comprised the two hegemonistic superpowers; their industrialised allies
made up the Second; while all undeveloped countries were relegated
to the Third World. The only way to prevent domination by the
superpowers, Mao argued, was for the Second and Third worlds to
combine to oppose and eventually replace the existing dual global
political and economic system. This provided a new opportunity for
China to play a leadership role, as champion of the Third World, in
creating a more just international order—yet another example of
China’s use of a self-serving morality to pursue its quest for status
recognition.
The theory of the Three Worlds was designed to focus attention
on the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Nowhere did Beijing resent
and fear growing Soviet influence more than in Southeast Asia, espe-
cially in Vietnam, because of the perceived ‘two front’ security threat
this posed. Chinese advice to follow a strategy of ‘people’s war’ in
South Vietnam was disregarded in Hanoi. Instead, the DRV relied on
heavy weapons supplied by Moscow to bring the Second Indochina
War to an abrupt end. This rejection of the Chinese model, the rapid-
ity with which Hanoi forced through the reunification of Vietnam,
and discrimination against ethnic Chinese all soured relations further.
So, too, did China’s opportunistic seizure in 1974 of the Paracel
(Xisha) Islands from South Vietnam. The following year Hanoi moved
quickly to seize control of islands in the Spratly (Nansha) group, for-
merly garrisoned by South Vietnam.
The four years between the end of the Second Indochina War in
1975, and the outbreak of the Third in 1979, initiated by Vietnam’s
invasion of Cambodia, was a period of intense political manoeuvring
in China. With the deaths in 1976 of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, an
era in Chinese history came to an end. Under Mao’s compromise suc-
cessor, Hua Guofeng, the radical ‘Gang of Four’ was overthrown before
Hua himself was eased aside to make way for the return to power of
former CCP Secretary-General, Deng Xiaoping. Deng was a pragma-
tist, famous for his quip that it did not matter what colour a cat was,
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia