256 { China’s Quest
China constructed a four-inch-diameter pipeline from south China to Hanoi
to deliver fuel. This was vital assistance, since Hanoi’s petroleum imports by sea
had been shut off. As shown in Figure 9-1, China’s supply of arms and vehicles
shot up in 1971 and 1972. The VWP took China’s assistance and thanked Beijing
for it, but Vietnamese expressions of gratitude were hollow. Privately, VWP
leaders were furious at what they saw as China’s “betrayal.” The Americans
would not have dared to take such harsh blows against the DRV as delivered
in 1972 if China had not eased US fears by opening ties with the United States.
As a Vietnamese White Paper published later in 1979 said, “With the Korean
War, the U.S. imperialists learned the lesson that they should not wage a war
on the Asian continent, especially in countries adjacent to China, less a direct
military confrontation with China should take place.”^47 Inviting Kissinger and
Nixon to China had allowed the American imperialists to ignore those les-
sons. From the VWP perspective, the CCP had betrayed the world revolution
and Vietnam’s liberation struggle.The Endgame at the Paris Peace TalksAs US-DRV negotiations approached their endgame in 1971–1972, Beijing fol-
lowed a dual strategy. On the one hand, it refused to go along with US efforts
to pressure Hanoi and deliberately disassociated itself from those efforts. It
also maintained a high level of material and rhetorical support for Hanoi’s
war effort. On the other hand, Chinese leaders urged Hanoi to grant the
United States a face-saving exit from Vietnam, leaving the incumbent Saigon
government temporarily in place to be destroyed by Vietnam’s revolutionary
forces at some unspecified later point after the Americans had militarily
withdrawn from Vietnam. This dual policy was an attempt to serve China’s
dual interests: building a new, cooperative relation with the United States,
while not alienating DRV leaders. Ultimately, the VWP would comply with
Beijing’s recommendations and grant Washington a face-saving exit. But that
arrangement evoked strong memories of Geneva in 1954, and left a bitter taste
in the mouths of VWP leaders. With the collapse of DRV-PRC relations in
1979, Hanoi would take to calling China’s role at this juncture yet another
“betrayal.”
US leaders hoped that their new relation with Beijing would induce China
to persuade Hanoi to adopt a more moderate approach to a settlement. The
crux of the US-DRV dispute at the peace talks in Paris was the relation be-
tween a military and a political settlement in Vietnam. The VWP insisted
that a political settlement, including the removal of Nguyen Van Thieu’s
Saigon government and its replacement by an interim government, must pro-
ceed in tandem with an end to fighting. Washington insisted that military
and political settlements be delinked, with an end of fighting, including the