THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE OVER ASSISTANCE FOR VIETNAM’S ANTI-AMERICAN WAR, 1965-1972
From early 1965 to late 1972, the United States sent troops to South Vietnam, expanded its bombing of North Vietnam, escalated its invasion of Vietnam from “special warfare” to “local warfare,” and then adopted the policy of “Vietnamization of the war.” These were also the years when the armed liberation forces of North and South Vietnam waged a total military and political contest with the United States. During the same period the Soviet Union shifted its Vietnam policy from one of “staying away” to “lending a hand,” and continuously increased its aid to Vietnam, in particular intensifying its military assistance. Because the Soviet Union mostly provided advanced weaponry that China at that time was still unable to produce, at least in bulk, the Soviet Union greatly elevated its standing in Vietnam, and the relationship between the two countries became much closer.
Meanwhile, the transition in the Soviet leadership from Nikita Khrushchev to Leonid Brezhnev did not improve Sino-Soviet relations. The new Soviet leaders took a more uncompromising stance on China’s policy toward the Soviet Union. The relationship between the two countries consequently remained tense, and for some time in 1969 war appeared imminent. In the 1970s, Sino-Soviet relations gradually moved from hostility to outright confrontation. Since the Soviet factor occupied a dominating place in Mao Zedong’s assessment of the international situation and China’s external strategy, China overestimated the severity of the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Faced with the prospect of increasing closeness between Vietnam and the Soviet Union, China became increasingly anxious and wary of Vietnam even as it sent its neighbor massive amounts of aid, and a rift began to develop between the two countries.
Unquestionably, had China and the Soviet Union been prepared to join hands to support Vietnam, this would have been most beneficial to the Vietnamese people’s war to resist the United States and save their motherland. However, from the Soviet point of view, the primary goal was to infiltrate plitically and win control over the strategically important Southeast Asian region, and Vietnam presented the best avenue whereby this objective might be achieved. As the Sino-Soviet relationship continued to deteriorate, the Soviet Union felt compelled to use all means possible to win over Vietnam as an ally, so that it could accomplish China’s complete strategic encirclement, and prevent itself being overly vulnerable when a reconciliation between China and the United States occurred. From the Chinese perspective, in order to guarantee that Vietnam, an important regional power, would always remain on China’s side, China could not allow the Soviet Union to gain the initiative in winning over the Vietnamese. Fearing China would face a Soviet threat on her southern border, which would complete their country’s encirclement, Chinese officials did not wish the Soviet Union to incorporate Vietnam in its strategic sphere of influence and fill the gap left once the United States withdrew its troops from the country. Although by the late 1960s the Vietnamese had already decided to enter into an alliance with the Soviets, reluctant to lose the substantial quantity of aid they received from China, which generally arrived more directly and promptly than its Soviet counterpart, they attempted to continue to remain superficially neutral in the Sino-Soviet confrontation.
These assorted considerations made it impossible for the Soviet Union and China to work together and join forces to assist Vietnam. Even worse, they gave rise to a conflict of interest which led the two powers to engage in a contest of will and fight over Vietnam’s favor. Consequently, China and the Soviet Union, while both aiding Vietnam, experienced constant friction with each other, and sometimes even intense confrontational clashes. This essay, which is based on relevant archival materials, divides this period into two stages to present a historical review of these Sino-Soviet conflicts and confrontations and their development and evolution.
I: 1965-1969
Between 1965 and 1969 the relationship between the Soviet Union and China moved gradually toward hostility. During this period, relations between the two Communist parties broke down and those between the two nations continued to deteriorate. In March 1969, large-scale Sino-Soviet military clashes occurred on Zhenbao Island. In August, the Soviet Union took retaliatory actions in the Tielieketi area of Yunming County in China’s Xinjiang province, causing serious bloodshed. China and the Soviet Union reached their highest point of tension and entered the stage of outright antagonism. Simultaneously, with the continuous augmentation of Soviet military and economic aid to Vietnam, the relationship between Vietnam and the Soviet Union began to warm up.
Against this background, during this period there emerged two notable issues related to China’s support for Vietnam against the United States. First, up to the time of the death of Ho Chi Minh in September 1969, China made various subtle changes in some areas of its Vietnam policy, without altering the premise of its general principle. For instance, China began to emphasize to Vietnam that it should not be overly reliant on military support from other countries, but that it should follow a strict policy of independence and self-reliance, and use its domestic human and material resources more efficiently. China had not yet provided all the one hundred aid items it had promised to deliver in 1968, and had only supplied 31.4 percent of the aid it had agreed to give during the first six months of 1969. By the end of 1970, various Chinese import and export corporations under the Ministry of Foreign Trade still owed Vietnam some no-obligation aid supplies promised for 1967. The main underlying reason for these subtle signals of Chinese displeasure lay in China’s resentment of the ever increasing closeness between Vietnam and the Soviet Union; they were intended to exert pressure on Vietnam and did not signify a change in China’s overall Vietnam policy.
