China had a growing concern that The Soviet Union sought to encircle and destroy it by allying with Vietnam, and supporting them instead of China, of course this was a very ‘quite possible but hasn’t really happened yet’ type of scenario, so China did not act on its suspicions right away. But when Vietnam started to attack Cambodia, (Chinas ally) and started to Mistreat Chinese minorities in northern Vietnam. China decided that it was the last straw…
China began mobilizing troops against Vietnam, probing their defenses, and preparing an offensive force to invade the country. They gave a grim warning to the Soviet Union, “China is fully prepared to declare a full-scale war against the Soviet Union should they interfere… They reinforced this claim by positioning the bulk of the PLA in the Sino-Soviet border. This was what the ‘cool kids’ called a ‘power move’… China didn’t want to lose anymore power to the soviets, Becuase they were afraid of the Soviet Union beating them up and taking their lunch money:
(kinda like this…)
So China launched an invasion of Vietnam, with three goals in mind:
Beat up Vietnam (make sure your strength is unquestionable)
2. Force Vietnam to leave Cambodia (this was the main point of the war. China wanted to show they could defend their alllies)
3. Prove to the Soviet force that China wouldn’t be such a pushover (self explanatory)
China invaded the northern provinces of Vietnam with a force numbering about 200,000 Soldiers and 400–550 tanks.
(I’m using the Chinese estimate because the Vietnamese estimation may be a bit biased considering they were being invaded)
Vietnam had about 70,000–100,000 servicemen allocated to fight the Chinese and had about 150,000 Militamen to serve as guerrilla fighters. Soviet forces gave the Vietnamese weapons and machines of war such as artillery pieces and tanks, also patrolling naval vessels in the area to further help Vietnamese forces, but did not largely take place in the war. Chinese airplanes flew around a bit but saw no action. So remarking on all that, the war had begun.
Any modern military general that looked at the Chinese equipment situation in the war would understand that it was going to lead to disaster:
(this was the de-facto gun that the PLA used regularly)
Chinese equipment was outdated and many soldiers lacked proper assault rifles and weapons needed to fight the Vietnamese forces/militiamen, (who had old abandoned American guns and Soviet assault rifles). Which lead to Chinese soldiers lacking firepower with each combat encounter, this usually didn’t serve them a defeat in the battlefield. Becuase they had the advantage of numbers. But they did suffer heavy casualties as a result of Chinese equipment incompetence. Regardless, the war carried on,
About three weeks into the war, the maps generally looked like this:
As you can see, Chinese forces had taken a large section of northern Vietnam, but even though the war looked good for China on paper, it wasn’t doing so well in the regards of actually fighting the war. Vietnam has shown no sign of leaving Cambodia any time soon, and it was clear to everyone that the war would only be won with deeper expansion into Vietnam. Which would result in even more casualties for China, and maybe even a military humiliation.
Secondly, Chinese supply lines and rear guard were getting harassed/attacked by Vietnamese guerrilla attack’s, which only added to the amount of Chinese casualties and made it harder for China to advance into Vietnam.
So as China advanced further the war seemed to be getting harder to win. It was clear that to uphold Chinese military reputation and prestige, and to save/cut costs of the expensive war. China needed to end the war quickly, so they decided that they needed a way to leave the war without looking like failures…
Originally Answered: What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about China?
1. Basically there is no such thing as “fortune cookie” in restaurants. The first time I ever see fortune cookie was in the states.
2. Not all Chinese look like “Asians”. There are 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities in China and some of them are genetically Turkish, Central Asians, or even Russians. Here is a photo of Uyghur Chinese female PLA solider.
3. Although major western social media like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in China, there exist a wide variety of local social media platforms within China. And as you might know already, censorship is duly noted by netizens. So we manage to beat around the bush on the Internet.
4. Despite 80-90 million members that Chinese Communist Party claims, the bulk of them have little faith in Communism or socialism. It can be substantiated in many published political science literature. Yet it is more easily to be confirmed if you have the chance to chat with a CCP member. Even CCP itself these years barely mentioned Communism in speeches or governmental reports.
5. The tap water is not drinkable.
6. Except Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, there still around 20 mega cities of modern infrastructures, a variety of entertainment, and population over 5 million.
7. Casinos is illegal in China, except in Macau. Yet great numbers of underground casinos have thrived in China.
8. The significance of Mahjong, a Chinese gambling game, can be compared to the significance of football, baseball, and basketball combined to Americans.
9. Young generation in general celebrate Christmas without any religious purpose. But few people know what day is Easter or Thanksgiving.
10. Chinese perception of the deities is by and large shaped by a classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. The book was written in 16th century, strongly rooted in Chinese folklore and Buddhist and Taoist theology. Here is a imaginary scenario of the heaven.
11. It is reported that there are about 300,000 Africans living and working in Guangzhou city, the capital of Guangdong province. But a large proportion overstay their visas and are staying at an illegal status. Here is a photo of conflict between African residents between local police force.
12. In general, urban Chinese live in apartments and rural Chinese live in houses. Of course a small proportion of millionaires also possess villas in the suburb.
13. Very few people can name any American football stars. But at the same time, even my grandmother knows who Kobe Bryant is. Yet soccer is even more popular than basketball.
14. You can see open-air Islam worship gathering in Xinjiang.
15. The current China’s government is only 65 years old. From 2000 BC to 1911 AD, China underwent 83 dynasties and 559 emperors.
16. After 1949 till now, Chinese female normally do not adopt their husbands’ family name after getting married.
17. There is a fixed number of Chinese family names. Yet theoretically, any character or word can qualify as given name. For instance, I know people named as “wen ge/cultural revolution”, “fan di/anti-Imperialism”, “an quan/security”, or “fengqin/organ, the musical instrument”.
18. In present day, most people are familiar with the presence of foreigners around them. But according to my British professor, when he visited rural China in early 1980s, no one gave him a second look because back that time rural Chinese people did not have the sense of “foreigners”. “They probably just considered me as a strange-looking Chinese from other province, maybe a Uyghur I guess.”
19. Russian was the dominant foreign language at schools through 1950s to 1960s.
20. Besides Chinese animations, Japanese Manga is the major source of entertainment for young kids and even young adults. Although the images of Batman, Superman, and other American comic figures are popular among young people due to the Hollywood movies, very few of them actually read the original comic books or television shows.
21. At least a few years ago, the American who possesses widest popularity and biggest number of fans in China, is Tracy McGrady, who seems unknown to quite a few of my American schoolmates.