for Moscow to improve relations with Beijing than to go on backing a
situation in Cambodia that drained Soviet resources and limited
Soviet influence elsewhere in the region.
The Vietnamese, under severe pressure, promised to withdraw
their forces from Cambodia and Laos by the end of 1989. This opened
the way for Sino–Soviet rapprochment, all the more important for
China as its relations with the West cooled after the Tiananmen mas-
sacre of pro-democracy student demonstrators. At the same time,
Soviet economic and military assistance to Vietnam was reduced. This
left Hanoi with no option but to mend its fences with ASEAN and
China, even if that meant agreeing to a compromise political solution
in Cambodia. Negotiations were complex and extended, with the
crucial question being the role of the Khmer Rouge in whatever
government in Cambodia replaced the PRK. A partial breakthrough
came in 1990 when the UN Security Council took up the question of
Cambodia and the United States withdrew recognition from the
anti-Vietnamese Cambodian coalition. This created the conditions for
negotiations in which several countries, including Indonesia, played a
facilitating role. The shape of the final Comprehensive Political
Settlement, however, was hammered out in discussions between the
Cambodia parties, Vietnam, and China.
The details of the Cambodian Settlement need not detain us.
What was significant was, first, the key role the PRC played in the
political process; and second, that despite some compromise, the
outcome was essentially what China wanted.^7 Vietnam was forced to
make most of the concessions, its only reward being the normalisation
of relations with China. As for Cambodia, the process provided a
lesson for all political factions. The Khmer Rouge was forced under
Chinese pressure to enter into coalition government with the hated
Vietnamese-backed PRK regime, while the PRK learned that China,
not Vietnam, was the real arbiter of Cambodia’s destiny.
The restoration of relations between Vietnam and China pro-
vided a classic example of Chinese coercive diplomacy. Low level talks
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia