The Strategic Triangle } 413
Alongside such human appeal, Deng placed an appeal to the American
people in plain and direct terms. In an interview with Time magazine,
Deng said:
If we really want to be able to place curbs on the polar bear, the only
realistic thing is for us to unite. If we only depend on the strength of
the US, it is not enough. If we only depend on the strength of Europe, it
is not enough. We [China] are an insignificant, poor country, but if we
unite, well, it will then carry weight.^28Active Anti-Hegemony Partnership: Cambodia and Afghanistan
Southeast Asia and Afghanistan were the two geographic foci of PRC-US
strategic cooperation during the decade 1979–1989. Southeast Asia was the
region that most directly engaged major Chinese security interests. Beijing
responded to Hanoi’s invasion and occupation of Cambodia by fostering a
broad international effort to punish Hanoi. Beijing’s effort began with the
three-week-long war of February 1979. Throughout the remainder of the
1980s, Beijing kept up strong military pressure on Vietnam’s northern bor-
ders. Chronic PLA artillery barrages and infantry incursions of greater or
lesser intensity corresponded to political developments. US policy paralleled
that of Beijing. Washington and Beijing also worked together to dissuade
countries from supplying development assistance or loans to Vietnam, or
establishing diplomatic relations with it.
Support for armed guerrilla resistance to Vietnamese forces in Cambodia
was another component of Beijing’s protracted campaign to punish Vietnam.
Beijing worked out a deal with Thailand whereby eastern Thailand served
as a territorial sanctuary for armed Khmer resistance groups, while China
armed and supplied (via Thailand) the Khmer Rouge, which commanded the
most potent resistance force. The strong PLA presence on Vietnam’s northern
borders helped dissuade Hanoi from violating Thai territory by launching
military strikes into Thailand. After defeating the US-backed Saigon regime
in 1975 with a powerful Soviet-armed conventional army, and inheriting in
addition Saigon’s huge cache of US weaponry, Vietnam was the most po-
tent military power in Southeast Asia at that juncture. China and the United
States cooperated in deterring Hanoi from using that power to move against
the Khmer resistance bases along the Thai-Cambodia border.
Protraction was at the core of Beijing’s strategy against Vietnam. Beijing
was convinced that Hanoi would be unable to sustain the financial, politi-
cal and military costs of its attempt to control Cambodia, and would ulti-
mately be forced to come to terms with Beijing. Beijing’s broad objective was
to teach Hanoi that it could not afford to turn China into an enemy, and