This well-researched volume examines the Sino-Vietnamese hostilities of the late 1970s and 1980s, attempting to understand them as strategic, operational and tactical events. The Sino-Vietnamese War was the third Indochina war, and contemporary Southeast Asia cannot be properly understood unless we acknowledge that the Vietnamese fought three, not two, wars to establish their current role in the region. The war was not about the Sino-Vietnamese border, as frequently claimed, but about China’s support for its Cambodian ally, the Khmer Rouge, and the book addresses US and ASEAN involvement in the effort to support the regime. Although the Chinese completed their troop withdrawal in March 1979, they retained their strategic goal of driving Vietnam out of Cambodia at least until 1988, but it was evident by 1984-85 that the PLA, held back by the drag of its ‘Maoist’ organization, doctrine, equipment, and personnel, was not an effective instrument of coercion. Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War will be of great interest to all students of the Third Indochina War, Asian political history, Chinese security and strategic studies in general.

This new collection explores the origins and key issues of the Third Indochina War, which began in 1979. Drawing on unique documentation from all sides, leading contributors reinterpret and demystify the long-term and immediate causes of the Vietnamese-Cambodian and Sino-Vietnamese conflicts. They closely examine how both the links between policies and policy assumptions in the countries involved, and the dynamics - national, regional and international - drove them towards war. Rather than explaining the conflicts as determined by age-old resentments and suspicions or seeing war between the former allies as the necessary outcome of the conflicts of the 1970s, the contributors to this volume look at the concrete causes for the breakdown in cooperation and the road to war. This volume includes even-handed assessments of the roles of the major players, including a look at the beginnings of Thai-Chinese military cooperation in support of the Khmer Rouge. The subjects covered remain highly relevant to inter-state relations in South East Asia, where border issues are still a cause of tension. An updated chronology of events leading to the outbreak of hostilities is also included. This book will be of immense interest to all students of the Third Indochina War, Southeast Asian history and of international relations and war studies in general.

In February 1979 a very violent and strangely limited 28-day war between Asian communist combatants occurred in the remote northern border region of Vietnam. The purpose of this campaign study is to historically examine the People's Republic of China's (PRC) application of strategy in regional conflict and assess the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) operational performance during the Third Indochina Conflict. China's enduring policy of containing Vietnamese hegemony in Southeast Asia ultimately led the PRC leadership to select a carefully limited military response supported by other elements of national power. This integrated national strategic campaign achieved most of its political objective of punishing Vietnam, but the lack of early, conclusive battlefield success by the PLA cost the PRC prestige and negotiation leverage. PLA inadequacies in 1979 at the operational/joint level of war and in offensive tactical organization, doctrine and material have limited study of this event. This approach fails to recognize the Third Indochina Conflict as a recent and overall successful instance of Chinese strategic management of regional conflict and military campaigning in limited warfare. Finally, the conflict's results help explain China's late-20th century military reforms and remain relevant to understanding future PRC military potential and strategic/operational style.

In February 1979 a very violent and strangely limited 28-day war between Asian communist combatants occurred in the remote northern border region of Vietnam. The purpose of this campaign study is to historically examine the People's Republic of China's (PRC) application of strategy in regional conflict and assess the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) operational performance during the Third Indochina Conflict. China's enduring policy of containing Vietnamese hegemony in Southeast Asia ultimately led the PRC leadership to select a carefully limited military response supported by other elements of national power. This integrated national strategic campaign achieved most of its political objective of punishing Vietnam, but the lack of early, conclusive battlefield success by the PLA cost the PRC prestige and negotiation leverage. PLA inadequacies in 1979 at the operational/joint level of war and in offensive tactical organization, doctrine and material have limited study of this event. This approach fails to recognize the Third Indochina Conflict as a recent and overall successful instance of Chinese strategic management of regional conflict and military campaigning in limited warfare. Finally, the conflict's results help explain China's late-20th century military reforms and remain relevant to understanding future PRC military potential and strategic/operational style.

What changes in China's modern military policy reveal about military organizations and strategySince the 1949 Communist Revolution, China has devised nine different military strategies, which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) calls "strategic guidelines." What accounts for these numerous changes? Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats that China has faced, M. Taylor Fravel illuminates the nation's past and present military goals and how China sought to achieve them, and offers a rich set of cases for deepening the study of change in military organizations.Drawing from diverse Chinese-language sources, including memoirs of leading generals, military histories, and document collections that have become available only in the last two decades, Fravel shows why transformations in military strategy were pursued at certain times and not others. He focuses on the military strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993-when the PLA was attempting to wage war in a new kind of way-to show that China has pursued major change in its strategic guidelines when there has been a significant shift in the conduct of warfare in the international system and when China's Communist Party has been united.Delving into the security threats China has faced over the last seven decades, Active Defense offers a detailed investigation into how and why states alter their defense policies.

The surprise Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979 shocked the international community. The two communist nations had seemed firm political and cultural allies, but the twenty-nine-day border war imposed heavy casualties, ruined urban and agricultural infrastructure, leveled three Vietnamese cities, and catalyzed a decadelong conflict. In this groundbreaking book, Xiaoming Zhang traces the roots of the conflict to the historic relationship between the peoples of China and Vietnam, the ongoing Sino-Soviet dispute, and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's desire to modernize his country. Deng's perceptions of the Soviet Union, combined with his plans for economic and military reform, shaped China's strategic vision. Drawing on newly declassified Chinese documents and memoirs by senior military and civilian figures, Zhang takes readers into the heart of Beijing's decision-making process and illustrates the war's importance for understanding the modern Chinese military, as well as China's role in the Asian-Pacific world today.

An examination of how economic development and everyday life intersected with the temperature of Cold War geopolitics in Mao's China.