In 1979, as the Vietnamese army frequently harassed our borders, invaded our territory, and even erupted in a strong anti-China movement, our country could not bear it anymore and immediately launched a fierce counterattack.
China and Vietnam are at loggerheads at the border, and both sides are even more insistent on their own opinions.
At this time, the international situation also began to change, and many countries stepped forward to coordinate the relationship between the two countries.
However, many countries, relying on the fact that our country is much stronger than Vietnam, have proposed to require our country to withdraw its troops first, and then the two sides will negotiate, even if the dispute in this matter was started by Vietnam.
However, in the face of the aggressiveness of the great powers, Vice Prime Minister Li Xiannian said very firmly: " If the goal is not achieved, China will definitely not withdraw its troops! "
Why did Li Xiannian say this? How did he solve this dilemma?
Li Xiannian
As neighboring countries separated by a narrow strip of water, China and Vietnam have maintained relatively friendly relations since ancient times. Especially during Vietnam's resistance to France and the United States, the two countries with a common enemy became a community of interests.
During the most critical years of Vietnam's resistance to the United States and France, when my country had not yet solved the problem of food and clothing, it faced tremendous pressure and provided approximately US$20 billion in aid to Vietnam, a country that was also in the socialist camp , supporting their fight for liberation.
Vietnam's leader Ho Chi Minh and our country's leaders have always maintained friendly relations.
However, this relationship began to change after the Sino-Soviet feud. In order to establish a good relationship with the Soviet Union, Vietnam began to target our country, regardless of the assistance China had provided before.
Vietnam's leader Le Duan , in order to satisfy his own ambitions, regards China as a thorn in his side.
During the anti-U.S. war, Ho Chi Minh promised the Vietnamese people that as long as they won this battle, they would be able to build a peaceful, unified, prosperous and powerful country.
Ho Chi Minh
However, after the victory of the war, Ho Chi Minh's successor Le Duan not only failed to fulfill his promise, but also began to expand outward. The peaceful reunification they once said became nothing more than an empty slogan.
In order to achieve his control in the Indochina region, Le Duan set his sights on countries such as Cambodia and Laos. To achieve this goal, this is the simplest and fastest way.
Soon, Le Duan spread the war to China. They tampered with our country's place names on their maps, randomly changed the national borders, and divided our country's territory into their own country, trying to quietly annex our country in this way. territory.
Although our country strongly protested and condemned this at the time, because the conflict between the two parties had not intensified, no practical measures were taken. However, this gave Vietnam an opportunity to make further progress.
They have repeatedly sent people across the border to harass our people, provoke our border soldiers, and even cause bloody accidents.
After 1975, the anti-China sentiment in Vietnam became even stronger. Almost all pro-China factions within the party were suppressed or removed from their posts. Mao Zedong Thoughts in the party constitution were also deleted. They even interfered with the normal activities of local overseas Chinese. lives and deport them all back to their home countries.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg of Le Duan's actions. Since the deaths of Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou and Zhu De in 1976, Vietnam's actions have become increasingly rampant.
Le Duan began to recruit all the veterans who had retired after the end of the Anti-American War and asked them to demobilize and join the army.
They established "Compulsory Military Service Recruitment Committees" across the country to recruit soldiers and horses, making no secret of their desire to start a war.
In just over a year, Vietnam's regular army expanded from more than 600,000 to more than 1 million. The size of the army has far exceeded that during the Anti-American War.
However, many of them were recruited by Le Duan through tough conscription.
In addition to the regular army, Le Duan issued a call across the country to recruit "reserve forces" to be ready to expand the army at any time.
To this end, he did not hesitate to use deception, coercion and other means to lure a large number of young men and women to the Sino-Vietnamese border and organize the so-called "Youth Stormtroopers".
In order to avoid being caught in the army, some people had no choice but to use various means to avoid conscription.
Some people pretended to be sick, some fled to the mountains and forests, some fled abroad in a hurry, and some even directly harmed themselves.
For those who evaded military service, Le Duan directly adopted tough measures, confiscating property, revoking food supplies, depriving them of their means of livelihood and forcing them to serve in the military.
In many families, fathers and children were drafted, and college students were not spared.
Through this method, Le Duan organized anti-China armed forces disguised as civilians on the border and built a large number of military facilities.
As American reports have said, at this time, Vietnam has entered a state of all-military warfare, and its military strength is not what it used to be.
After Le Duan thought he had prepared an army, he began to intensify his harassment of our country's borders, secretly built fortifications on our country's borders, and monitored our country's every move.
At the end of 1978, in the face of repeated invasions by Vietnam, the central government finally made a decision to send troops to Vietnam to fight back. We must protect our country's territory and the safety of our people.
Following the central government's order, in less than a month, more than 300,000 People's Liberation Army troops quickly gathered at the border, ready to launch a counterattack against Vietnam.
In early 1979, Deng Xiaoping visited the United States and personally informed the President of the United States that China was about to send troops to Vietnam, and solemnly stated that our country was just counterattacking in self-defense.
Deng Xiaoping's move was just to use the United States to spread our country's ideas and purposes, so as to avoid Vietnam and the Soviet Union seizing the commanding heights of public opinion.
However, after the news came out, the situation between countries became more and more complicated. The Soviet Union, the driving force behind Vietnam, was eyeing this war. Western countries also maintained a wait-and-see attitude towards this war, and some people in the same camp as the Soviet Union The country began to accuse our country, claiming that our country was bullying small countries, and demanded that our country withdraw its troops immediately.
