China was allied with North Vietnam against the United States during the Vietnam War. Despite the apparent unity among Vietnam's allies, Chinese and Vietnamese have often been mutually suspicious of each other. In 1979, just four years after the communists took power in Vietnam, China attacked Vietnam to punish it for invading Cambodia and Laos. However, Vietnam's small but battle-hardened army caused an estimated twenty thousand Chinese casualties. The Chinese invaders were stopped only a few miles inside the Vietnamese border.
This Chinese incursion pales when compared to the longstanding conflict between China and Vietnam. For hundreds of years Vietnam was a Chinese colony that only gained independence with great difficulty in 939 c. E. Afterward, Vietnam often paid tribute to China and recognized Chinese influence but resisted interference in their domestic affairs.
Vietnamese suspicion of the Chinese is very strong. When the Chinese sought to accept the Japanese surrender in Vietnam after World War II, Vietnamese nationalist groups invited the French to take control in Vietnam. The Vietnamese thought the French would counterbalance the Chinese and would be easier to expel later.
The Vietnamese perceived themselves as being threatened by their much smaller and less well developed Southeast Asian neighbors, Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam invaded Cambodia and Laos and supported puppet regimes there throughout the
1980's and 1990's. China objects to both these Vietnamese incursions.
Possibility for conflict also exists over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, since they are claimed by both China and Vietnam. While there are some Chinese in the more remote southern islands of this chain, the principal conflict is not over the residents but over the seabed in the area surrounding the islands. Any country that can enforce its claim on the Spratly Islands can claim the surrounding ocean floor, which is believed to contain rich natural resources, particularly oil.
World History
