First Published: The Call, Vol. 8, No. 9, March 5, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Two weeks ago, Chinese troops crossed the border into Vietnam, launching a counterattack in response to months of Vietnamese military provocations on the frontier between the two countries. As we go to press, Chinese troops are continuing to strike back at Vietnamese forces, although Chinese Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping has expressed the hope that his country’s objectives can be achieved quickly and its soldiers withdrawn soon.
We believe that China’s actions in this instance have been just, necessary and correct. We support China’s right to safeguard its borders and defend its citizens from attack. Moreover, we support China in its efforts to check the aggressive designs of Vietnam, which has been acting as the Soviet Union’s agent in Asia not only by menacing China but also by occupying Kampuchea (Cambodia) and threatening other countries.
The events in Southeast Asia have unfolded in complicated, rapid succession. The Soviet Union and its revisionist followers have tried to cover up Vietnam’s continuing occupation of Kampuchea by focusing attention on China’s so-called “invasion” of Vietnam. The U.S. imperialists meanwhile have tried to equate the “two invasions,” condemning the Chinese role in Vietnam as well as the Vietnamese role in Kampuchea.
Under these circumstances, it’s no surprise that some honest people have been temporarily confused about the situation. But clear cut issues of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, are not really that hard to sort out when one examines the facts.
The aggressor in Southeast Asia is certainly not China, which has carried out only a limited retaliatory strike to clear its borders of encroaching Vietnamese troops and has pledged not to permanently occupy a “single inch of Vietnamese soil.” The real aggressors are clearly the Soviet and Vietnamese forces, who are allied militarily through the “friendship treaty” they signed last year and are connected by a thousand economic and political strings.
After bringing Laos under their control by stationing 50,000 troops there, Vietnam has now invaded and occupied Kampuchea with 150,000 more troops. The puppet regime they set up in Phnom Penh has just recently “invited” the Vietnamese army to stay for 25 years. On top of all this, they have carried out a campaign of systematic persecution of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam and have staged constant attacks across the Chinese border.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union continues its military build-up on China’s borders, having recently placed its million troops there on “alert” for an aggressive thrust into Chinese territory.
China’s firm response to this pattern of Soviet-Vietnamese aggression will not only safeguard China’s revolution and China’s national security, it will also contribute positively to the struggle for world peace. With the Soviet imperialists already marching through one country after another (often with Cuban or Vietnamese frontmen), the only road that can postpone the outbreak of war on a world scale is determined resistance by the peoples and countries of the world. China is offering a model of such resistance through its current posture in relation to Soviet-Vietnamese aggression and expansionism.
Of course we cannot be happy that a situation has arisen in which it is necessary for China to act militarily in Vietnam. The American people and the revolutionary movement in this country have a long history of solidarity with the Vietnamese people, and we will continue to uphold those traditions.
But the aggressive path that the Vietnamese leaders and their masters in Moscow have charted must be opposed. It is they who must bear the complete blame for the fighting in Southeast Asia, not China.