388 { China’s Quest
the Soviet Union had time to act. The PLA estimated it would take Moscow
at least two weeks to decide on and organize a reaction, and by that time
Chinese forces would be withdrawing (at least according to the original time-
table). The great distance between the USSR and the SRV would also limit the
Soviet response. Moscow could send supplies and advisors by aircraft, but
the route would be long and time-consuming. Sending heavy equipment and
large amounts of supplies by ship would take longer than the war would last.
The only realistic form of intervention open to Moscow was to ignite a
border war along China’s northern or northwestern border. This was pos-
sible, PRC leaders decided, and they ordered forces there to heightened levels
of readiness. But fighting even a border war with China would take many
weeks of preparation and the movement of units and supplies. Again, the war
with Vietnam would be over by that time. If Moscow instigated some border
disturbances without such preparation, they were likely to be small-scale and
could be easily managed by the PLA. Moscow would also worry that China
might choose to escalate a border conflict; was Vietnam worth a Soviet war
with China? Chinese planners thought it unlikely Moscow would conclude
that it was. Aligning the United States behind China in its upcoming punitive
war—or seeming to align it—would add further to restraints on the Soviet
Union. Sino-Soviet border skirmishes were one thing; a big Soviet war with
China backed by the United States was something else. Securing at least the
appearance of American support was one purpose of Deng’s January 1979
visit to the United States.Cambodia: China’s Friend or Vietnam’s Partner?The status of Cambodia was probably the single most important cause of the
1979 war. Was Cambodia to be a fully independent state and a friend of China,
or an especially close partner of Vietnam within a political structure led by
the SRV? Leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV, as the VWP
was renamed in December 1976) were determined to bring Cambodia into
a Vietnam-led political coalition, an “Indochina federation” as it came to be
called. Beijing was equally determined to prevent that, and uphold Cambodia
as an independent state able to look to China for support and protection—as
Cambodian rulers had traditionally done for centuries. These conflicting
objectives built on a split within the Kampuchean communist movement into
China-oriented and Vietnam-oriented factions. In effect, Beijing and Hanoi
each supported a faction of the Kampuchean communist movement willing
to work with it.
The cleavages within the Kampuchean communist movement had deep
roots. As discussed in an earlier chapter, in the late 1950s Cambodian stu-
dents educated in France had imbibed Marxism and Maoism there began