Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance

By Nicholas Khoo

Although the Chinese and the Vietnamese were Cold War allies in wars against the French and the Americans, their alliance collapsed and they ultimately fought a war against each other in 1979. More than thirty years later the fundamental cause of the alliance's termination remains contested among historians, international relations theorists, and Asian studies specialists. Nicholas Khoo brings fresh perspective to this debate.

Using Chinese-language materials released since the end of the Cold War, Khoo revises existing explanations for the termination of China's alliance with Vietnam, arguing that Vietnamese cooperation with China's Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, was the necessary and sufficient cause for the alliance's termination. He finds alternative explanations to be less persuasive. These emphasize nonmaterial causes, such as ideology and culture, or reference issues within the Sino-Vietnamese relationship, such as land and border disputes, Vietnam's treatment of its ethnic Chinese minority, and Vietnam's attempt to establish a sphere of influence over Cambodia and Laos.

Khoo also adds to the debate over the relevance of realist theory in interpreting China's international behavior during both the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. While others see China as a social state driven by nonmaterial processes, Khoo makes the case for viewing China as a quintessential neorealist state. From this perspective, the focus of neorealist theory on security threats from materially stronger powers explains China's foreign policy not only toward the Soviet Union but also in relation to its Vietnamese allies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: Feb 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9780231521635

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COLLATERAL DAMAGE

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Sino-Soviet Rivalry and

the Termination of the

Sino-Vietnamese Alliance

  NICHOLAS KHOO

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

PUBLISHERS SINCE 1893

NEW YORK CHICHESTER, WEST SUSSEX

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright © 2011 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-52163-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Khoo, Nicholas.

Collateral damage : Sino-Soviet rivalry and the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance / Nicholas Khoo.

   p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-231-15078-1 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-52163-5 (ebook)

1. China—Foreign relations—Soviet Union. 2. Soviet Union—Foreign relations—China.

3. China—Foreign relations—Vietnam. 4. Vietnam—Foreign relations—China.

5. Sino-Vietnamese Conflict, 1979. I. Title.

Ds740.5.s65k46 2011

327.5104709'045—dc22

2010027352

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [e-mail].

References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

CONTENTS

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

1. China's Cold War Alliance with Vietnam:

Historical and Theoretical Significance

2. Breaking the Ring of Encirclement:

Sino-Soviet Alliance Termination and the Chinese Communists' Vietnam Policy, 1964–1968

3. A War on Two Fronts:

The Sino-Soviet Conflict During the Vietnam War and the Betrayal Thesis, 1968–1973

4. The Politics of Victory:

Sino-Soviet Relations and the Road to Vietnamese Unification, 1973–1975

5. The End of an Indestructible Friendship:

Soviet Resurgence and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance, 1975–1979

6. When Allies Become Enemies

Notes

Bibliography

Index

TABLES

Table 2.1. China's Military Aid to North Vietnam, 1964–1968

Table 2.2. China's Economic Aid to North Vietnam, 1965–1975

Table 4.1. Estimates of Soviet Economic Aid to Vietnam, 1965–1975

Table 4.2. Estimates of Soviet Military Aid to Vietnam, 1965–1975

Table 5.1. Estimates of Soviet Economic Aid to Vietnam, 1975–1979

Table 5.2. Estimates of Soviet Military Aid to Vietnam, 1975–1979

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

DURING THE COURSE OF MY GRADUATE STUDIES, IT QUICKLY became clear that the impact of the Sino-Soviet conflict on Cold-War-era Southeast Asia was underresearched, and a fruitful area for investigation. This book, which is largely based on my Ph.D. dissertation, examines what is arguably one of the most underappreciated subplots of the Cold War; specifically, how the Sino-Soviet conflict influenced Beijing’s and Moscow’s relationships with their comrades in Hanoi, and how those relationships, in turn, intensified the conflict. While Cold War history may strike some as an uninteresting retreat into the past, with little relevance for the contemporary era, I have found the opposite to be true. This narrative is alive with forceful personalities, friction between alliance partners, wars between former communist comrades, and much more. Arguably, China’s behaviour during the period under examination also provides us with an insight into how it might conduct its foreign policy in the twenty-first century.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank all of those who have, in various ways, played a part in this book. Both of my dissertation advisers at Columbia deserve particular mention. As my primary dissertation adviser, Andrew Nathan encouraged me to rigorously pursue the various arguments contained in the text. His probing questions and wise counsel were critical in shaping the final product in myriad ways. Thomas Bernstein’s encyclopedic knowledge of the schisms in the international communist movement was invaluable, as was his advice throughout graduate school. My dissertation committee, comprising Charles Armstrong, Thomas Bernstein, Mark von Hagen, Andrew Nathan, and Jack Snyder, offered insightful ideas for revision, many of which have found their place in this book.