Secondly, China and the Soviet Union engaged in a series of hostile and sometimes even fierce confrontations, which manifested themselves in well-publicized disputes over Soviet military aid action plans, the dispatch of Soviet volunteers to Vietnam, and the delivery and trans-shipment of Soviet aid..
(i) The Sino-Soviet Dispute over Soviet Military Aid Action Plans
After the visit of Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin to Vietnam in February 1965, the Soviet Union drew up a new military aid action plan. Following this plan, on February 25 the Soviet Central Communist Party and the Soviet government submitted the following verbal requests through the Soviet embassy in China: first, that a brigade of combat troops and other armored personnel, numbering 4,000 in all, would be dispatched to Vietnam over Chinese railroads; second, that China reserve one or two air bases, Kunming Airfield, for example, for use by Soviet Mig-21 interceptors, and also allow 500 active Soviet military personnel to be stationed there to secure the airfields; third, that the Soviet Union would open an air route over Chinese territorial air space for shipping Soviet airplanes and other supplies required by Soviet military personnel in Vietnam. To further emphasize the emergency nature of these requests, on February 27 the Soviet Union, through its embassy in Beijing, demanded that, since the Vietnamese urgently needed Russian help, China should permit them to fly forty-five airplanes through Chinese airspace to deliver eighteen anti-aircraft guns and seventy-five anti-aircraft machine guns to Vietnam.
On March 10 the Chinese government responded officially, through diplomatic channels, to the Soviet government’s verbal requests of February 25, declaring that the military actions the Soviet Union proposed went beyond the normal scope of military aid. China rejected the first Soviet request, arguing that Vietnam itself did not favor the entry and stationing of Soviet combat troops in Vietnam. China declined the request to establish an air force combat base, pointing out that using Chinese airfields would mean a long flight time for Soviet airplanes, and would not achieve the objective of protecting Vietnam’s air space. As for the third request, for passage through China’s airspace, China had already responded on February 28 that large-scale air shipments were incompatible with the principle of absolute secrecy advocated by the Soviet Union, and suggested that land shipments be made instead. At this time, China reiterated its argument that whatever limited weaponry and combat supplies the Soviet Union was giving to Vietnam would prove insufficient to intimidate the enemy into retreating, while repeated flights of Soviet airplanes to and from China would quickly alert the enemy to the Soviet presence. The Chinese also pointed out that to launch such major operations without prior negotiation among Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union constituted an imposition upon China, which was therefore quite unable to assent to the Soviet military action plan. The Chinese response also claimed that the Soviet requests would effectively place China, the Soviet Union, and North Vietnam in the immediate position of waging open warfare against the United States, thereby complicating the existing ongoing anti-US struggle of the Vietnamese people. To sum up, from the Chinese government’s perspective, the Soviet Union’s request revealed its ulterior motives. For instance, the Soviet Union requested the emergency shipping of anti-aircraft weapons to Vietnam, but waited until March 8 to hand these over to the Chinese, who then completed their delivery to Vietnam within two days. China queried why, if the matter was so urgent, the Soviet Union waited eight days to hand these over. The Soviet Union’s behavior aroused numerous misgivings among Chinese leaders, who felt that, in the current state of Sino-Soviet relations, such requests constituted an invasion of China’s sovereignty and threatened Chinese national security.
Moscow used China’s discouraging response to launch unbridled propaganda attacks against China, alleging it sought to block Soviet aid to Vietnam. During the Moscow conference in March 1965, Soviet leaders again announced that, since it was of the utmost importance to shield northern Vietnamese cities as soon as possible against attack by the United States Air Force, they were requesting China to allow Soviet transport planes carrying military technology and essential military experts to overfly Chinese airspace. China once more rejected this request, arguing that Soviet airplanes passing over China ran the risk of discovery by the enemy and “suffering unnecessary losses.” A few days later, Chinese leaders put forward another, extremely implausible, excuse, namely, that they viewed the Soviet request to transport air force personnel and supplies through Chinese airspace as purely an attempt to “control China and Vietnam.” Chinese officials advanced this speculation unblushingly, despite the absurdity of the suggestion that a few hundred men on China’s border with the Vietnamese Democratic Republic “could control” China, a nation of 650 million people. The Soviet Union in turn riposted that, due to China’s attitude, although the United States was intensifying its invasion of Vietnam, the military technology and equipment, primarily anti-aircraft equipment, which the Soviet Union provided to Vietnam had to be transported far more slowly overland. Even so, thanks to Soviet efforts, some of this equipment did make its way to Vietnam.
