A Nervous China Invades Vietnam

By TERRY MCCARTHY

Early in the morning of Feb. 17, 1979, Chinese artillery batteries and multiple rocket launchers opened fire all along the Vietnamese border with protracted barrages that shook the earth for miles around. Then 85,000 troops surged across the frontier in human-wave attacks like those China had used in Korea nearly three decades before. They were decimated: the well-dug-in Vietnamese cut down the Chinese troops with machine guns, while mines and booby traps did the rest. Horrified by their losses, the Chinese quickly replaced the general in charge of the invasion that was meant, in Beijing's words, to teach Vietnam a lesson, and concentrated their attack on neighboring provincial capitals. Using tanks and artillery, they quickly overran most of the desired towns: by March 5, after fierce house-to-house fighting, they captured the last one, Lang Son, across the border from Pingxiang. Then they began their withdrawal, proclaiming victory over the Cubans of the Orient, as Chinese propaganda had dubbed them. By China's own estimate, some 20,000 soldiers and civilians from both sides died in the 17-day war. Who learned the bigger lesson? The invasion demonstrated a contradiction that has forever bedeviled China's military and political leaders:
Read more: Time