime in Cambodia, which was also supported by the invaders, did not fall. Even after more than 30 years, the Cambodian People's Party still firmly controls the power in Cambodia.
How did the Cambodian People's Party do it?
In desperation, after being forced to abandon the so-called Indochinese Federation and withdraw its troops from Cambodia, the Vietnamese-backed Phnom Penh regime did change.
In April 1984, the National Assembly of the People's Republic of Cambodia convened a special meeting to amend the Constitution, change the name of the country to the State of Cambodia, and declare Cambodia a neutral non-aligned country.
The country has Buddhism as its state religion, abolished the death penalty, and protected private property. Interestingly, however, the de facto ruler of power in a country where Buddhism is the state religion is still the Cambodian People's Party.
Now that the Vietnamese army has withdrawn and can no longer eliminate the Cambodian opposition by force, why can the Cambodian opposition, which is growing with the support of many parties, tolerate the People's Party to continue to control Cambodia?
This has a lot to do with the foreshadowing laid by Vietnam.
In the late '80s, after realizing that it could not truly annex Cambodia, Vietnam had actually begun to settle for the next best thing. Vietnam's aim is to take advantage of its existing advantages to seize the opportunity and keep the Phnom Penh regime-related forces it supports to continue to hold the initiative in the future government of Cambodia.
Moreover, what is particularly beneficial to Vietnam is that the Phnom Penh regime in Cambodia, which it supports, is also a foreign-sponsored regime, but the Phnom Penh regime is quite competitive.
In particular, after several years of development, the Phnom Penh regime gradually gained the hearts and minds of Cambodia and, with the help of Vietnam and the Soviet Union, it also had a rather weak armed force.
At that time, the troops of the Phnom Penh regime alone were enough to independently confront the Cambodian rebels. This also laid the most crucial foundation for the continued existence of the Cambodian Phnom Penh regime and its forces after the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops.
Moreover, the Phnom Penh regime remained in power after the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops, not only because of the strength of the Phnom Penh regime itself and the popularity of the people to a certain extent, but also because the resistance forces that had been persistently opposing the Vietnamese invasion were not united.
At that time, the Cambodian forces were divided into three factions - the Khmer Rouge, Song Shuang, and Sihanoukville. However, the three factions were not convinced, and not only did the three sides watch out for each other, but even armed conflicts often broke out even while the Vietnamese invaders were still there.
Despite the support of China and other countries, the three forces were powerless to overthrow the Phnom Penh regime.
After that, the Cambodian People's Revolutionary Party changed its name to the Cambodian People's Party and also gave up its guiding ideology and status as the sole ruling party, but this party, which is inextricably linked to Vietnam, has always maintained a ruling position in Cambodia.
Even after Cambodia re-established itself as a constitutional monarchy in 1993 and Sihanouk was restored as King of Cambodia, nothing has changed.
Until now, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) still effectively controls the vast majority of Cambodia's government, army and finances, and is still able to influence the political situation. And Hun Sen, who became the prime minister of the Phnom Penh government as early as 1985, has been the prime minister of Cambodia for decades.
It can be said that after the forced military withdrawal from Cambodia, Vietnam's choices and policies were quite successful.
Ten years after invading Cambodia and trying to annex it, Cambodia did not have much resentment and hatred towards Vietnam.
Even the control and oppression during the "Indochinese Federation" period were gradually stopped in Cambodia, and in Cambodia, gratitude and gratitude to Vietnam became the main theme. In a way, Vietnam is indeed worth learning from.