the Tet offensive, about which the Chinese were ambivalent, failed in
its military objectives but succeeded in undermining whatever con-
sensus existed on the war in the United States. US President Lyndon
Johnson announced he would not seek re-election, limited bombing of
North Vietnam, and called for substantive peace negotiations with
Hanoi. Such negotiations made good sense to the DRV, which
responded positively. The Vietnamese knew the United States could
not be defeated militarily, so the only option was a political settlement
that allowed for a face-saving American withdrawal. A strategy of ‘talk
and fight’ was adopted, to be pursued until the Americans had had
enough. This drew support from the Soviet Union, which continued
to supply the DRV with heavy weapons, but angered Beijing, which
had not been consulted and had consistently opposed peace negoti-
ations.^15 The balance of influence in Vietnam was already shifting
perceptibly from China to the Soviet Union.
The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia—justified by the
Brezhnev doctrine of ‘limited sovereignty’ allowing Soviet interven-
tion in socialist states in defence of socialism—and the outbreak of
fighting along the Sino–Soviet border the following year, served to
confirm China’s perception of the Soviet Union as aggressively seeking
global hegemony, at a time when the US was signalling its desire to
withdraw from Vietnam. For its part, Washington saw China as aggres-
sive and intransigent, and turned increasingly to Moscow to bring
pressure to bear on Vietnam. It seemed increasingly likely to Beijing,
therefore, that what happened in Indochina would be decided by the
US and the Soviet Union with minimal consideration for Chinese
interests.
Not only was the PRC being ignored by the great powers, but
its standing in its own region was in decline. The repercussions of
the Cultural Revolution had been felt throughout Southeast Asia.
The radical turn in Chinese policy, leading to renewed support for
pro-Beijing, anti-imperialist, and anti-hegemonist revolutionary move-
ments alienated governments in the region. Thailand, in particular, was
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia