The Sino-Vietnamese Conflict and Its Implications for ASEAN

Abstract

PERHAPS THE SINGLE most puzzling feature of the Sino-Vietnamese conflict is the amount of heat it has generated and the hostility the antagonists have displayed towards each other, as contrasted with the relative absence of life-and-death issues affecting the vital interests of the two countries. At present, the three major issues of conflict concern the ethnic Chinese, territorial claims, and Kampuchea. Of these, the ethnic Chinese issue could have been well contained within manageable limits, had either side exercised a greater measure of self-restraint than it actually did. The territorial dispute has been over numerous tiny, uninhabitable islands in the vast expanse of the South China Sea over which neither side has exercised, or will ever exercise, effective control.' Therefore, it should not have constituted an immediate or high-priority concern for both countries. The conflict over Kampuchea, in particular, need not have brought the two countries into direct confrontation, much less an open war, as developments there have not seriously threatened the sovereign rights or security of either Vietnam or China.2 The fact that all these three issues were virtually non-existent prior to 1975 further suggests their somewhat artificial character. Also, whatever controversies might have emerged should certainly have been amenable to friendly negotiations and peaceful settlement.