The Department of Political Science and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University provided critical support for this book. In addition to providing a vibrant intellectual home, both were sources of generous financial support, which greatly facilitated my research. This included a number of Columbia University President’s Fellowships, a Weatherhead East Asian Institute C. Martin Wilbur Fellowship, and a Weatherhead East Asian Institute V. K. Wellington Koo Fellowship. The Weatherhead fellowships allowed me to undertake, at the kind invitation of Professor Su Hao, an extended research and teaching stint at the Foreign Affairs University in Beijing during 2002–3, and to make a data collection trip to the Universities Services Centre (USC) for Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Jean Hung and the staff at the USC were very helpful in facilitating my research. Zhang Qingmin of Beijing University was a valuable and patient source of advice with respect to the Chinese-language sources cited in the text.

I would also like to express my appreciation to various colleagues, friends, and teachers who played a less direct but nonetheless significant role in the journey that this book reflects. These include Frank Scott Douglas, Karl Jackson, M. L. R. Smith, Dorothy Solinger, and John Tai. Thank you Brian, Chia Yi, Jerome, Raymond, Ted, and Walter for your friendship and support, both during my searching experience of 1991 and at other more tranquil times. A word of appreciation is due to Anne Routon at Columbia University Press, who recognized the value of the manuscript and efficiently moved it through the various stages of production. The anonymous reviewers for this manuscript made a number of very important suggestions for revision. Their contribution is significant and deserves emphasis.

This book would not have been possible without the unfailing love and support of my father, Dr. Khoo Chong Yew, and late mother, Ellen Khoo née McLaughlin. They have been a model for me in so many ways, and I dedicate this book to them. My siblings, Stephen, Sharon, and Brenda, were consistently encouraging during the ups and downs of my journey through graduate school. Finally, my wife, Karen, patiently and sacrificially persevered during the writing of this book over the last decade. This book would have been impossible without your love and support. Without you and Ellena, this book, and the larger career of which it is a part, would be meaningless.

1 CHINA'S COLD WAR ALLIANCE WITH VIETNAM

Historical and Theoretical Significance

FROM THE 1950S THROUGH THE EARLY 1970S, THE CHINESE AND Vietnamese communists shared a common ideology and a strategic interest in opposing American containment policy in Asia.¹ During this period relations were sufficiently close that Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh characterized the Chinese and Vietnamese communists as "comrades plus brothers [tongzhi jia xiongdi]."² By all accounts, Ho's characterization of bilateral relations was an accurate one. At a time when China was strapped for resources, Beijing made a significant financial contribution to the Vietnamese communists' war efforts, against first the French and then the Americans.³ Chinese estimates place the total value of Beijing's economic and military aid to their Vietnamese allies during the period 1949–1978 at approximately $20 billion.⁴ However, with the onset of the Second Indochina War, or Vietnam War (1965–1975), the Sino-Vietnamese alliance relationship began to deteriorate, culminating in a border war in 1979.⁵ The former allies were about to begin a period of confrontation that was to end only in 1991, and that became known as the Third Indochina War.⁶

The termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance and subsequent border war of 1979 comprised a pivotal development during the Cold War, at once reflecting and deepening divisions within the communist bloc. However, the fundamental cause of these developments remains a continuing source of debate among area studies specialists, historians, and political scientists who study the Cold War. This book seeks an answer to the following question: Why did the seemingly close alliance between Beijing and Hanoi degenerate from close cooperation to intense conflict? In examining these developments, I will argue that the fundamental cause for the intense conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations lay in developments within the Sino-Soviet relationship. In this respect, the de facto termination of the Sino-Soviet alliance in the early 1960s set the stage for intense competition between Beijing and Moscow that was played out on a global scale.⁷ As the Sino-Soviet conflict increased, both sides competed for influence over their Vietnamese comrades in Hanoi. With the gradual strengthening of the Soviet-Vietnamese relationship during the course of the Second Indochina War (1965–1975), an attendant increase of conflict occurred in Sino-Vietnamese relations. The final straw for the Chinese came in the post–1975 era, with the signing of the Soviet-Vietnamese alliance in November 1978. When the Vietnamese subsequently invaded Cambodia, with the aim of overthrowing the Chinese-aligned Khmer Rouge regime, the Chinese viewed that act as a casus belli. Chinese retaliation was swift, if less than sure. The border war of February 1979 extracted a heavy toll in terms of deaths and casualties on both sides.