When considering its response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry believed that, although the present was not an appropriate moment for public refutation, it was necessary to inform interested parties of the Chinese position. This took the form of asking Chinese foreign affairs personnel to clarify the facts in their conversations with overseas leftists and middle elements, and to explain that the Soviet Union, since its “divisive Moscow Conference,” had “set off a rumor mongering campaign, accusing China of blocking its aid efforts to Vietnam and instigating anti-China sentiments among people who did not know the true picture.” But the only basis for this rumor was a disagreement over eighteen anti-aircraft guns and seventy-five anti-aircraft machine guns, which China believed it was neither necessary nor desirable to transport by air, and so had naturally suggested shipping overland instead. Moreover, China had spared no effort to help Vietnam obtain whatever it needed and the Soviet Union was prepared to provide; it had followed this policy in the past and would continue to do so in the future. The Vietnamese comrades knew this, as did the Soviet comrades, and these facts could not be disputed. But the Soviet Union had twisted these facts and, in a premeditated anti-Chinese move, falsely accused China of obstructing Soviet aid to Vietnam.
In May 1967, the Soviet Union again reopened this earlier dispute, by asking to transport twelve M-17 and twelve M-21 airplanes through Chinese airspace, a request the Chinese naturally once more rejected. China believed that the Soviet suggestion of allowing these planes to overfly Chinese territory was a deliberate scheme to disclose secret military information to the enemy and implicate China in the Vietnam conflict. China resented the fact that the Soviet Union sought to force it to accept such a large military operation without proper consultation, believing that this displayed downright great nation chauvinism. Calculating that China would probably not agree to this proposal, North Vietnam, while relaying the Soviet message, alternatively proposed transporting the airplanes by rail, which the Chinese accepted.
(ii) China’s Reaction to the Dispatch of Soviet Aid Volunteers to Vietnam
On March 23, 1965, Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev spoke at the mass victory rally for Soviet pilots on Moscow’s Red Square, and for the first time mentioned that the central government had received numerous letters from Soviet citizens, expressing their readiness to take part in the Vietnamese people’s struggle for freedom and independence, and that the Soviet government greatly appreciated the fraternal solidarity and sentiments of proletarian internationalism displayed by the Soviet people. Subsequently, on April 17, the Soviet Union publicly announced, in the joint communiqué published following the visit to Moscow by Vietnamese party and government delegates, headed by Communist party secretary Le Duan, that if the United States intensified its invasion of the Vietnamese Democratic Republic, the Soviet Union would agree to send Soviet citizens to Vietnam, if the circumstances warranted this and Vietnam requested it. In fact, Brezhnev’s remarks were only intended to state the Soviet position with regard to the call for aid (including volunteers) from socialist countries issued by the South Vietnam People’s Liberation Front on March 22. At this time, Vietnam had no intention of making any substantive request for Soviet volunteers. On March 26, during a meeting with Ilia S. Scherbakov, the Soviet ambassador to Vietnam, Deputy Foreign Minister Hoang Van Loi disclosed that, while the South Vietnam People’s Liberation Front expressed their gratitude for the Soviet offer of volunteers, as yet they did not need any, though they would request them later if this became necessary. Hence, the Soviet government’s declaration was nothing more than political posturing. The rhetoric about sending volunteers served mainly as a propaganda tool designed to exert pressure on the United States, whose political significance outweighed its military importance.
Nonetheless, the Soviet Union’s position provoked China. Chinese leaders communicated China’s dissatisfaction when the Vietnamese side expressed gratitude for the Soviet offer of volunteers. In October 1965, Zhou Enlai, meeting with Pham Van Dong, North Vietnam’s premier, stated that he did not support the idea of sending Soviet volunteers to Vietnam, and Chinese Politburo member Peng Zhen and Luo Ruiqing, the PLA chief of staff, shared his viewpoint. In March 1966, while discussing with Le Duan Vietnam’s request that socialist countries send volunteer pilots, Zhou specifically warned that the Soviet Union might reveal this secret to the enemy, and suggested that whatever little help Vietnam might gain from Soviet pilots would be inadequate compensation for the losses they caused. In August, using the excuse that Chinese aid personnel in Vietnam were regular military forces, Zhou officially told Pham Van Dong that China had a right to reject the request of other nations to send volunteers to Vietnam.
(iii) Sino-Soviet Disputes over the Passage of Aid Supplies
Since the most convenient and practical route to ship aid supplies from other socialist nations to the Vietnamese Democratic Republic was across Chinese territory, throughout the entire period in which China was supporting Vietnam against the United States, Chinese railroads became an important conduit for transporting to Vietnam, free of charge, equipment sent by the Soviet Union, North Korea, Mongolia, Eastern European countries, and other socialist nations. During this time, the Soviet Union and China had fierce battles over transporting Soviet supplies along Chinese rails, disputes whose complexity demonstrated only too well the conflicts between China and the Soviet Union over the issue of aid to Vietnam.