But even when faced with being attacked from the front and back, Deng Xiaoping still made a firm decision: to send troops to Vietnam to defend the country.
Soon, the 560,000 People's Liberation Army gathered at the border moved all the way south, advancing vigorously towards Vietnam, beating the Vietnamese army back steadily.
At this time, the Vietnamese army, armed with the most advanced weapons provided by the Soviet Union, thought that it would soon end the war and declare its victory to the world. However, the strength of the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army of our country far exceeded their imagination.
The reversal of the situation on the battlefield forced Vietnam to consider another way to solve this thorny problem.
So they began to put pressure on our country in public opinion, hoping to use the pressure of international public opinion to make our country withdraw its troops.
At this time, some countries that supported Vietnam's military expansion began to stand up and speak out for Vietnam, using international law to threaten our country's withdrawal. The Soviet Union was hiding behind and trying to control the situation on the battlefield.
But our country's soldiers have engraved the encirclement of the country in their bones and have ignored the provocations from the outside world.
Vietnam, which was beaten with no way out, began to put this matter on the table and wanted to use the power of the United Nations to oppress our country.
From February 23 to February 28, the United Nations held a total of five meetings to discuss this matter. The Vietnamese representative pretended to be innocent and "accused" my country at the United Nations meeting in an attempt to gain support from more countries. , to gain more benefits for themselves.
However, due to the different opinions of all parties, several meetings failed to reach a final result, which instead made the relationship between the two countries more tense.
At the same time, under Deng Xiaoping's instructions, the PLA's advance on the battlefield began to accelerate, and the pressure faced by the Vietnamese army suddenly increased.
At this time, some countries once again made demands to our country, insisting that our country withdraw its troops as quickly as possible.
In order to explain the situation on the battlefield to the outside world, my country's Vice Premier Li Xiannian decided to hold a press conference to thoroughly state our country's position. Reporters from many countries came after hearing the news, but some people did not really want to inquire about our country. The real position is that he wants to test our country's bottom line.
During the interview, one of the reporters asked: " Many countries are now asking you to withdraw your troops. How far will this war advance before you withdraw? "
This question gave Li Xiannian room to play. , he said straightforwardly: " We Chinese have always kept our word. As long as we achieve the purpose of counterattack against Vietnam, we will withdraw our troops. Our conditions are also very simple, that is, the Vietnamese troops will withdraw and China will no longer provoke, otherwise China will fight to the end. "
"Then what is China's purpose in this war? "
" Our purpose is to let Vietnam know that provoking other countries with arms will not end well! "Li Xiannian's words are resounding.
However, when some countries reported Li Xiannian's speech, perhaps due to translation problems, they wrote "China vows not to withdraw its troops until it achieves its goals."
Li Xiannian
Li Xiannian didn't explain much about this, after all, this sentence was indeed in line with his original intention.
Subsequently, because Vietnam refused to withdraw its troops, our army immediately launched a more violent attack, breaking through the Lang Son area in one fell swoop and approaching the Vietnamese capital Hanoi .
At this time, Hanoi had fallen into chaos. They never expected that the People's Liberation Army's advance would be so alarming. Le Duan immediately issued a mobilization order to the whole country, asking them to build fortifications as soon as possible and to evacuate the irrelevant personnel from this place as soon as possible to avoid happening. War harms innocent people.
But when they were about to attack Hanoi, the central government suddenly ordered the withdrawal from Vietnam.
The reason why our country does this is mainly to control the international direction. After all, if Hanoi is really captured, international public opinion will inevitably tilt toward Vietnam, and our country's advantages will be gone.
However, while retreating along the way, our army also took back all the supplies that had been aided by Vietnam during its resistance to the United States.
When our country's People's Liberation Army saw the words "China" printed on the bags of supplies, many people felt a chill. It is really disappointing that a country that our country has helped so much has "bitten back" in the end.
During the retreat, the Vietnamese army did not know how to repent, and set up ambushes on the way our army retreated, repeatedly harassing our army's retreat plan.
Fortunately, our army was not affected by the Vietnamese army, and all of them quickly withdrew into the country.
However, my country's "concession" has not been understood by Vietnam. Under the instigation of the real culprits behind the scenes, Vietnam is still stubborn and attempts to invade my country's territory. Although they have completely lost their previous arrogance under my country's severe crackdown , but they still frequently harass our borders, causing serious adverse effects on the lives of people on our borders.
The war between China and Vietnam lasted throughout the 1980s. During this process, the two sides fought and negotiated. The Battle of Laoshan, , and the Battle of Two Mountains. The two sides remained in a stalemate for ten years.
It wasn't until that the Soviet Union collapsed and that this matter gradually stopped.
In 1999, after many negotiations, the two sides finally finalized the specific border demarcation, and our country's territory was recovered. The Battle of Laoshan officially became a thing of the past, and this incident also made our People's Liberation Army once again famous in the world.
However, the conflict between China and Vietnam has not been resolved, but the focus of the problem has shifted from land to sea.
China and Vietnam have had military conflicts over the South China Sea issue since 1988. Until now, this thorny issue has still not been resolved.
Nowadays, with the improvement of our country's national defense strength, we are more confident in dealing with Vietnam than a few decades ago. I believe that in the near future, our country will be able to safeguard our territorial sovereignty and make the whole world look at it again.
