Historical Context for Vietnamization of Cambodia (e.g. Viettel/Metfone)

Brother Enemy – the War after the War

A History of Indochina Since the Fall of Saigon

By Nayan Chanda

(MacMillan Publishing Co., New York, 1986)

Excerpts from Introduction

… As the Second Indochina War was ending, a new war between comrades and brothers was in the making.  Hardly had the imperialist enemy left the scene [Phnom Penh on April 17, Saigon on April 29, 1975], when age-old rivalry and suspicion surfaced.  The comrades of yesterday started asserting their national interests against one another.  But, cloaked in secrecy and camouflaged behind rhetoric of revolutionary solidarity, it was largely an invisible feud.

… The fall of Saigon and Phnom Penh was followed by bloody clashes between victorious Vietnamese and Cambodian Communists over the control of islands in the Gulf of Thailand.

… The conflict in Indochina became closely intertwined with the Soviet-American rivalry and a growing Sino-American alliance.  While Democratic Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge hermetically sealed its border and relied on China, from 1975 Hanoi tried to develop an independent foreign policy based on a balanced relation relation between the two superpowers.  In the summer of 1977 Vietnam came close to establishing diplomatic ties with the United States, when its persistent demand for reconstruction aid aborted that move.  A year later, as its conflict with Cambodia and China was about to burst into open war, Vietnam desperately wanted ties with Washington and dropped the aid demand.  By then, the international wheel of fortune had turned.  Unknown to the Vietnamese, Peking had decided to “teach Vietnam a lesson” and had intensified its effort to establish a full diplomatic relations with the United States before undertaking that venture.  The Chinese design meshed well with that of Jimmy Carter and his national security adviser, seeking China’s partnership in a global anti-Soviet alliance.  They decided to shelve normalization with Vietnam and secretly push for establishing ties with Peking.  Three decades after going to war in Vietnam to fight “Chinese expansionism,” the United States became a silent partner in Peking’s war against Vietnam.  In February 1979, fresh from his triumphant tour of the United States, China’s vice-chairman, Deng Xiaoping, launched a punitive strike against Vietnam.

The Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and the Chinese invasion climaxed the conflict that had quietly grown since 1975, but they brought no resolution.  In early 1986, some 180,000 Vietnamese troops were still in Cambodia… While the Third Indochina War ground on, the international context changed dramatically.  Thanks to the Sino-Vietnamese war, Moscow acquired a prized military facilities in Vietnam to extend its power in the Pacific.  The hope of anti-Soviet alliance that led Washington to support China against Vietnam, however, was abandoned as China switched to an independent policy and began normalization talks with Moscow.  In a full turning of the cycle, a military strong but isolated and economically battered Vietnam again began pursuing the elusive ties with America.

… The story of the last decade should serve as an object lesson: history and nationalism—not ideology—shape the future of this volatile region…

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Indochina defined by Wikipedia

Indochina, or the Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly east of India, and southwest of China. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "India" and "China", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory to bordering countries.