A valuable book worth reading.

(Baonghean) - This 108-page book, published by Su That Publishing House, Hanoi, October 1979, reprinted July 18, 2009, contains all the important documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam published on October 4, 1979. The book is divided into 5 parts:

Part One: Vietnam in China's Strategy

Part two: China and the end of the Indochina War in 1954.

Part Three: China and the Vietnamese People's Struggle for the Liberation of the South and National Reunification (1954-1975)

Part four: China and a completely liberated and unified Vietnam (from May 1975 to the present)

Part five: Beijing's expansionist policies - a threat to national independence, peace, and stability in Southeast Asia.

I first read this book in April 1980 at the National Library in Hanoi, exactly one year after the Northern border war had essentially ended. Since then, China has undergone tremendous changes, but one thing that its ruling class has not changed is its strategic goal of rapidly making China a world superpower, and its scheme of expanding its hegemonic power over other countries, with Vietnam being their number one target.

For the past few months, the Global Times (a version of the People's Daily, the central organ of the Chinese Communist Party) has been actively publishing hateful and belligerent articles against Vietnam. This prompted me to reread "THE TRUTH ABOUT VIETNAM-CHINA RELATIONS OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS"—the only book by Vietnam that openly reveals the truth about "Vietnam-China relations." The book reveals early on that, in their global strategy, Chinese leaders considered the Soviet Union and the United States as the primary targets to be defeated, and they viewed Vietnam as an important target to be subdued and annexed in order to easily achieve their strategic interests. At the 1956 Central Committee meeting of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong said: “We must become a leading nation in cultural, scientific, technological, and industrial development… It is unacceptable that after a few decades, we have still not become the world’s number one superpower.” In September 1959, at a meeting of the Central Military Commission, Mao again said: “We must conquer the earth. That is our goal.”

The Zhongnanhai policy of annexing Vietnam is part of their overall policy toward Southeast Asian countries, as well as other neighboring countries. They seized Indian territory in the 1962 war; they do not want a strong India that they believe could compete with them for "leadership" among Asian and African countries. They still plot to seize Mongolia, even though they have recognized the People's Republic of Mongolia as an independent state. They want to seize a portion of Soviet territory, and strongly dislike having a powerful Soviet Union alongside China, so they seek to undermine the Soviet Union's prestige, push imperialist countries to wage war against the Soviet Union, and push Asian, African, and Latin American countries against the Soviet Union. They concentrate all their efforts on instigating an "international crusade" of imperialist and reactionary forces against the Soviet Union under the guise of "anti-hegemony," following Mao's formula of "sitting on the mountain and watching the tigers fight." Many Western European politicians and journalists believe that Zhongnanhai is determined to "fight the Soviet Union to the last Western European."

From Zhongnanhai considering the Soviet Union as the primary enemy, to their instigation of a border conflict with the Soviet Union in March 1969, to their second betrayal of Vietnam, trading with the US to prevent the complete victory of the Vietnamese people. In 1971, they engaged in "ping-pong diplomacy," welcoming Kissinger in Beijing, receiving US President Nixon, and the Shanghai Communiqué issued in February 1972. Just as after the 1954 Geneva Accords on Indochina, after the January 1973 Paris Agreement on Vietnam, Chinese leaders wanted to maintain the status quo in South Vietnam. In Chairman Mao's 1939 book, "The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party," reprinted in June 1949, there is a passage that reads: "After defeating China through war, the imperialist powers seized many dependent states and parts of Chinese territory: Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, Ryukyu, the Penghu Islands, and Port Arthur. Britain occupied Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, and Hong Kong. France occupied Annam…"

The victory of the Vietnamese people in 1975, overthrowing the puppet regime of the US, liberating the South, and unifying the country, was not only a major defeat for the US imperialists, but also a major failure for the Beijing regime in implementing its global strategy and expansionist and hegemonic ambitions. Since then, they have openly pursued a hostile policy against Vietnam, including through military means. Southeast Asia is a traditional direction of expansion in Chinese history, a region that the expansionist factions in Zhongnanhai have long coveted.

In 1963, during talks with representatives of the Vietnamese Workers' Party in Wuhan, Mao Zedong compared Thailand to Sichuan province in China, noting that while their land area was similar, Sichuan had twice the population, and said that China needed to send people to live in Thailand. Regarding Laos, a country with a large land area and sparse population, Mao also suggested that China should send people to live there. In August 1965, Mao further asserted: “We must seize Southeast Asia, including South Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore… A region like Southeast Asia is very rich, with many mineral resources… worthy of the necessary expense to seize it… After seizing Southeast Asia, we can strengthen our power in this region, then we will have the strength to confront the Soviet-Eastern European bloc, and the East wind will blow away the West wind…”

Over the past 30 years (up to 1979), Zhongnanhai has employed numerous tactics to implement its expansionist policy in Southeast Asia. They built up strategic nuclear forces, developed their economic power, relied on their great power status, threatened militarily, and promised economic aid to bribe, entice, or pressure countries in the region, aiming to bring them into their orbit. They encroached on the territories of other countries and caused border conflicts, using puppet forces or directly invading with troops to weaken and easily subjugate or annex various countries in the region. They did not shy away from any brutal act, such as using the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime to carry out a genocidal policy in Cambodia. They employ various tools in Southeast Asian countries: overseas Chinese acting as a "fifth column," so-called "communist" organizations acting on Beijing's orders, and ethnic minorities in the region with some degree of Chinese ancestry to serve their expansionist and hegemonic policies.

Vietnam occupies a strategic position in Southeast Asia. Historically, the feudal Chinese regimes repeatedly invaded Vietnam in an attempt to conquer it, using it as a springboard to invade other countries in Southeast Asia. After the end of World War II, among the communist parties in the region, only the Communist Party of Vietnam seized power and established the first worker-peasant state in the region. The Vietnamese Revolution had a tremendous impact due to its victory over French colonialism and American imperialism. Chinese leaders plotted to control Vietnam in order to gain control of the entire Indochinese peninsula, opening a path to Southeast Asia. During a meeting of representatives from the four communist parties of Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and Laos in Guangdong in September 1963, Zhou Enlai said: “Our country is large but lacks access routes, so we earnestly hope that the Vietnamese Workers' Party will open a new path to Southeast Asia for us.”

The book shows us that, in order to weaken and seize control of Vietnam, they made every effort to break the unity and divide the three Indochinese countries, especially to separate Laos and Cambodia from Vietnam.

SYMPHONY