Nicholas Khoo, Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (1964-1991)

The Sigur Center hosts a discussion of China's Cold War alliances and policies from 1962 to 1991

RSVP HERE

The termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance and subsequent border war of 1979 was a pivotal development during the Cold War, at once reflecting and deepening divisions within the communist bloc. The fundamental cause of this development remains a continuing source of debate among area studies specialists, political scientists and historians who study the Cold War. This presentation, based on the author's previously published book on the topic, utilizes Chinese language materials released since the end of the Cold War to offer an alternative to existing explanations in the literature. Here, it is argued that Vietnamese co-operation with China's principal enemy during the second-half of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, was the critical determinant in explaining the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance.

Dr. Nicholas Khoo (PhD Columbia, MA SAIS, Johns Hopkins, BA University of California) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Otago in New Zealand. His research specialization focuses on Chinese foreign policy, the international relations of Asia and international relations theory. He is author of Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), and co-author (with David Martin Jones and Michael Rainsborough) of Asian Security and the Rise of China: International Relations in an Age of Volatility (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2013)