The Vietnam-Kampuchea-China conflicts: motivations, background, significance.

Abstract

The aim of the seminar from which these papers and discussions derived was to analyse the basic causes and underlying political dynamics of the two related conflicts that were then (September 1978) welling up between Vietnam, Kampuchea and China. Since that time, the earlier low-level violence of 1977-78 has escalated dramatically into open warfare, following the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea on December 25 in support of an insurgent Khmer 'National United Front for National Salvation', the overthrow of Pol Pot regime and the installation of Heng Samrin as head of a new Kampuchean government backed by Vietnam. These developments resulted in a sharp intensification of the Sino-Soviet rift, a serious blow to China's prestige as Kampuchea's protector, Hanoi's further 'tilt' towards Russia and away from China, and finally the Chinese invasion of Vietnamese territory on 17 February. Show more