A War of Angry Cousins

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Taking Peking's avowals at face value, Western intelligence experts predicted that the Chinese offensive would be limited to a "punitive lesson," and once the punishment had been meted out, the troops would withdraw. But in capitals around the world there were shudders at the ominous global implications if the war were not contained and short-lived, if it were to provoke direct Soviet intervention or retaliation on behalf of their Vietnamese client. It was a heyday for alarmists: "I would bet that it won't happen—but we are very much in danger of a third world war. It could be starting at this moment," warned New York Senator Daniel Moynihan. Administration advisers and military strategists were less worried, but no one was prepared to deny that the world's newest war contained the potential for much wider, and even uncontrollable, conflagration.

The fighting, in the wooded hills and tilled valleys of a scenic region called the Viet Bac, was shrouded behind military secrecy on both sides and by a cloud cover that thwarted satellite observation. Hanoi issued regular self-serving communiques; Peking's announcements were so cryptic as to be meaningless. Said one Hong Kong observer: "It's like hearing a couple of cats squawling in the middle of the night —they're making a helluva racket, but you don't know if they are fighting or making love." From the start of hostilities, however, it was all too obvious that the front-line units of China's huge, 3% million-man land army and those of Viet Nam's leaner but highly honed 615,000 troops were not embracing. At dawn on Saturday, Feb. 17, Chinese forces, massed more than 300,000 strong north of Viet Nam in Yunnan and Kwangsi provinces, loosed a massive artillery barrage on key border positions. Hardest hit were Vietnamese concentrations around the cities of Lao Cai, Muong Khuong, Cao Bang, Lang Son and Mong Cai. The People's Liberation Army, untested in major formation warfare since it crossed the Yalu River in October 1950 to surprise and rout the U.N. forces in Korea, stormed across the border at 26 different points.

The declaration of war came in a transparently disingenuous Peking announcement that its forces were engaged in a "counterattack" against Vietnamese provocations. "The Chinese frontier forces took the action when the situation became intolerable and there was no alternative," said the official Hsinhua News Agency. "We don't want a single inch of Vietnamese soil. What we want is a stable and peaceful frontier. After hitting back at the aggressors as far as necessary, our frontier forces will turn to guard strictly the frontiers of our motherland."

B.y 9 a.m. on Saturday, mortar shells descended near Lang Son, according to an Agence France-Presse correspondent on the scene. To the north, heavy artillery shells could be heard every ten to 30 seconds. "Chinese troops have launched a general attack, all the frontier posts are being shelled by heavy artillery," a Vietnamese provincial official announced. "Bloody fighting is taking place, human casualties are certainly heavy." Said a wounded 18-year-old Vietnamese soldier named Trien Van Mien, who staggered into town and fell in the road: "The Chinese are close by, they are everywhere."