390 { China’s Quest
even more radical policies were adopted: money was abolished, and com-
munal eating was instituted. Fighting between the Khmer Rouge and the
Vietnamese in eastern Cambodia intensified. By the time the US position in
Indochina collapsed in April 1975, a low-grade war between Khmer Rouge
and PAVN-backed forces was underway in much of Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh in early April 1975, about
three weeks before Saigon fell to the PAVN. The Khmer Rouge would rule
Cambodia, which they renamed Democratic Kampuchea, for three years and
eight months. During that period, they killed an estimated 2.4 million people,
roughly one-third of Cambodia’s population of 7 million.^14 The Khmer Rouge
turned Cambodia into a vast prison camp in pursuit of the communist uto-
pia. Anyone who challenged or disputed that quest in any way was executed.
Under Khmer Rouge rule, the economy collapsed—in ways not too dissim-
ilar from China’s economic collapse during the Great Leap Forward. Many
people died of starvation or diseases associated with malnutrition. China was
the Khmer Rouge’s main foreign supporter during this holocaust.
The terror-driven utopian quest of the Khmer Rouge was similar to the
CCP’s policies during the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution. Such
ideological affinities did not, however, determine China’s efforts to keep
Cambodia free from Vietnamese domination. Considerations of power and
national security guided Beijing’s Cambodian policies. First of all, China ben-
efited from having more and weaker rather than fewer and stronger countries
on its southern borders. If there were three states in old French Indochina,
those states would each be smaller and weaker than if there were one multina-
tional state directed by Hanoi. Three smaller and weaker states would be less
likely to challenge China in various ways, and more likely to look to China for
support against one another. A single strong state, on the other hand, might
reject China’s requests and trample on China’s interests. In short, a frag-
mented, “balkanized” structure of power benefited China. Beijing framed
this in terms of high principle.
A second reason for Beijing to object to Hanoi’s attempt to dominate
Cambodia was that Cambodia was a friendly state under the protection of
China. In effect, Cambodia was China’s protectorate, and that privileged rela-
tion was under direct challenge by Hanoi. Historically, Cambodia had looked
to China for protection. In 1407, the Ming emperor Yongle sent an army
of 200,000 to punish Vietnam for offenses including seizure of Champa, a
kingdom bordering Cambodia on the territory of what is today southern
Vietnam. A later Khmer appeal to Yongle for protection against a Champa
attack yielded a Chinese envoy urging peace but no Chinese army to enforce
that appeal. Nevertheless, the idea of China as regional policeman continued
to inform Khmer strategic thinking.^15 Sihanouk’s diplomacy of friendship
with the PRC was in line with this Cambodian diplomatic tradition. As
soon as Cambodia gained independence after the 1954 Geneva conference,