That said, why should we be interested in another study of the interactions between China, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam? There are two reasons. First, this book seeks to contribute to an important and emerging debate on the fundamental cause of the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance. Scholars writing during the Cold War, but with limited access to Chinese sources, argued that the Sino-Soviet conflict of the late 1950s and early 1960s had a significant impact on China's foreign relations.⁸ In this view, the conflict transformed the Soviet Union from a close ally into the central threat facing China. Consequently, China viewed its relations with the Vietnamese communists primarily through a Soviet prism.⁹ As the Soviet Union and the Vietnamese communists increased cooperation during the period of the Vietnam War, an attendant increase in Sino-Vietnamese conflict occurred, eventually leading to a rupture in relations in the 1978–1979 period. In contrast, the recent literature on China's foreign relations, which has had the benefit of greater access to Chinese sources, has tended to minimize the centrality of the Soviet factor in Chinese Cold War era foreign policy. Representative of this trend in the literature are a number of relatively recent and influential studies, by Chen Jian,¹⁰ Qiang Zhai,¹¹ and Arne Westad and Sophie Quinn-Judge.¹² These studies, while not ignoring the Soviet factor, have in effect de-emphasized its centrality in Beijing's foreign policy, and more specifically, its policy toward the Vietnamese communists. Chen contends that conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations was caused principally by Mao's pursuit of an ideologically based foreign policy of revolution promotion and the Chinese leadership's culturally determined sense of superiority over the Vietnamese.¹³ Separately, Zhai and Nguyen posit that a variety of issues at the individual, domestic, regional, and international level of analysis explain Beijing's relations with the Vietnamese communists.¹⁴ .

Drawing on Chinese-language sources released since the 1990s, this book presents a view contrary to the one expressed in the recent literature on Chinese Cold War foreign policy. Specifically, it will be argued that the threat represented by the Soviet Union was the central and overriding concern of Chinese foreign policy–makers, a fact that was strongly reflected in Sino-Vietnamese relations. In effect, increasing Sino-Soviet conflict following the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s provided the critical context for an increase in Soviet cooperation with the Vietnamese communists, and was the fundamental cause of the cracks in the Sino-Vietnamese alliance that were to manifest themselves more fully in the period following the end of the Vietnam War, eventually resulting in the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979 and the Third Indochina War (1979–1991). As part of this investigation into the Beijing–Hanoi–Moscow triangle, important questions about what occurred during this period are reexamined. For example: What was the impact of the Sino-Soviet conflict on the course of the Vietnam War?¹⁵ Did the Chinese betray their Vietnamese comrades when they entered into a rapprochement with the U.S. in 1972?¹⁶ Did the Sino-American rapprochement of 1972 cause the Sino-Vietnamese conflict of 1979?¹⁷ Why did the Sino-Vietnamese alliance collapse in the post-1975 period? In explaining the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance, what was the relative role of the Soviet factor, as opposed to a variety of bilateral issues such as disputes over ideology; land and maritime borders; the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam; and Vietnam's bid to establish a sphere of influence over Cambodia and Laos? Why did Beijing and Hanoi enter into a rapprochement in the late 1980s?¹⁸

