Source: CNKI-Guangxi University for Nationalities School of Liberal Arts Original draft
The ancients said, "Strike iron hot, and pursue by victory".
However, in the Sino-Vietnamese War, Vietnam did not abide by this "ancient rule" and gave up the pursuit when China retreated.
According to the recollection of Vietnamese Major General Nguyen Duc Huy, the Vietnamese army did not dare to chase, but Le Duan gave an order: You can't chase!
Li Duan came to power, anti-China and pro-Soviet
So, who is Le Duan, and why does he have the power to mobilize the Vietnamese army?
Le Duan is the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the "first person in Vietnam" under Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh. Unlike Ho Chi Minh, who maintained a deep friendship with China, Le Duan's attitude towards China was resistant, even disgusting.
In a diplomatic white paper published in Vietnam, he severely criticized China, believing that China was "responsible" for preventing Vietnam from winning the war against France.
But in fact, there is another hidden meaning behind this incident.
At that time, the United States was a supporter of France's back, and tried to use the United Nations to bring all of Southeast Asia into its sphere of influence.
There were contradictions and conflicts between the United States and China and the Soviet Union due to different national ideologies, but the Soviet Union during this period, under the administration of Khrushchev, intended to move closer to the West in order to be on an equal footing with the United States.
Therefore, for China at this time, it is urgent to have a peaceful international environment to complete the rise of the country.
For this reason, China persuaded Vietnam at the Geneva Conference to endure the contradictions with France, not to provoke the United States, and to strive for longer-term interests.
Chairman Ho Chi Minh also agreed with China's decision.
Later, under the leadership of the Soviet Union, Vietnam ceased to resist France and signed a peace agreement. The French authorities later recognized Vietnam as an independent sovereign state and withdrew its troops.
However, this incident also led to the division of Vietnam into two parts: the north and the south.
However, in fact, the root cause of this result is the imbalance in the economic development of the north and the south of Vietnam itself and the legacy of history, but Le Duan believes that it is China's intervention that will lead to this result.
So, this also made Le Duan a pro-Soviet faction.
China invaded Vietnam and took the initiative to retreat
In the 60s of the 20th century, Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated rapidly. This is because the Soviet Union wanted China to become a "pawn" in its hands to balance other countries. China, as an independent state, could not have looked down on the Soviet Union.
In order to enhance its national power, China began to engage with the United States in an attempt to ease the contradictions between the two countries.
In order to prevent China and the United States from getting closer, the Soviet Union quickly wooed Vietnam and helped Vietnam complete the reunification of the north and the south.
The Soviet Union's ambition was obvious: to let Vietnam contain China, and in the future, even the whole of Southeast Asia.
Therefore, at the behest of the Soviet Union, Vietnam began to frequently harass the Sino-Vietnamese border externally, and also invaded Cambodia in an attempt to usurp the power of a country, while internally it brutally persecuted the Chinese in Vietnam.
In 1978, Vietnam also signed a military cooperation agreement with the Soviet Union. Although China has always adhered to the principle of peaceful coexistence in international diplomacy, it still took action in the face of Vietnam's crazy provocations.
In December 1978, in this cold winter, China launched a "self-defense counterattack war against Vietnam".
In this battle, China adopted the tactics of encirclement in a roundabout way, concentrating superior forces, and fighting a quick victory.
Founding General Xu Shiyou personally led a corps of nine armies from Guangxi to Lang Son Province in Vietnam. At the same time, China's military districts bordering the Soviet Union and Mongolia were put on alert, ready to respond to a counterattack from the Soviet Union at any time.
The tropical rainforests along the Sino-Vietnamese border also give Vietnam an additional geographical advantage.
Therefore, the Chinese adopted the means of artillery fire, and it took almost three months to suppress and crush the Vietnamese army in Lang Son province.
Lang Son is the gateway to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and if it falls, China can go directly south to capture Hanoi. This is an outcome that the Le Duan regime cannot afford and will destroy the confidence of the Vietnamese in their own government.
Therefore, in order to block China's strong attack in the Battle of Lang Son, Le Duan also urgently transferred back the Vietnamese troops who were invading Cambodia. But even so, the Vietnamese army was defeated.
When Le Duan learned of this front, he became a frightened bird and hastily gathered all the troops in Vietnam and stationed them in the southern part of Lang Son, hoping that Hanoi would survive the "difficulty".
At this critical juncture, Le Duan also hurriedly contacted the Soviet Union to seek protection from the Soviet Union, and at this time, the Soviet Union also feared that China might take this opportunity to encroach on Vietnam, which would also pose a great threat to them.
As a result, the Soviet Union began to threaten and put pressure on China to stop the war and withdraw from Vietnamese territory as soon as possible.
Interestingly, however, the Soviet Union's "pressure" on China was only in words. From the beginning to the end, Vietnam was defeated and retreated, and the Soviet Union did not provide it with any substantial help.
This made Vietnam, which was still fearless at the beginning, feel more and more bottomless in his heart.
Seeing the loss of Langshan, the People's Liberation Army was like a broken bamboo, and Li Duan's heart was like ashes. He was even ready to defend the whole people to the death.
At this critical moment, what Vietnam, and even the whole world, did not expect was that China suddenly announced the withdrawal of its troops.
Le Duan gave the order to stop the pursuit
In the eyes of some Vietnamese, China was forced to retreat because of the pressure of the Soviet Union or the United States. Moreover, China's initiative to withdraw its troops also made some Vietnamese high-level leaders mistakenly think that they wanted to "escape" because they couldn't fight.
According to common sense, the Vietnamese army should pursue the PLA. However, according to the recollections of Vietnamese Major General Nguyen Duc Huy, at that time the Vietnamese army received an order from Le Duan to "collect troops from Minh Kim".