In February 1965 Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin passed through China twice on his way to Vietnam, and told Zhou Enlai that, now that the United States was bombing northern Vietnam, the Soviet Union could move boldly ahead with aid to Vietnam, and would provide free of charge cannons, tanks, and surface-to-air missiles. Zhou expressed his hope that the Soviet Union would deliver these weapons speedily, and stated that China would help to ship them along Chinese railroads. Mao Zedong, meeting with Kosygin on February 11, also promised that China would assist the Soviet Union to transport Soviet military equipment to Vietnam in a timely manner. Later, on March 30, China and the Soviet Union concluded and signed an agreement governing the transit of special supplies from the Soviet government to the Vietnamese Democratic Republic. China subsequently made the issue of transit its top priority, and established a special team to take charge of this task. In July, Chinese and Vietnamese transportation delegates convened meetings in Beijing, initialling a summary of their meetings on July 26. They agreed that, during the second half of 1965, China would transport a projected 148,500 tons of aid supplies from the Soviet Union and other East European nations, of which 55,000 tons would be military equipment and 75,000 tons non-military commodities.
According to Chinese records, in March 1965 China shipped to Vietnam over 150 truckloads of supplies specified on Soviet shipping lists. From April to October 1965, the Soviet Union planned to trans-ship about forty trainloads of military equipment. On May 26, the Soviet Union and Vietnam reached another agreement in Moscow, committing the Soviet Union to deliver various supplementary supplies to Vietnam, in whose transit China was asked to assist. Between 1965 and 1968 a total of 179 trains, comprising 5,750 cars of aid supplies, went along Chinese railroads to Vietnam. The Chinese believed that, from the very beginning right to the end, they loyally fulfilled their commitments, followed the agreements strictly, and made full, timely, and safe deliveries of Soviet aid.
Yet, even in early July 1965, in a letter addressed to the Central Chinese Communist Party, the Soviet government accused China of failing to transport Soviet aid supplies swiftly. In response the Chinese government sent the Soviets a letter, refuting the accusation. The Soviet government, however, continued to allege that the Chinese government had broken Comrade Mao Zedong’s promise and, ever since the Soviet Union began to ship military resources to Vietnam, had begun to make trouble. What was more, they charged, Chinese government representatives blocked the transportation of Soviet supplies to Vietnam after the Soviet Union and the Vietnamese Democratic Republic had agreed to increase consignments of military equipment and to speed up their shipment.
What were the facts of the matter? Indeed, is it even possible to distinguish between facts and accusations?
When dealing with the issue of transporting aid supplies from the Soviet Union and other countries to Vietnam, China followed a consistent pattern. Once a donor nation initiated a request for trans-shipment, China would first consult with the recipient nation, namely, Vietnam, and coordinate shipping plans with it, and then reach a corresponding agreement with the donor nation. On August 26, 1965, the Soviet Union submitted to China’s Overseas Economic Liaison Committee a request for the transit of additional military aid supplies to Vietnam over the period 1965 to 1967. The Chinese side followed its usual practice, whereby on September 2 the Chinese ambassador to Vietnam informed Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry of the Soviet request, and repeatedly, on September 17, September 27, and October 7, urged Vietnam to respond. Meanwhile, between September 18 and October 18, officials of China’s Overseas Economic Liaison Committee explained five times to Soviet Overseas Economic Liaison Committee representatives and military attachés that, once China received Vietnam’s response, they would initiate discussions to finalize an agreement with the Soviet Union. By early November, Vietnam had still not responded. China then temporarily set aside the Soviet request. In response to a request for a speedy agreement which Soviet Overseas Economic Liaison Committee representatives submitted on October 7 to their Chinese counterparts, China declared that it would not accept these Soviet military materials for transit before it had a chance to find out “which among this batch of the Soviet military equipment were needed first by Vietnam, what time frame Vietnam had in mind, and what technological capabilities were required to accept the technological equipment.” Accordingly, China announced to the Soviet representatives that it would deny passage to a series of transport vehicles carrying Soviet military equipment. This affected the movement of ten aircraft repair trucks and forty anti-aircraft guns.
Before long, however, China took a more accommodating position in response to special circumstances. With Vietnamese concurrence, on October 12 Chinese officials contacted Soviet military attachés and proposed that China and the Soviet Union exchange letters with each other dealing specificically with the passage of these two categories of items, repair trucks and anti-aircraft guns, so that these could be shipped to Vietnam even before the supplementary agreement was signed. China followed up with repeated requests for a response, but after lengthy discussions the Soviet Union submitted none. When questioned as to their government’s intentions, the military attachés and other Soviet representatives indicated that they themselves were ignorant of these. In a letter of October 21 to the Chinese government, the Soviet Union accused China of “deliberately delaying the signing” of the agreement and refusing transit to the aforementioned supplies. Replying on November 5, China stated that it was as clear as daylight that the Soviet Union was solely to blame for the delay in transporting these particular items. China counterattacked further, claiming that the Soviet Union purposely “made trouble out of nothing, insisted on deliberate slandering,” and intentionally turned things upside down, all with the intent of manufacturing malicious gossip which could be used for anti-Chinese propaganda.
