252 { China’s Quest
extension, that the VWP was not about to be taken over by pro-Soviet forces.
Le Duan also rejected negotiations, again up to 1968, because he believed that
they would fail unless the revolutionary forces had achieved a decisive victory
on the battlefield. The seizure of major cities and the toppling of the govern-
ment of South Vietnamese leader Nguyen Van Thieu during the Tet offensive
of 1968 were intended to be such decisive victories.
But contrary to Hanoi’s expectations, the anticipated urban uprising did
not occur. Neither Thieu’s government nor the city of Saigon (or any other
major South Vietnamese city, except Hui for a brief period) fell to com-
munist forces during the Tet offensives. But Johnson’s dramatic reorienta-
tion of American policy in the first half of 1968 indicated to Le Duan that
Hanoi had achieved an advantageous position conducive to negotiations.
Preliminary talks between the United States and the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam began in Paris in May 1968. As noted earlier, formal talks began in
October 1968.
When Hanoi announced in April 1968 that it was ready for talks with the
United States, it did so without giving Beijing prior notification, let alone
securing Beijing’s consent. Beijing was unhappy with both the process and
the substance of Hanoi’s move. Ho Chi Minh was in Beijing for medical
treatment when the decision was announced, and he told Chinese leaders,
when asked, that he knew nothing about the decision. Hanoi compounded its
mistake, in Beijing’s view, in October when it agreed to the inclusion in the
talks of Saigon’s Nguyen van Thieu government. In November 1968, Beijing
reluctantly endorsed the VWP’s decision of negotiating while fighting.
The VWP’s double rejection of Chinese advice—on both war strategy and
negotiations—in favor of Soviet advice was unacceptable to Mao and Zhou.
When Le Duc Tho visited Beijing in October 1968 to brief China on negotia-
tions with the United States, he encountered withering condemnation from
Foreign Minister Chen Yi:
At present, Washington and Saigon are publicizing the negotiations,
showing the fact that you have accepted the conditions put forward by
the US. Your returning home for party instructions all the more proves
it to the world’s people. With your acceptance of the quadripartite nego-
tiations [i.e., including the RVN] you have handed the puppet govern-
ment legal recognition, thus eliminating the National Liberation Front’s
status as the unique legal representative of the people of the south. ... In
our opinion, in a very short time, you have accepted the compromising
and capitulationist proposals put forward by the Soviet revisionists. So
between our two parties and the two governments ... there is nothing
more to talk about.^39
Chen softened his stance at the very end of his talk by calling Vietnam
and China “brothers” as well as “comrades.” At the end of October, however,