Remembering a forgotten war: The Vietnamese state, war veterans and the commemoration of the Sino-Vietnamese War (1979–89)

Abstract

This article argues that in the last few years the Vietnamese state and the Vietnamese Communist Party have upgraded the commemoration of a Sino-Vietnamese War (1979–89) that had fallen into oblivion after the normalisation of Sino-Vietnamese relations in 1991. The first part of the article analyses the way in which Vietnam officially commemorated the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of the war against China in 2019. Vietnamese authorities such as the Department of Propaganda and Edcuation stepped up the commemoration of the war, but in comparison with that of the war against the Pol Pot regime it was much more subdued and low-key. The second part of the article shows that the veterans of the Vị Xuyên battle in Hà Giang province where fierce battles had taken place between 1984 and 1989 have actively shaped the commemoration of the war by organising commemorative activities on the old battlefield and reaching out to state media and social media. This highlights the significance of ‘agents of remembrance’ in Vietnam who, along with the official Vietnamese ‘memory machine’, also make important contributions to the commemoration of the past.