| An analysis was made of the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) towards the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) between 1975 and 1979, i.e., between the fall of Saigon and the Chinese border invasion of Vietnam. At issue was the discovery of the causes of the deterioration of relations between two once "fraternal" communist states.;Among the more recent causes of deterioration dealt with were: China's reformulation of its global strategy which transformed the USSR into the major threat to China's security; the expansion of the SRV's economic and strategic reliance on the USSR; the SRV's attempted creation of an Indochina Federation of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (Kampuchea) dominated by Hanoi; China's attempt to create a viable "united front of forces" to counter Soviet and Vietnamese "global and regional hegemonism"; the improvement of Sino-Southeast Asian relations; and, China's dramatic normalization of relations with the United States and Japan.;Among the other major elements which helped influence and determine China's policy toward the SRV were: significant territorial problems along the Sino-Vietnamese border, in the Gulf of Tonkin and among the islands and seabeds of the South China Sea; the treatment of ethnic Chinese resident in Vietnam; and, most importantly, the SRV's "aggression" against the pro-Beijing Pol Pot government in Kampuchea.;Secondarily, the research tested the hypothesis advanced by Dr. Allen S. Whiting in The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence, India and Indochina.;Sino-Vietnamese relations were traced historically over two millennia of contact, characterized by China's direct domination of, or suzerainty over, Vietnam. In the twentieth century, the revolutionary traditions of the two movements followed similar, often converging paths, with the PRC advancing considerable aid to the Vietnamese revolution after 1949.;The Whiting hypothesis suggested that when confronted by three similar episodes of internal disunity and external threat, Beijing has responded in essentially the same way by employing similar techniques and timing mechanisms, thus creating a Chinese calculus of deterrence. The Sino-Vietnamese confrontation was the first opportunity since its formulation to test the Whiting hypothesis. It was found to be less than predictive. |