Additionally, in the actual process of transporting Soviet supplies, China insisted on strictly following the agreement and was unwilling to change its own shipping plans to accommodate the Soviet Union. The Soviet side, by contrast, emphasized that since this was an unusual time, the aid operation need not be conducted according to the strict letter of the agreement, and could be handled more flexibly. Therefore, the Soviet Union frequently violated the various Sino-Soviet transit agreements. Sometimes it failed to deliver projected shipments on time; sometimes it failed to dispatch trains on time; sometimes unscheduled Soviet trains even showed up at stations within China’s borders without any notice. The Chinese felt this pattern not only totally disrupted their plans, but also made it impossible for China and Vietnam to coordinate their transit plans. Such conduct violated their agreements and seriously affected the smooth transmission of aid supplies.
On September 2, 1965, Li Qiang, Deputy Director of China’s Overseas Economic Liaison Committee, met with representatives from the Soviet side and pointed out that Soviet conduct was designed to create a situation in which, if China accepted supplies transported in violation of the agreement, the Soviet Union would feel free to disrupt the transit schedules China and Vietnam had arranged; on the other hand, if China refused to go along, the Soviet Union would spread rumors that China was attempting to block the passage of Soviet materials. Li Qiang declared that China firmly opposed such conduct. The Soviet representatives gave their word that from then onward they would take effective measures to conduct business in accordance with the agreement. The problem was that, after this, the situation remained unchanged. Even in the month of September, trains dispatched without prior scheduling or in disregard of established arrangements comprised 72 percent of the total. Between September 18 and October 23, China therefore contacted the Soviet embassy on ten occasions, stating that, if this problem was not resolved, then the Soviet Union would have to take full responsibility for all delays in shipping. The Soviet representatives thanked China for “showing immense patience in the face of work obstacles created by Soviet errors,” and promised to get to the root of the problem and prevent further disruptions occurring on their side. They also earnestly requested China “not to give up hope on the Soviet Union.”
Unfortunately, though, such situations continued to recur. On November 25, 1965, for instance, a batch of explosives and demolition equipment from the Soviet Union and Poland that China was to store for Vietnam arrived in China ahead of schedule, creating operational difficulties for China’s Foreign Trade Corporation. In early April 1966, another consignment of explosives and detonators arrived from Poland; because Soviet officials had mishandled the paperwork as the shipment passed through their country, the inventory and contents did not tally. Fortunately, the errors were discovered sufficiently early for appropriate adjustments to be made; otherwise, the discrepancies would have added another chapter to the saga of Sino-Soviet disputes.
While visiting Hungary toward the end of April 1966, Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovski commented that, since the Soviet Union and Vietnam shared no common border, Soviet aid materials had to pass through China, and Soviet assistance would have been more effective if China had not tried to block the transit of Soviet aid materials. On May 4, the spokesperson for China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry publicized China’s counter-denunciation, proclaiming that China had given all military resources from the Soviet Union priority and swift and free shipping, and by the end of 1965 had transported over 40,000 tons of such supplies from the Soviet Union to Vietnam. The Chinese statement also pointed out that, in terms of quality and quantity, Soviet military aid was unworthy of its national might: not only were the amounts small, but all the weapons were outdated and some even damaged. For the first quarter of 1966, the Soviet Union had asked China to prepare a shipping capacity of 1,730 cars, to which China agreed and made the necessary arrangements; but in practice Soviet supplies only filled 556 cars. The Chinese queried why, although the Soviet Union likewise had no shared border with Cuba, and in fact the distance between them was greater than that from the Soviet Union to Vietnam, the Soviets found it possible to ship rockets and nuclear weapons to and from Cuba, yet could not even complete the shipping of conventional to weapons the relatively short distance to Vietnam. Again, the Soviet Union and India had no common border, but the Soviet Union managed to shift massive amounts of equipment by sea to support India in its conflict with China. Why, then, could it not move its aid supplies by sea to help the Vietnamese people fight the American imperialists?
In early July 1966, the People’s Daily published a special editorial, exposing the lies circulated by the Soviet revisionists, and declared: “China has agreed to help transport and has never tried to block military aid supplies accepted by the Vietnamese. As soon as Soviet aid materials arrive at the Chinese border, the Chinese railroad system transports them right away, using express military transportation. China has never stalled for time, nor did it ever keep materials too long in storage. Moreover, the Chinese railroad system has provided all the shipping free of charge. We have never sought a rouble, a dollar or half a gram of gold from the Soviet government, let alone military goods such as land-to-air missiles.”
