Southeast Asia: Fierce Fight Between Neighbors

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Two quarrelsome Communist neighbors, China and Viet Nam, were at it again last week. Ferocious fighting appeared to be underway, resulting in heavy casualties. Both sides had widely differing accounts of how it began. Peking charged that Viet Nam had attacked China's southern border. The official New China News Agency reported that Chinese frontier guards in Yunnan province had repulsed the invaders after ten hours of pitched battle. The Viet Nam News Agency, accusing China of shelling border hamlets, claimed that Chinese troops had seized strategic positions in the north of Viet Nam.

China has a vested interest in keeping the border war going. With troops positioned along the frontier, Viet Nam has been unwilling to carry out a full-scale offensive against Chinese-backed guerrillas next door, in Kampuchea. China is not the only neighbor upset with Viet Nam. At a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia last week, attended by U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, the region's foreign ministers joined in condemning Viet Nam's "illegal occupation" of Kampuchea.