The second reason that we should be interested in this study is theoretical in nature. Along with the de-emphasis of the state-centric Soviet threat has come another shift in the literature. Specifically, and paralleling a broader shift in studies of the Cold War,¹⁹ the recent literature on Chinese foreign policy during the Cold War era has found realist theory wanting.²⁰ Thus this book also has an equally important theoretical aim, which is to engage the arguments advanced by non-realist interpretations of Chinese Cold War era foreign policy, and to propose a causal theory of Chinese foreign policy premised on the core assumptions of realist theory.²¹ In this respect, this study does not find persuasive the view advanced in the recent literature that China is a social state²² whose behavior is determined primarily by nonmaterialist variables, Rather, this study contends that the People's Republic of China is a neorealist state whose international behavior is fundamentally determined by concepts emphasized by neorealist theory.²³ Accordingly, this analysis accepts the following assumptions: (1) states operate in a defined environment, the international system, where the organizing principle of the system is anarchic; (2) the central actors in the system are states that are concerned with their own survival;²⁴ (3) the concern for survival necessitates a reliance by each state on its own efforts;²⁵ (4) states can be abstracted and analyzed as unitary rational actors;²⁶ (5) the security dilemma is viewed as playing a significant role in international relations;²⁷ (6) states are viewed as seeking to maximize relative gains;²⁸ (7) states are assumed to be security maximizers²⁹ rather than power maximizers.³⁰

This study also aims to add depth to an already existing theory of Chinese foreign policy known as principal enemy theory. The core insight of the principal enemy approach, that the friend of my enemy is my enemy, is pure realism.³¹ Originally put forward by Peter Van Ness in 1970, this perspective posits that Chinese policy toward any particular state during the Cold War is a function of that state's relationship with what Beijing considers to be its principal enemy, rather than ideological criteria.³² Other analysts have utilized the principal enemy approach in studies of specific bilateral relationships involving China during the Cold War. J. D. Armstrong has adopted this perspective in examining China's relations with Cambodia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Tanzania.³³ David Mozingo has used it in his analysis of China's relations with Indonesia,³⁴ while Melvin Gurtov has studied China's relations with Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand.³⁵

We will apply the logic of this argument to China's relations with the Soviet Union and North Vietnam, attempting, in essence, to demonstrate how Vietnam, by aligning itself with China's principal enemy, the Soviet Union, became China's secondary enemy. A case study approach is adopted.³⁶ In this respect, this book represents an attempt to look at the entire period from 1964 to 1991, systematically argue the principal enemy thesis in social scientific terms, and rectify methodological problems extant in previous attempts to explain the relationship between Sino-Soviet conflict and the Sino-Vietnamese relationship. Alternative explanations are investigated.³⁷

CONTENDING EXPLANATIONS FOR SINO-VIETNAMESE CONFLICT

There are three broad explanations that can be used to explain the conflict in, and the eventual termination of, the Sino-Vietnamese alliance. The first explanation focuses on specific bilateral issues as the basic cause of Sino-Vietnamese conflict. The second focuses on China's principal enemy during the second-half of the Cold War, the Soviet Union. The third involves an influential theory of alliances known as known as balance of threat theory.

Specific Bilateral Issues

The first explanation for conflict in the Sino-Vietnamese alliance locates the cause in disputes over bilateral issues within the Sino-Vietnamese relationship. In this respect, any one of three issues has been emphasized in the literature: conflict over the Chinese diaspora in Vietnam; Sino-Vietnamese border disputes; and the frictions generated in Sino-Vietnamese relations by Mao's ideologically based cultural ethnocentricism.

Porter and Loescher argue that the failure of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance was a consequence of disagreements over the treatment of the ethnic Chinese community in Vietnam.³⁸ The mass expulsions of Vietnamese with Chinese ethnic origins certainly strained bilateral relations. However, this appears to have been an exacerbating factor rather than a fundamental cause of bilateral conflict. An examination of the timing of Beijing's decision to raise the Chinese diaspora issue with the Vietnamese leadership supports this conclusion. The exodus of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam began as early as spring 1977, yet Beijing only took action a year later, when relations had reached a crisis point. This time-lag suggests that a state's broader political relationship with China mattered more to Beijing than how the overseas ethnic Chinese were treated by their government.

In this respect, one can contrast Beijing's reaction to the persecution of ethnic Chinese in Cambodia and Vietnam. The Chinese diaspora in Cambodia was treated in a particularly egregious manner, and were subject to mass killings by the Khmer Rouge. Yet the Chinese government did absolutely nothing to protest, let alone alleviate their plight. The reason for China's decision to ignore the ethnic Chinese factor in Sino-Cambodian relations, but to emphasize it in Sino-Vietnamese relations, is geopolitical in nature. Simply put, Phnom Penh was a supportive ally, while Hanoi was seen by Beijing as an emerging threat to its national security.