China and the Soviet Union indulged in frequent verbal bickering over the transit of Soviet aid materials over Chinese rails. This placed the Vietnamese, who were anxious to obtain massive quantities of such supplies, in a dilemma. In order to ensure that military resources would be transported to Vietnam as a first priority, Vietnam took two measures. First, in early 1966 the Vietnamese government informed China that Vietnam had concluded an agreement with the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations to arrange direct shipment to Vietnam’s harbors of the bulk of their economic assistance and equipment. Secondly, while bearing in mind that it must not offend the Soviet Union, on which it was so dependent, Vietnam also tried to defend China. On June 19, 1966, Vietnam’s central news agency received permission to publish a statement, deflecting the spearhead of criticism upon the West: “China has always made great efforts to help transport military materials from the Soviet Union and other nations as scheduled. Western media organizations have broadcast the so-called news that ‘transit materials have experienced blockages.’ This is pure fabrication, and an extremely despicable conspiracy to instigate discord.” On February 28, 1967, Vietnam again declared that China had “transported properly and according to schedule all aid materials from the Soviet Union and other nations to Vietnam.”
Since Chinese railroads continued to carry the bulk of Soviet military aid supplies, on February 10, 1968, China and the Soviet Union reached a new agreement on this specific issue. Its implementation, however, still remained highly problematic. In early 1969, the Soviet Union accused China of refusing to transport military vehicles that the Soviet Union had made available for Vietnam’s use, between January and March forcing the Soviets to defer repeatedly the dispatch of trains carrying missile technology equipment. According to Soviet records, over 500 trucks for transporting missile weapons were periodically reloaded and dispatched to the Sino-Soviet border, only to be returned to their place of origin. The Soviet Foreign Ministry reported that, in early March, representatives of the Soviet Overseas Economic Committee repeatedly requested meetings with appropriate Chinese personnel so as to announce that, under the agreement, a fresh military train had been dispatched. The Chinese side initially used busy schedules as an excuse to defer such a meeting, and when they eventually met flatly refused to accept the shipment, giving the reason that the notification had come too late. Moreover, the Chinese representatives were verbally crude and passionately anti-Soviet in sentiment. The report also charged that China, in violation of the new agreement, had again begun to raise obstacles to the transit of military materials from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Vietnam itself, the report stated, was quite concerned as to the results of negotiations between China and Vietnam on the transit of military materials from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries during 1969, and once even emphatically pointed out to the Soviet Union that the reason China was making difficulties over the movement of aid materials was that it wished Vietnam to break away from the Soviet Union. The transportation of military materials would likewise also face barriers. That same year, as China and the Soviet Union drew ever closer to war, China halted its overland trans-shipments of Soviet aid supplies to Vietnam. For a while, the Soviet Union relied exclusively on the sea lanes to transport aid materials to Vietnam, though that same year it opened alternative air shipping routes over Laos, Burma, and India.
Besides the railroads, Chinese ports also played some part in transferring Soviet aid materials. In practice, however, Sino-Soviet disputes over rail transportation and the encouragement of Vietnam-US peace talks interfered with the concrete process of transporting supplies from Chinese harbors, so most freight the Soviet Union shipped by sea went directly to North Vietnam. Where “ocean shipping” was concerned, the summary of talks initialed in July 1965 by Chinese and Vietnamese transportation delegations specified that, when the Vietnamese railroads lacked the capability to carry all the aid materials and normal commercial products in transit through China, Vietnam would coordinate with the relevant receiving department to switch these to ocean shipping, and China would do its best to provide the necessary shipping and dispatch such goods in a timely manner. Not long after the agreement was signed, however, when refuting Soviet propaganda that “China was blocking the border transit of Soviet aid materials,” China asked the Soviet Union why the latter could not utilize its numerous oceangoing freighters to carry its own military materials to Vietnam. “Why have you not yet supplied the warships, which you promised our Vietnamese comrades last February, directly to their naval harbors, rather than trying to hand them over to our Vietnamese comrades by way of Chinese ports?” China regarded as simply untrue the Soviet explanation that, because the United States had sealed off Vietnam and the Soviet Union and Vietnam had no common border, passage through Chinese territory was the “only realistic way.” According to China, it was common knowledge that ships from all nations, including many Chinese vessels and some Soviet ones, managed to enter and exit Vietnamese ports; the only difference was that the Soviet Union feared the United States and therefore would not use its own ships to transport military aid equipment to the Vietnamese people.
In retrospect, the Chinese criticism was rather far-fetched. Shipping military equipment by rail was indeed faster and safer than ocean freight. In addition, the Soviet Union proposed using Chinese railroads to ship military supplies because the Vietnamese urgently requested that such materials be given priority and delivered as fast as possible. Moreover, the Soviet Union did not rely entirely on China’s land and water shipping facilities. Military equipment aside, for the second half of 1965 the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations scheduled shipments of 592,000 tons of non-military goods, 447,900 of which went directly to Vietnam by sea without passing through China. This amounted to six times the quantity of non-military goods (75,000 tons) and eight times that of military supplies (55,000 tons) concurrently scheduled to travel over Chinese railroads, and constituted a substantial proportion of overall Soviet shipments to Vietnam. In practice, had it not been for the existing frictions between China and the Soviet Union, neither the rail nor ocean transfer of Soviet aid materials would have caused any problems.
