H-Diplo article review of Kosal Path. “The Politics of China’s Aid to North Vietnam during the Anti-American Resistance, 1965-1969.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 27:4 (2016): 682-700

• Main Author: WANG, Frances Yaping
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3077; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4334/viewcontent/H_Diplo_Article_Review_737.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

It is a national myth in China that Vietnam, a former brotherly ally, cold-bloodedly turned against China in the late 1970s despite the great sacrifice the Chinese people had made for Vietnam’s independence cause. The relationship deteriorated so drastically that the animosity culminated in a decade-long war between the two countries. Some blame the Le Duan government; others condemn the ingratitude of the Vietnamese people. There has been some faint self-examination within China of its insensitivity to Vietnam’s autonomy and of its assertion of superiority in the relationship. Others substantiate this claim to some degree. For example, Brantly Womack in his book China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry notes that “Although Mao criticized Red Guards who crossed into Vietnam because they ‘do not know what an international border means,’ he himself would occasionally lapse into talking about ‘our troops in the South’ when talking to Vietnamese leaders.”1 Li Danhui’s article on the Sino-Soviet competition and conflicts of interests over the aid to Vietnam also alluded to this problem. 2 But none tells a story from the Vietnamese perspective like this article does.