394 { China’s Quest
He also recalled that Mao and Zhou had declared assistance to Vietnam’s
socialist construction to be an “international obligation.” Hua Guofeng
responded by charging Vietnam with bullying and trying to subordinate
Cambodia. The talks became acrimonious. Le Duan shocked his Chinese lis-
teners by praising the Soviet Union by name for its assistance to Vietnam. He
thereby underlined Hanoi’s alternative to Chinese assistance, and the dan-
gerous situation in which China might find itself.
Beijing tried to paper over deepening Vietnamese-Kampuchean conflicts
by involving the two sides in negotiations. In January 1978, a Chinese dele-
gation led by Zhou Enlai’s widow Deng Yingchao and Vice Foreign Minister
Han Nianlong visited Phnom Penh to recommend negotiations toward a set-
tlement of disputes on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.
The Khmer Rouge rejected any such moderation. The symbolism of Zhou’s
widow as head of the mission was not lost on Khmer Rouge leaders. They
understood and hated Zhou’s moderate and nonrevolutionary approach
to diplomacy. The Khmer Rouge agreed with the Gang of Four in that re-
gard. They would not accept such unprincipled and unrevolutionary com-
promise. Khmer Rouge media even hinted that a powerful friend (meaning
China) might be bullying small, brave Kampuchea. The threat of alienating
Democratic Kampuchea—China’s only ally in Southeast Asia—caused Beijing
to abandon its bid for negotiations and revert to full, unequivocal backing for
Phnom Penh. The stage for China’s punishment of Hanoi for regime change
in Cambodia was set.Vietnam’s Deepening Alignment with the Soviet UnionVietnam’s deepening alignment with the USSR was a second major reason
for China’s decision to “teach Vietnam a lesson.” As Hanoi moved toward
regime change in Cambodia, it embraced military and security cooperation
with the Soviet Union. Deng Xiaoping saw these processes as related: Hanoi
knew China would not accept Vietnamese domination of Cambodia and
sought Soviet protection to counter Chinese objections to such an effort.
A hard, punitive strike against Vietnam would trump Hanoi’s Soviet card,
in Deng’s view, and teach Hanoi that support from the faraway Soviet Union
would not protect Hanoi’s trampling on China’s interests.^26 Vietnamese
participation in what Chinese leaders deemed to be Soviet encirclement of
China was unacceptable to China, and Hanoi had to be made to understand
this fact of life.^27
Moscow interpreted the DRV’s dramatic 1975 victory over the United States
as marking a fundamental shift in the global correlation of forces between
imperialism and socialism, and moved aggressively to exploit that perceived
global shift. The buildup of Soviet naval forces after the 1962 Cuban missile