Until 1966, the Soviet Union never suspended sending ships loaded with goods and materials from Soviet ports to Vietnam, and about twenty ships were constantly engaged in transporting supplies to Vietnam. By July 18, 1966, those materials scheduled for shipping, in the process of shipping, or already shipped totaled over 110,000 tons. According to reports from the Soviet Ocean Transportation Department, the problem was that Vietnamese naval functionaries deliberately delayed the unloading of Soviet ships, believing that the more Soviet ships there were within coastal defense areas, the safer the port would be. Moreover, Vietnamese pilots would guide Chinese ships to avoid areas of dangerous water, but consciously allowed Soviet ships to go through these in order to check whether they held any concealed deep-water mines. The Soviets therefore hoped that the Chinese would take over more ocean shipping. In April 1967, while meeting with Zhou Enlai, Pham Van Dong conveyed the following suggestions from the Soviet Union: first, that China increase the amount of aid materials it shipped, from 10,000 to 30,000 tons per month; and second, that China open two or three ports to load and unload Soviet supplies. Replying to the first request, China replied that it could not commit itself to such a measure without first making a full analysis of the situation. As to the second, China clearly responded that, since Vietnamese coastal defense ports had not to date been bombed, it was therefore unnecessary to use Chinese ports, and expressed suspicions that the Soviet request to use Chinese ports had ulterior motives beyond facilitating the transfer of aid supplies.
II: 1970-1972
From 1970 to 1972, the Sino-Soviet relationship began to transform itself from one of hostility to outright political and military confrontation. During this period, China focused on shifting its diplomatic strategies, so as to change its vulnerable position of facing enemies on both sides -- the Soviet Union and the United States -- by implementing a reconciliation with the United States which would enable the two take concerted action against the Soviet Union, their mutual chief enemy.
Against this background, during this period the course of China’s support for Vietnam’s anti-US war displayed two prominent features. The first was that, by comparison with the 1960s, for several reasons China greatly increased the amount of material aid it gave Vietnam. First, after the death of Ho Chi Minh in September 1969, pro-Soviet forces totally controlled Vietnam’s Communist Party leadership. Because of the prevailing tense relationship between China and the Soviet Union, the area of Indochina appeared particularly crucial to China’s national security. Hence, China found the development of the Soviet-Vietnamese relationship even more sensitive, and hoped to keep Vietnam’s favor through intensified aid efforts, thereby preventing Vietnam falling into the Soviet sphere. Second, as peace negotiations continued, in preparation for what they anticipated would be a subsequent North Vietnamese war to conquer and unify South Vietnam, both China and Vietnam wished to rush more weapons to the southern part of the country before the war ended and international scrutiny was imposed. Thirdly, China needed to support the strategic offensive position that Vietnam had taken against the United States on the southern battlefields so as to facilitate a bigger military victory, which would impel the United States to extricate itself swiftly from the mire of the Vietnam War. Simultaneously, China was persuading Vietnam to make compromises at the negotiating table, in the hope of ending the war as soon as possible, so that continuing warfare would not delay the early realization of China’s strategic goal of aligning itself with the United States against the Soviet Union.
Consequently, as early as late September 1969, following Mao Zedong’s discussion with Pham Van Dong on the possibility of using some Chinese provinces as aid bases for Vietnam, four Chinese provinces -- Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Hunan -- quickly established Vietnam aid leadership teams, and began negotiations with those Vietnamese provinces receiving aid to determine which items they required. In September 1970 Zhou Enlai promised Vietnam’s leaders that China was determined to satisfy Vietnam’s overall needs, and was committed to bending all its energies to help Vietnam. Even more specifically, Mao Zedong emphasized to Pham Van Dong that all those who said China had its difficulties and should not help Vietnam were reactionaries, and, in November, permitted increasing the monetary value of aid supplies to Vietnam from two million renminbi to five million renminbi. The Ministry of Foreign Trade sent a notice to all import and export companies, requesting them to check whether they still had any pending business related to Chinese aid donated to Vietnam since 1967 and stating that, if so, they should make every effort to complete this in the near future. In March 1971 the Chinese government affirmed its policy of further strengthening Vietnam aid efforts. 1971 to 1973 were the three years when China sent Vietnam the greatest quantity of aid supplies. The scale of its Vietnam aid program was huge. During this period it agreed to provide a total of 90 billion renminbi worth of such assistance, and in the final two years gave more military aid than in the all the previous two decades.
Simultaneously, though, China also actively encouraged Vietnam to obtain more supplies from the Soviet Union. For instance, China’s Marshal Ye Jianying, a member of the Politburo’s Central Committee and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, told Le Ban and others that Vietnam should ask the Soviet Union to send weapons, food, useful supplies, indeed everything, the more the better, which could be stored in China even if they could not be transferred immediately. Li Qiang also discussed with Vietnam whether the latter should request the Soviet Union to dispatch more weapons and munitions. When Truong Chinh visited China, Zhou Enlai also advised him that Vietnam should obtain more trucks and other goods from the Soviet Union. Although China followed this policy to alleviate its own burdens, it also intended to use this opportunity to create conflict between the Soviet Union and Vietnam. China hoped that Vietnam, unhappy with the Soviet Union’s inability to meet its requests, would develop a grudge against the Soviets, thereby instigating increasing dissension and discord within the Soviet camp.
