Countering the United States in Vietnam } 237
to use military force if the DRV continued heavy infiltration into the south.
Another US signal at the same time was heavy bombing of Pathet Lao head-
quarters in Laos.^7 Hanoi responded by dispatching DRV military Chief of
Staff Van Tien Dung to Beijing to solicit Chinese aid and backing for ignoring
US demands. Mao and Zhou promised full Chinese support. Mao told Dung
that if the United States invaded the DRV, China would send troops as volun-
teers, as in Korea. The two parties and the two countries must cooperate in
fighting the common enemy, Mao told Dong.
The next month, Zhou Enlai led a delegation to Hanoi to discuss the situ-
ation with VWP and Pathet Lao leaders. The United States was using South
Vietnam as a place to test counterinsurgency war and as a base to attack
socialism, Zhou said. China would support the struggles of the peoples of
Southeast Asia and match US actions. If the United States sent troops, China
would send troops. If the United States invaded the DRV, China would send
troops to the DRV. Zhou suggested that as a political strategy the revolution-
ary forces uphold the Geneva agreements of 1954 and 1962. This would permit
exploitation of contradictions between Washington and Paris, and would
rally international public opinion against US involvement in Indochina.
Publicly, Beijing warned Washington that the PRC stood behind the DRV.
On July 6, Foreign Minister Chen Yi sent his DRV counterpart, Xuan Thuy,
a message saying:
US imperialism is openly clamoring for an extension of the war to the
DRV and threatening to subject northern Vietnam to air and naval
blockade as well as bombing ... China and he DRV are fraternal neigh-
bors closely related like the lips and the teeth. The Chinese people can-
not be expected to look on with folded arms in the face of any aggression
against the democratic Republic of Vietnam.^8
The Renmin ribao commentary accompanying the publication of this note
said, “The Chinese people will certainly not allow the US imperialists to play
with fire right by their side.”^9 The message was clear: by attacking the DRV,
the United States risked a war with China.
Beijing’s efforts to deter US attack on the DRV failed. In August 1964,
following the Gulf of Tonkin incident, US warplanes bombed six North
Vietnamese naval bases and associated fuel facilities and sank twenty DRV
vessels. Coming after several months of Chinese warnings to Washington
not to attack the DRV, the US attacks were a serious blow to Beijing’s cred-
ibility. Beijing responded by reaffirming its determination to support Hanoi
and upped the ante. A PRC statement issued just after the US bombing attacks
declared that the US action “went over the brink of war.” “The Chinese
Government has served serious warnings on the US Government on many
occasions that should it dare to launch an attack on the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam, the Chinese people will absolutely not sit by with folded arms or