Another issue cited as the cause of Sino-Vietnamese conflict concerns bilateral border disputes. Chang Pao-min has posited that land and maritime border disputes were responsible for the deterioration of Sino-Vietnamese relations.³⁹ Again, territorial disputes appear to be a symptom rather than the cause of conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations. With respect to the maritime border issue, as early as 1974 Sino-Vietnamese disputes had emerged over the sovereignty of the Paracel Islands. On the issue of the land border issue, according to Beijing, Hanoi allegedly perpetrated more than two thousand border violations from 1975 to 1977.⁴⁰ However, only in the later part of 1977 and 1978, when Vietnam moved into closer alignment with Moscow, did the Chinese publicly raise land and maritime border issues as a point of contention in bilateral relations, and openly threaten the Vietnamese.

The more recent literature on Sino-Vietnamese relations has emphasized a different sort of explanation that, while also essentially bilateral in nature, focuses on a nonmaterial cause, specifically, ideology. In a recent and influential work on Chinese Cold War era foreign policy that deals with the Sino-Vietnamese alliance, Chen Jian finds realism, with its focus on material factors and the major powers in world politics, to be a less than compelling explanatory tool for analyzing Chinese foreign policy during this period.⁴¹ He notes: One may refer to the escalating Sino-Soviet confrontation, which made the maintenance of solidarity between Beijing and Hanoi extremely difficultand finally.⁴² Instead, for Chen, frictions in Sino-Vietnamese relations developed primarily as a result of Mao's pursuit of an ideologically based foreign policy of revolution promotion.⁴³ These frictions were transformed into a serious source of conflict as a result of the Chinese leadership's insistence on viewing Sino-Vietnamese relations through the prism of a culturally determined and ethnocentric Central Kingdom–vassal relationship.⁴⁴ Chen argues that Chinese leaders' search for Vietnamese recognition of China's morally superior position, and specifically, a modern version of the relationship between the Central Kingdom and its subordinate neighbors set in train a process that led to the final collapse of the [Sino-Vietnamese] ‘alliance between brotherly comrades.’⁴⁵

Two issues merit comment. First, by focusing so heavily on developments on the Chinese side of the Sino-Vietnamese relationship to explain conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations, Chen has arguably minimized the critically important role of the Soviet Union. This is not to discount the tensions in Sino-Vietnamese relations that Chen describes. Rather, it is both to argue that these tensions would have been kept in check if not for the Soviet Union's role in Sino-Vietnamese relations, and to emphasize the centrality of the Soviet factor in Sino-Vietnamese relations.

Second, and more generally, notwithstanding Chen's emphasis on ideology as a more solid basis for understanding the dynamics of Chinese Cold War era foreign policy, it is not clear that this is indeed the case. Since Chen's work is arguably the key text to appear on China's Cold War foreign relations in the last decade, an extended comment is necessary. Chen contends that a basic change in Beijing's ideological evaluation of American and Soviet imperialism allowed the Sino-American rapprochement to occur.⁴⁶ In this interpretation, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Beijing viewed the Soviet Union as the leading imperialist in world politics and the United States as the number two imperialist.⁴⁷ Was the rapprochement caused primarily by developments in the ideational realm? To answer that question, we need to clarify what caused the Chinese to see the Soviets as greater imperialists. Was it the nature of Soviet social-imperialism, or was it something more basic, such as the material threat presented by the Soviet Union—in particular, the Maoist regime's fear of being overthrown by the Soviets (as will be argued below)? It somewhat weakens Chen's argument that, by his own admission,⁴⁸ the Chinese had viewed the Soviets as imperialists since the early 1960s, when the Sino-Soviet split occurred. It was only in August 1968, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Moscow's subsequent announcement justifying military intervention in other socialist states, that the Chinese denounced the Soviet Union as a social-imperialist state. In other words, only when the Soviet Union became a strategic as opposed to a merely ideological threat did the Chinese communists declare their Soviet counterparts as their number one adversary.

