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In OTL, despite any tensions or disappointments or unmet expectations China materially aided the Vietnamese Communists in their fight against the the French and Americans until both quit the Indochina region.

Then Hanoi and Beijing fell out, Beijing tried to contain Vietnam with Khmer Rouge Cambodia, they had a brief war in 1979, and then years of proxy war afterwards and firefights at disputed reefs.

Is there any plausible way Beijing and Vietnam could have ended up at odds with each other earlier, pre-Vietnamese unification, with the threat/opposition of Beijing actually preventing North Vietnam from absorbing South Vietnam?

If that is a bridge too far, could Beijing have successfully contained Laos and Cambodia from Vietnamese influence? If so, under communist governments or noncommunist governments?

Things that could conceivably lead to an earlier effective split:

a) Possible Hanoi miscalculations in handling the Sino-Soviet split?
b) Beijing demanding Hanoi unequivocally back Beijing versus Moscow or be regarded as an enemy?
c) Hanoi and Beijing struggle over the direction of the Pathet Lao and Laos in general in the 1960s?
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