No, I mean without Sino-Vietnamese War as a prove of loyalty, would America accept China as a far-east ally in OTL?Sino-American relations wouldn't change at all. Nobody in America is going to be shedding any tears over China throwing the Pol Pot regime under a Vietnamese bus even if they did support various groups with dubious links to the Khmer Rouge OTL, because Cambodia isn't geopolitically significant enough. Dengism is probably what killed pro-China support in the American far left, not Chinese foreign policy.
Dengism is probably what killed pro-China support in the American far left, not Chinese foreign policy.
This does not dramatically impact Sino-US relations. This war happened in 1979, Sino-US relations had been on a steady upswing for almost a decade.
Yeah, at most, the US would have viewed the invasion of Vietnam as the icing-on-the-cake of the Sino-US rapprochment, not as a sine qua non for the rapprochment to continue.