The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia changed China’s rel-
ations with the rest of Southeast Asia. As Sino–Vietnamese relations
had deteriorated, both sides had attempted to explain their respective
positions in Southeast Asian capitals. Only Jakarta had much sympa-
thy for Hanoi. Other states were more receptive to Chinese warnings
about Soviet support for Vietnamese ambitions to create an ‘Indochina
federation’. When the Vietnamese showed they were prepared to
achieve this through military means, Beijing seemed to have been
proved right, and the PRC was suddenly in a position to act as cham-
pion, not of radical social change, but of the status quo.
The Chinese invasion of Vietnam proved that China was pre-
pared to use military force not just in defence of its own frontiers, but
also in support of its broader interests, at least in continental South-
east Asia. This may have been reassuring to the Thai in the short term,
but it carried with it worrying implications for future China–Southeast
Asia relations. As for Vietnam, the Chinese invasion confirmed its his-
torical experience that the price of independence has always to be paid
in blood, and thereby reinforced core elements of its strategic and
international relations culture.^6
The Third Indochina War came at a time when Deng Xiaoping
was already opening China’s door to the West. This was designed to
encourage foreign investment, technology transfer and tourism in
order to bring in the foreign exchange that China needed to carry
through its ‘four modernisations’. The first modernisation was in agri-
culture. Collective farming was phased out in favour of families
producing for a free market in agricultural produce. Private industry
(the second modernisation) was allowed to compete with state-owned
enterprises, with the watchword being improved technology (the third
modernisation along with science).
Military modernisation, the fourth priority, proceeded more
slowly. The invasion of Vietnam, effectively stopped in its tracks by
the Vietnamese, showed up the deficiencies in the large but poorly
equipped and led Chinese armed forces. Reforms followed, but twelve
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia