Old fears: Vietnam, Cambodia and China

H1 History - syllabus 8838, 2027

What this lesson teaches

  • I can judge which factors shaped the Second and Third Indochina Wars.

    Syllabus 8838, Theme III, Learning Outcomes. evaluate the factors that shaped the development of Cold War conflicts in Southeast Asia

Make a guess

By 1976 Vietnam, Cambodia and China all had communist governments. What do you think their relations were like?

  1. Friendly, because they had just won a common war against the USA.
  2. Close, because communist states backed each other.
  3. Tense, because old fears of domination outlasted their shared ideology.
Show the answer

Tense, because old fears of domination outlasted their shared ideology.

Cambodians feared Vietnamese expansion, and Vietnamese resented Chinese pressure. Shared communism did not remove centuries of mistrust.

Centuries of rivalry made Cambodians fear Vietnamese domination and Vietnamese resent Chinese pressure.

Vietnam and Cambodia had a long, unequal history. From the 1600s, Vietnamese settlers and armies moved south into the Mekong Delta, once Khmer land. Many Cambodians feared that Vietnam wanted to absorb their country.

Vietnam and China also had a history of conflict. China ruled Vietnam for about a thousand years, until 939, and invaded several times after that. Vietnamese nationalism was built partly on resisting China.

Communist links did not remove these fears. In 1930 Ho Chi Minh founded a single Indochinese Communist Party for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Khmer communists, including Pol Pot, came to see this as a sign that Hanoi wanted to dominate them.

These old animosities did not cause the war on their own. But they shaped how each side read the others' actions after 1975, turning disputes into deep mistrust.

Chinese rule of Vietnam
About a thousand years, ending in 939.
Indochinese Communist Party
Founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930 for all three countries.
Mekong Delta
Once Khmer land, settled by Vietnamese from the 1600s.

Real examples to use

Ming occupation, 1407-1427

China ruled Vietnam again until Le Loi drove the Ming out. Vietnamese memory of resisting China ran deep.

Ethnic Vietnamese expelled, 1975

The Khmer Rouge drove most ethnic Vietnamese out of Cambodia soon after taking power, an early sign of its hostility to Vietnam.

Worked example: Using history as a factor in an essay

How far did historical animosities shape the Third Indochina War?

  1. Background: Khmer fear of Vietnamese expansion; Vietnamese resistance to China.
  2. Effect: they made each side assume the worst of the others.
  3. Limit: animosities existed for centuries without this war, so a trigger was needed.
  4. Link: Cold War alignments after 1975 turned old fears into open war.

Watch out for this

Communist states could not fight each other because they shared an ideology.

The Third Indochina War was fought between communist states. National interests and historical fears outweighed shared ideology.

Check your understanding

Why did many Khmer communists distrust Hanoi?

  1. Vietnam was allied with the USA.
  2. Vietnam had refused to support communist parties in Cambodia before the 1975 victory.
  3. They feared Vietnam wanted to dominate Cambodia, as the old Indochinese party suggested.
Show the answer

They feared Vietnam wanted to dominate Cambodia, as the old Indochinese party suggested.

Right. History made them suspicious of Vietnamese aims.

Sources and context

Background reading for this chapter.

  • A CIA assessment of the conflict

    Paraphrase of the key judgments of an Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, "Sino-Soviet Competition in Indochina", prepared in the CIA, 14 November 1978.

  • A State Department analysis of Vietnam's motives

    Paraphrase of a briefing memorandum from the Acting Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research to Secretary of State Vance, 8 January 1979, the day after Phnom Penh fell.

  • Thailand watches the Vietnamese advance

    Paraphrase of a telegram from the US embassy in Bangkok to the State Department, 4 January 1979.

  • China prepares to attack

    Paraphrase of the minutes of a US National Security Council meeting on the Sino-Vietnamese conflict, 16 February 1979.

  • Lee Kuan Yew writes to Carter

    Paraphrase of a letter from Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to President Carter, 1 March 1979.

  • a Vietnamese diplomat explains the Soviet treaty, November 1978

    Extract from the US record of a meeting in New York, 30 November 1978, between US official Robert Oakley and the Vietnamese representative (named "Co" in the record) in talks on normalising US-Vietnamese relations, four weeks after Vietnam signed its treaty with the USSR. Secret. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, volume XXII, document 33. A US government document in the public domain.

  • Deng Xiaoping briefs President Carter, 29 January 1979

    Extract from the US memorandum of conversation of a meeting between President Carter, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and their senior advisers, Washington, 29 January 1979, a month after Vietnam invaded Cambodia. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, volume XIII, document 205. A US government document in the public domain.

  • Carter reports Deng's private message, 30 January 1979

    Extract from a US memorandum of conversation, Washington, 30 January 1979, in which President Carter reported to his advisers on his private talk with Deng Xiaoping. China attacked Vietnam on 17 February 1979. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, volume XIII, document 207. A US government document in the public domain.

  • the UN General Assembly on Kampuchea, November 1979

    Extract from United Nations General Assembly Resolution 34/22, "The situation in Kampuchea", adopted at the 67th plenary meeting, 14 November 1979, on a draft sponsored by the ASEAN states. A UN record.

  • a cartoon about the conflict, 1979

    An original cartoon drawn for these notes in the style of a Southeast Asian newspaper cartoon of 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the Chinese attack on Vietnam. It is not a copy of a real cartoon.

The Wise Otter

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