A further point concerns Chen's argument that there was a deeper⁴⁹ cause for the Sino-American rapprochement. Chen argues the case for the causal role of ideology in explaining the Sino-American rapprochement when he contends that in terms of the relations between ideology and security concerns, the Sino-American rapprochement was less a case in which ideological beliefs yielded to the security interests than one in which ideology, as an essential element in shaping foreign policy decisions, experienced subtle structural changes as a result of the fading status of Mao's continuous revolution.⁵⁰ Yet at another point in the analysis it is clear that, for Chen, ideology is important in the rapprochement precisely because its role in Chinese domestic and foreign policy has been substantially reduced. Thus Chen Jian argues that: In a deeper sense, Beijing was able to pursue a rapprochement with Washington because, for the fi rst time in the PRC's history, Mao's continuous revolution was losing momentum.⁵¹ If it was the decline of ideology and the resultant conduct of bilateral relations on the basis of national interest that led to the Sino-American rapprochement, it is not clear how different Chen's argument is from the basic realist understanding of this development that he sets out to critique.⁵²

Principal Enemy Theory

The second broad theory explaining conflict in the Sino-Vietnamese alliance emphasizes the critical role played by a principal enemy, namely, the Soviet Union. There are three variants of this theory in the literature.

Building on Van Ness' research, Robert Ross utilizes the concept of a principal enemy to explain conflict in this alliance.⁵³ Ross argues that increasing Chinese concern over Vietnam's cooperation with the Soviet Union's policy toward China (from 1975 to 1979) caused the deterioration and fi nally the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance.⁵⁴ Two points can be made concerning Ross' account, which since its publication in the 1980s has rightfully served as the authoritative text on Sino-Vietnamese relations in the period 1975–1979. Th e first relates to the empirical realm. The dependent variable is the transition from cooperation to conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. However, this bilateral relationship was quite conflictual before 1975. Doubts are therefore raised about Ross' selection of the post1975 period as the start of the study. This is particularly critical given that John Garver has used a variety of Chinese language sources to make the argument that Sino-Vietnamese relations had already deteriorated in the years 1970– 1973, in tandem with Sino-U.S. rapprochement in the early 1970s.⁵⁵ A second issue concerns the fact that although Ross does establish co-variance between his variables,⁵⁶ he examines only one time period, 1975–1979, when Chinese concern over Vietnamese cooperation with Soviet policy increases, causing an increase in Sino-Vietnamese conflict. While Ross presents a convincing case for this period, he does not examine what happens when China's concern for Vietnam's Soviet policy decreases. Doing so would have strengthened the argument. Accordingly, we will examine in detail China's relations with the Vietnamese and Soviet communists over six time periods.⁵⁷ In five of those time periods Sino-Vietnamese conflict increases, and in one it decreases.

A second variant of principal enemy theory is offered by Eugene Lawson. Lawson argues that China and Vietnam's respective policies toward the United States and the Soviet Union were significant in influencing Sino-Vietnamese relations from 1965 to 1975.⁵⁸ Ultimately, the Chinese sought rapprochement with the United States and the Vietnamese sought closer ties with the Soviets.⁵⁹ This dynamic proved incompatible with an amicable alliance relationship, because the Chinese viewed the Vietnamese as supporting their adversary, the Soviet Union. The key issue with this work is its overemphasis on chronicling Beijing and Hanoi's respective relations with Moscow and Washington and a corresponding lack of examination of the Sino-Vietnamese relationship itself.⁶⁰ The neglect of systematic analysis of this bilateral relationship means that Lawson is unable to convincingly argue his contention that differing Sino-Vietnamese attitudes toward the U.S. were a particularly important cause of Sino-Vietnamese conflict.⁶¹

A third variant of principal enemy theory can be seen in Anne Gilks' analysis of developments in the Sino-Vietnamese alliance from 1970 to 1979.⁶² For Gilks, the Sino-Vietnamese relationship in the 1970s operated within the broader context of Sino-Vietnamese-Soviet relations, and the tensions that accompanied the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s. According to Gilks, China feared a consolidation of Vietnam's relations with Beijing's enemy, the Soviet Union. This generated intensifying security dilemma dynamics⁶³ in Sino-Vietnamese relations, particularly when post-1975 frictions began to develop between the Chinese-aligned Cambodia and Vietnam.⁶⁴ In this perspective, both Hanoi and Beijing perceived their basic security interests to be incompatible. Hanoi saw control over Cambodia as necessary to guarantee its security. For its part, Beijing perceived a pro-Chinese Cambodia as fundamental to thwarting a Soviet policy that used Vietnam as a tool to encircle China and undermine its security.