So, why did Li Duan give such an order?
First of all, from the perspective of the international situation, although Vietnam has the Soviet Union as an ally, when Vietnam really asked the Soviet Union for help, the other side did not immediately send troops to reinforce it, but only forced China to cease the war in the form of denunciation.
If Vietnam really catches up with the retreating PLA and ignites the war again, will the Soviet Union really open fire on China? At present, we cannot count on them at all.
Therefore, Le Duan did not dare to gamble on this possibility with the whole of Vietnam.
In addition, at this time, the United States had already made a statement on the Sino-Vietnamese war. On the one hand, the United States demanded that China withdraw its troops, but at the same time, it also demanded that Vietnam withdraw from Cambodia.
Although the United States stands in a relatively neutral international position, the US Treasury Secretary went on a visit to China. From this message, it can be seen that the United States is more inclined to China at this stage.
Moreover, with the participation of the United States, the USSR would also think carefully before intervening.
In addition, although Vietnam claims to be a military power in the third world, Le Duan, who has been fighting with China for a month, knows better than anyone else that Vietnam is already at the end of its strength at this time, and if they continue to fight with China, it is tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg.
The occupation of Lang Son by the People's Liberation Army also made Le Duan deeply awaken to the fact that there is an unbridgeable military gap between Vietnam and China.
Therefore, although Le Duan was still very stubborn at that time to announce the "victory of Vietnam" to the whole country, in fact he knew very well that he had lost completely. And Vietnam will accept it when it sees good, and a truce with China as soon as possible is the best choice at the moment.
But at this time, some Vietnamese soldiers who were thirsty for war felt that if Vietnam "took advantage of this pursuit", it would be able to defeat China.
They envisioned a scenario in which the Soviet Union would be dragged into the water to deal with China.
They felt that at this time, the lethality of Soviet weapons was much higher than that of China, and when China and the Soviet Union were fighting each other, Vietnam would be able to take advantage of the "fisherman's advantage" and turn defeat into victory.
In addition, these Vietnamese soldiers also believed that they had experienced a hundred battles and would definitely be able to "have the last laugh".
It is precisely for this reason that some Vietnamese troops, in line with the principle of "not being subject to foreign military orders," quietly ambushed and attacked on the way of our army's retreat.
However, these are all small fights that can't set off big storms, and they can't affect the overall situation at all.
Why, then, did China take the initiative to withdraw its troops?
But in fact, judging from China's domestic economic situation at that time, the PLA was not allowed to continue fighting in Vietnam.
Moreover, in 1978, under the leadership of Mr. Deng Xiaoping, China had turned to the path of reform and opening up and comprehensively improving its economy.
Of course, in this process, China still attaches importance to military development.
In addition, China is a peace-oriented country that never interferes in the internal affairs of other countries and never bullies the weak.
However, one of the most important reasons for our withdrawal was because the strategic purpose of launching a war of self-defense was to make Vietnam clear that China's interests could not be violated, and we did not think about overthrowing the Vietnamese regime from the beginning.
Now that the strategic purpose of this campaign has been achieved, there is naturally no need to continue fighting.
Therefore, the withdrawal of troops is an inevitable choice for us.
There are no eternal friends or foes
When the Sino-Vietnamese war ended, the two countries went through a long cooling-off period.
By 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world's number one superpower. At this time, the United States wanted to return to Southeast Asia and strengthen its control over this region.
After the First World War between China and Vietnam, the United States also saw clearly that Vietnam had the "value" of containing China.
Vietnam also wants to rely on the United States to obtain interests in the Spratly Islands, so that the United States and Vietnam "hit it off." The closeness between the United States and Vietnam is obviously not conducive to the development of Sino-Vietnamese relations.
In addition, during this period, Japan also wanted to become one of the world's great powers, so it also began to cooperate with the Vietnamese government, following the example of the United States. The combination of these factors has made the relationship between China and Vietnam even more strained.
However, in the context of economic globalization and East Asian integration, Vietnam cannot always stand in opposition to China, after all, China's rise is a reality for all to see.
Therefore, after the 21st century, the new generation of leaders of China and Vietnam has proposed to be "good neighbors" and "good friends" with each other, and they have also actively carried out economic and trade cooperation.
According to statistics, in 2023, the bilateral trade volume between China and Vietnam will reach 230 billion US dollars, which also makes it China's largest business partner in Southeast Asia.
In addition, China has also undertaken the construction of mineral, wind power and new energy projects in Vietnam, which has pushed the economies of the two countries to a new high.
When you see this, you can see that there are no eternal friends or enemies between countries, only eternal interests.
After all, for a country's leaders, it is the most important task to lead the country and its people to prosperity, strength and prosperity.
Resources:
The "humanitarian" concern in the novel of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam - take "Garland Under the Mountain" as an example - Li Pingxiang
https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=gPw7xOyBVLGSuX4FuUWq0kj-bvJChKqBleey4Cc2oPsKw6AothLVErpnLHkIVRVVnkt5gNFr9d3W5L8fC72n6fPcQb28V2lXp7YAVqbXbjM1GNYhQer6VeExLCkNYmyNVt6QrK0oGRU=&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS
Promoting the Healthy and Stable Development of the China-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership in the New Era – Guangxi Daily
https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=gPw7xOyBVLHV4GyIbLOLygCVt3iIW_cCdqsul1Ky8RBCitaaGMKsPuL5JLtpaKoyDf48-N6XQUOpDdUioa8njEJiUUZWb42gEHIi0phU6zn4woS-WAt5HWoqPB6fAooO9FvmqWoKSxNV6kHQ_ei0lQ==&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS