China and the Cambodian Peace Process: The Value of Coercive Diplomacy

Abstract

Since Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in December 1.978, China has consistently pursued three interrelated objectives for Indochina. First, it sought a significant reduction of the Soviet presence in the region, thereby reversing the trend of Soviet encirclement in the 1970s. Second, it sought Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia and thus diminished Vietnamese power on China's southern periphery, reduced opportunity for an outside power to use Vietnam to undermine Chinese interests, and the re-emergence of Cambodia's post-World War Two tendency to develop friendly relations with China to offset Vietnamese power. Third, China insisted on the dissolution of the Vietnamese-influenced Heng Samrin/Hun Sen government. This final objective serves China's interest in an independent Cambodia contributing to a divided Indochina, but it primarily reflected Chinese outrage at Vietnam' s defiance of Chinese warnings during the 1977-78 period and Hanoi's subsequent creation of a puppet Cambodian leadership. China was intent on discrediting the invasion and validating its own regional authority by seeking the replacement of the Phnom Penh leadership with a new government. It was of little significance to China whether it achieved its objectives through a negotiated political settlement or through coercive diplomacy, but in the absence of negotiated concessions on the part of its adversaries Beijing has pursued its objectives through the development of a multifaceted and multilateral policy, combining diplomatic, economic, and military policy instruments, and focusing its efforts on each member of the