Concurrently, another prominent change occurred in the process of China’s efforts to assist Vietnam, namely, China adjusted its attitude and policy toward the Soviet Union’s intensified aid to Vietnam, and in particular on the transfer of Soviet aid supplies through China. Disputes, tensions, and conflicts between China and the Soviet Union over large-scale aid operations were consequently somewhat relieved, a change which became particularly noticeable after the South Vietnamese Liberation armed forces launched a full-scale military offensive in March 1972.
During this period, China not only allowed the passage of large quantities of Soviet military supplies through China, but also took the initiative in advising Vietnam to urge the Soviet Union to accelerate their shipping. In January, March, and April 1972, China signed agreements covering the transportation to Vietnam during 1972 of special materials from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, and other socialist nations. Soon afterward, on the night of May 20, while meeting with Le Duan and Ngo Thuyen, Vietnam’s ambassador to China, Zhou Enlai proposed that Vietnam should urge the Soviet Union and other East European nations to accelerate moving those materials already committed and still needed by Vietnam, for which China was prepared to offer free shipment. In late August, China again asked Vietnam to press the Soviet Union to rush-ship by rail 50,000 tons of flour which had originally been scheduled for ocean shipment that month but had not yet arrived. In addition, China actively sought ways and means to speed up the shipping of Soviet and East European aid supplies, advising Vietnam, for example, to open up more highways and add more routes. China also suggested that missiles from China itself and military supplies in transit from elsewhere should be sent by separate routes, and that some materials could be shipped directly, using through transportation.
Secondly, China agreed to allow experts in “special materials” escorting such train shipments to pass through China and, moreover, over less than six months, increased the maximum number of such personnel permitted in China at any one time from forty-six to sixty. On one occasion, with Zhou Enlai’s permission, 400 unarmed Soviet military personnel passed through China accompanying aid supplies.
Thirdly, on June 18, 1972, Zhou Enlai told Le Duc Tho that China would allow freight ships from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and East European countries to unload their contents at Chinese ports, reopening to the Soviet Union the door to ocean transportation of aid supplies. The Vietnamese government was profoundly grateful, considering this one of the highest examples of support given to the Vietnamese people’s war of resistance to save their motherland from the United States. Shortly afterward, on July 10, China and Vietnam signed an agreement specifying that such materials as grains, steel, oil, sugar, and bagged chemical fertilizers shipped by sea from the Soviet Union to China would be trans-shipped either by land or by sea. In early August, Li Qiang told Vietnam that, except for a very few categories, such as yellow iron minerals, potato seeds, and perishable goods, China was willing without exception to accept all goods, even chicken incubators. In reality, these were no longer urgent war requirements. At this time, China not only permitted Soviet ships to unload in Chinese ports, but even allowed the shipment of Soviet helicopter parts to the port of Zhanjiang, where they were assembled and test flown as Zhanjiang Airport. Apparently the anxiety over the “air corridor,” so pronounced in the mid-1960s, had greatly decreased.
Fourthly, China resumed storing aid materials sent from the Soviet Union and other nations and destined for Vietnam. The United States resumed its bombing of south Vietnam in April 1972, and in May sealed off Vietnamese ports with mines. Worried that the Soviet Union and East European nations would not negotiate aid agreements for 1973 because the 1972 Vietnamese aid agreements had not yet been fully implemented, in June 1972 Le Thanh Nghi specially directed Le Ban to consult with Li Qiang and also try to obtain Li Xiannian’s permission and agreement that China would transport and store within China urgently needed aid supplies from the Soviet Union and other East European nations. Le made it clear that China should feel free to use these goods (mainly guns, steel, and oil) initially, and in turn substitute its own supplies when Vietnam was able to receive them. In addition, Vietnam asked China to resume the its past practice of 1966 and 1967, of providing storage warehouses for Soviet military equipment. China agreed to all these requests, and submitting to Vietnam a preliminary version of the exchange of letters on the storage of materials, which Vietnam approved.
When Vietnam instructed China to proceed to use the aid supplies stored in China, this was mainly because Vietnam was concerned whether the Soviets had the ability to provide these materials in a timely fashion. Vietnam, for instance, hoped that all 260,000 tons of Soviet grain would arrive in China during the three months from September to November, 1972. Unless this grain were shipped as early as possible, bad harvests might mean the Soviet Union was unable to deliver. Over one million tons of aid supplies were scheduled for shipment from the Soviet Union, but six months later, one millions tons were still undelivered. Vietnam therefore asked China to consume initially those portions that Vietnam could not take immediately, believing that these goods, “while still in the Soviet Union belonged to the Soviet Union, but once shipped to and stored in China