The analysis that follows is similar to Gilks' in its identification of incompatible security goals as the key to understanding the disintegration of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance. That said, there are three important and significant differences. First, this work draws on a wider variety of English and non-English sources, most of which were made available only after Gilks' book was published in 1992. Second, the time period of this study is selected with a view to providing a more comprehensive account of the impact of the Sino-Soviet conflict on China's relations with Vietnam. Gilks' account focuses on the period from 1970 to 1979. We cover the period from the de facto termination of the Sino-Soviet alliance in 1964 through to the end of the Cold War in 1991. Third, this study differs from Gilks' in terms of its theoretical aims. Gilks' study is concerned with demonstrating the relevance of the concept of security dilemma to the Sino-Soviet-Vietnamese triangular relationship. This study adopts a broader theoretical agenda in examining the utility of realist and constructivist-based explanations for the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance.

Balance of Threat Theory

A final possible explanation for the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance is an influential theory of alliance formation and termination, Stephen Walt's balance of threat theory. Walt argues that states balance not against powerful states, but rather against states that are threatening. Here the level of threat is the primary determinant of alliance formation and dissolution.⁶⁵ Walt measures the independent variable, threat level, in a number of ways. In his view, threat is composed of four components: aggregate power, geographic proximity, offensive power, and aggressive intentions. The greater a state's aggregate power, as measured by its population, technical prowess, and industrial and military capability, the greater the potential threat it poses.⁶⁶ The closer a state and the more aggressive the perceived intent, the higher the threat level. Geographic proximity is measured in terms of distance.⁶⁷ Additionally, the higher the level of offensive power a state possesses, the higher the threat level. Offensive power is measured by the level of a state's offensive capabilities.⁶⁸ Aggressive intentions are measured in terms of perceptions of intent.⁶⁹ Walt's dependent variable is alliance formation or dissolution.⁷⁰

Balance of threat theory suffers from two major theoretical problems that limit its application to our case. First, it is in many instances indeterminate.⁷¹ Thus, when applied to post-1975 Sino-Vietnamese relations, the theory could be plausibly used to predict that in 1975, because of geographic proximity and offensive power, Vietnam posed a threat to China. Alternatively, at the same time, the theory could also plausibly predict that because of a relative disparity of aggregate power in respect to China, Vietnam did not pose a threat to China. Second, to the extent that balance of threat theory defines threat primarily in terms of intentions, and not material capabilities, it is tautological. Of the four components of threat, in practice, perceptions of intent comprise the critical component in measuring Walt's independent variable, threat level. As he notes, in the assessment of threats, perceptions of intent are likely to play an especially crucial role in alliance choices.⁷² Specifically, in explaining the importance of intentions in alliance termination, Walt notes that if an alliance member becomes increasingly aggressive, then the alliance itself is less likely to endure.⁷³An application of Walt's theory to the Sino-Vietnamese alliance will illuminate this point. When applying this theory to the Sino-Vietnamese alliance, balance of threat theorists would presumably argue that the high level of threatening intent that Hanoi and Beijing perceived from each other in the period 1975–1978 led to the collapse of the alliance. Yet mutual perceptions of a high threat level from alliance partners represent the collapse of an alliance. Hence the tautological nature of the theory, when intentions are emphasized in applying the theory.

THE ARGUMENT

This book adopts a realist-based theoretical approach in advancing the argument that to fully appreciate the basic dynamics driving China's policy toward Vietnam, we have to look beyond the Sino-Vietnamese relationship and examine wider developments in the Sino-Soviet and Soviet-Vietnamese relationships. After the effective termination of the Sino-Soviet alliance in the early 1960s, the baseline for Sino-Soviet relations was conflictual. In analyzing the dynamics of the Sino-Soviet-Vietnamese triangle, a number of variables suggest themselves (see fig. 1.1 for diagram). For our purposes, Sino-Soviet conflict is the critical antecedent condition.⁷⁴ The independent variable is Soviet-Vietnamese cooperation. The dependent variable is the direction of conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations. Two subhypotheses (H1a, H1b) capture the dynamics of the Sino-Soviet-Vietnamese triangle.