A War of Angry Cousins

(5 of 9)

In November Moscow and Hanoi formalized their alliance in a 25-year Soviet-Vietnamese treaty of friendship, which was signed with much ceremony in Moscow by Leonid Brezhnev, Premier Aleksei Kosygin and the Vietnamese Communist Party head, Le Duan, as well as Premier Pham Van Dong. Inside the usual bouquet of trade and cultural agreements there was no mistaking the glaring military nutshell: an ambiguous degree of mutual defense, to the extent of "consultations and appropriate effective measures to ensure the peace and security of their countries." For Peking the treaty was a stinging political rebuke.

Then came Viet Nam's lightning conquest of Cambodia. Within a month of its full-scale invasion on Christmas Day, pro-Hanoi insurgents backed by Vietnamese regulars routed the barbarous China-supported Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot. Few international tears were shed as Pol Pot and the straggling remnants of his army were driven into western jungle pockets. From these redoubts, the Khmer Rouge has carried on vigorous resistance against the new regime, a pro-Vietnamese government headed by a former Khmer Rouge defector, Heng Samrin, and propped up by an estimated 130,000 Vietnamese troops. For China the fall of Cambodia meant an enormous loss of face. Ever since, as Teng admitted in Washington, China has steered weapons and supplies to Pol Pot's insurgency in an effort to reverse its fortunes and avenge its own humiliations.

Tension mounted meanwhile along the border with Viet Nam. China alleged that Hanoi's troops had intruded into its territory on 1,100 different occasions. Viet Nam accused China of almost daily incursions. Charges and countercharges enlivened every artillery barrage and exchange of small-arms fire, not to mention kidnaping, livestock rustling and planting of poisoned bamboo stakes. In its loud political buildup to the invasion, China underscored the border aggravations to anyone who would listen—at the U.N., in diplomatic exchanges, and in a shower of communiques. Peking also claimed that Viet Nam was mobilizing for war by drafting recruits at a rate that surpassed the height of the war against Saigon and the U.S., and by calling 200,000 ex-servicemen back under arms.

On D-day minus one, Pham Van Dong, Army Chief of Staff General Van Tien Dung and other Cabinet members flew to Phnom-Penh to sign a friendship treaty with the new Heng Samrin regime. The absence of Viet Nam's top officialdom from Hanoi may have helped determine the timing of Peking's attack.

For many Sinologists, Peking's invasion was another illustration of China's "Great Wall mentality": its obsessive fear of encroachments, real or imagined, against its borders. This siege mentality compelled China to enter the Korean War. It has contributed to periodic flare-ups between Chinese and Soviet troops along the Ussuri and Amur rivers. It may also have been behind China's attack against India in 1962. That assault, in which the Chinese penetrated up to 100 miles inside Indian territory on a broad front but withdrew benignly one month later, was regarded by some as a possible blueprint precedent for the current punitive action.