Path, "Sino-Vietnamese relations, 1950--1978: From cooperation to conflict," 2008

Kosal Path, Ph.D

Abstract (Summary)

Most existing studies have disagreed on the key causes of the breakdown of Sino-Vietnamese alliance in the late 1970s. They emphasized either the effect of the Sino-Soviet rivalry or Sino-American rapprochement; in other words, to explain the breakdown of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance, one only needs to analyze the great power rivalry. My dissertation, which is the first study in any language other than Vietnamese [up to this point] to use Vietnamese archival materials, suggested otherwise that it was the diplomatic and economic impact of the Chinese Cultural Revolution on Sino-Vietnamese relations during the decade 1966-76 that destroyed the Sino-Vietnamese alliance while the Sino-Soviet rivalry facilitated it.

The unequal nature of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance and the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel in the 1950s caused Vietnamese leaders to resent their Chinese comrades, but they did not rise to become the major causes of the breakdown of the alliance. However, the spillover effects of Mao Zedong's treasured Cultural Revolution during the years 1966-68 triggered Vietnam's traditional fear of "the threat from the North" and severed the "we-feeling" tie between the two communist parties. In addition to the diplomatic disaster, the Cultural Revolution inflicted enormous toll on China's economy and consequently undermined Beijing's ability to fulfill its past aid pledges and satisfy Vietnam's new demand for greater aid throughout the 1970s. Over the course of the deterioration of Sino-Vietnamese relations, Vietnam was tilting toward the Soviets and the Soviet aid to fill in the void left by China.

It is the diplomatic and economic impact of the Chinese Cultural Revolution on China's relations with Vietnam and Vietnam's policy responses that this dissertation seeks to focus on and illuminate by relying on the newly available Vietnamese archival documents. In addition, this study sheds new light on other issues that contributed to the breakdown of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance, namely the origins of Sino-Vietnamese territorial dispute, Sino-Vietnamese dispute over the Vietnamese treatment of Chinese experts and residents, and Beijing's economic sanctions against a unified Vietnam and support for the Khmer Rouge.

Advisor: Lynch, Daniel C.
Committee members: Wills, John,  English, Robert