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China and the 1st Indochina War, 1950-1954 (11)

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hy tran

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May 7, 1999, 3:00:00 AM5/7/99
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Mao Zedong was eager for the Viet Minh to win an overriding victory in Dien
Bien Phu, and thus lay the basis for a future victory in northern Vietnam.
In a letter dated 3 April 1954 to Peng Dehuai (Ba`nh DDu+'c Hoa`i), then
vice-chairman of the CMCC in charge of its daily affairs, formerly
commander-in-chief of Chinese forces in Korea, Mao stated that the
Vietnamese needed to form four additional artillery regiments and two new
engineering regiments, who should complete their training in six months. If
the Chinese did not have enough cannons to equip these new Vietnamese units,
Mao suggested, they could transfer the equipment from their own units to the
Vietnamese. The Chinese should also supply the Vietnamese with instructors
and advisers selected from the Chinese troops that had fought in Korea,
including some division and army level officers. The best training site or
these units would be in Vietnam, but somewhere in Guangxi province was also
acceptable. Six months was a short time for the realization of this plan,
so Mao asked Peng, together with the General Staff and Artillery Command of
the PLA, to contact the Viet Minh immediately to seek their agreement. Mao
believed that with these new artillery units, together with another
artillery division already under the command of the Viet Minh, and by
concentrating five infantry divisions, the Vietnamese would be able to
launch direct attacks against Hanoi and Hai Phong. Mao asked Peng to start
immediately to prepare sufficient artillery shells and engineering ,
equipment for these units while at the same time offering more anti-aircraft
guns to the Viet Minh. Concerning the current fighting in Dien Bien Phu,
Mao stressed : "Dien Bien Phu should be conquered resolutely, and, if things
go smoothly and success is certain, the final attack [against Dien Bien Phu]
should start ahead of the previous chedule". In this letter, Mao mentioned
that the Viet Minh, after their victory in Dien Bien Phu, should quickly
mobilize 5,000—8,000 new soldiers to supplement their forces and prepare to
attack Hanoi no later than early 1955 (73).

When the Viet Minh's assaults at Dien Bien Phu encountered tough French
resistance, the CMCC sent telegrams to Wei Guoqing twice on 9 April,
promising him that artillery ammunition supplies would be guaranteed to the
Vietnamese so that they could use as many shells as they wanted. The CMCC
also instructed Wei to adopt the following strategies in attacking Dien Bien
Phu : to cut off the enemy's frontline by attacking in the middle; to
destroy the enemy's underground defences one section after another by using
concentrated artillery fire; to consolidate position immediately after
seizing even a small portion of ground, thus continuously tightening the
encirclement of the enemy; to use snipers widely to restrict enemy
activities; and to use political propaganda against the enemy.

Under the fierce offensive of the Communist forces, by late April French
troops in Dien Bien Phu were confined to a small area of less than two
square kilometres, with half their airstrips occupied by the Communists. At
this stage the United States threatened to interfere. In a speech to the
Overseas Press Club of America on 29 March, the American Secretary of State,
John Foster Dulles, had issued a powerful warning that the United States
would tolerate no Communist gain in Indochina and called for a "united
action" on the part of western countries to stop it (75). One week later,
President Eisenhower -- uttered the "falling domino" theory to state the
necessity of a joint -- military operation against the plot of Communist
expansion in Indochina (76). Policy-makers in Washington even considered
the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons to stop a Communist
victory in Dien Bien Phu (77).

With hindsight it can be seen that, without the support of either Congress
or the allies, the Americans were not ready to interfere in Indochina in
1954. The threat of direct intervention was primarily used for diplomatic
reasons during the Dien Bien Phu crisis and at the Geneva Conference (78).
It, as will be seen, eventually worked, though in a complicated way, against
the Communists. But it did not save the remaining French resistance in Dien
Bien Phu. Chinese advisers in Vietnam insisted on continuing the campaign
efforts. General Wei believed that the American warning was just an empty
threat to make the Vietnamese Communists give up the current offensive. As
the Vietnamese had achieved a superior position in the battlefield, General
Wei stressed, they should not yield to the American threat and lose the
golden opportunity. The Viet Minh high command, after carefully weighing
the arguments, decided to go on and start the final offensive in early May.
To facilitate this the Chinese transferred large amounts of military
equipment and ammunition to the Vietnamese. Two Chinese-trained Vietnamese
battalions, equipped with 75mm recoilless guns and six-barrel rocket
launchers, arrived at Dien Bien Phu on the eve of the final assault. The
CMCC promised once again to the CMAG :

To eliminate the enemy totally and to win the final victory in the campaign,
you should use overwhelming artillery fire. Do not save artillery shells. We
will supply and deliver sufficient shells to you (79).

To guarantee the final victory in the campaign, top CCP leaders carefully
considered every possible problem which might endanger the prospect of a
total Viet Minh victory. On 28 April, Mao Zedong instructed Peng Dehuai and
Huang Kecheng, two leading members of the CMCC, to guard against the
possibility that the French might send paratroopers to land at the rear of
the Vietnamese and cut off their supply line. Mao emphasized that this
should be taken as the "most possible danger" which, if it occurred, could
force the Vietnamese to give up the campaign. Mao instructed Peng and Huang
to "ask the Vietnamese to deploy immediately more troops in proper areas" so
that the French parachute landing could be prevented (80). On 30 April the
CMCC, obviously following Mao's instruction, instructed Wei Guoqing to
advise the Vietnamese to take pre-emptive measures against such an attack.
On 3 May, General Su Yu, the Chinese general chief of staff again contacted
General Wei, reiterating the importance of preventing a French airborne
landing (81).

The final offensive of the Communist forces began on the evening of 5 May.
The newly-arrived Chinese rocket launchers played an important role by
destroying the French defences in mitnutes. By the afternoon of 7 May,
French troops had neither the ability nor the willingness to fight and
announced surrender. The Dien Bien Phu campaign ended with a glorious
victory for the Vietnamese Communists.

As has happened on many other occasions in history, the First Indochina War
was fought on the battlefield but would conclude at the negotiation table.
Evidence shows that the thinking of CCP leaders about Indochina was strongly
influenced by the American warning. This in turn brought the Chinese
Communists into dispute with their Vietnamese comrades.

On 8 May, the day after the end of the Dien Bien Phu campaign, the Geneva
Conference, which had started on 26 April, began its discussion of the
Indochina problem. It was at this moment of victory, ironically, that sharp
divergences emerged between the Vietnamese and Chinese Communists who had
cooperated to win on the battlefield. In retrospect, the close relationship
between the CCP and their Vietnamese comrades offers no support to the
theory of a unified international Communist movement. Even at the height of
cooperation between Vietnamese and Chinese Communists, there were signs of
contradictions and, in some cases, conflicts between them. Chinese military
advisers complained that the quality of Viet Minh troops was too poor to
realize some of their strategic designs. General Chen Geng mentioned in his
diary that General Giap and some other Vietnamese Communists lacked the
"Bolshevik-style self-criticism" and were unhappy with the Chinese criticism
of their "shortcomings". On one occasion, General Chen even described
General Giap as "slippery and not very upright and honest" to his Chinese
comrades (82). The Vietnamese, on the other hand, were not satisfied with
some of the Chinese advisers' suggestions, especially those concerning land
reforms and political indoctrination following China's experiences.

Footnotes :

73. Mao Zedong to Peng Dehuai, 3 April 1954, Mao Zedong's Manuscripts, Vol.
4, pp. 474—75.

74. The CMAG in Vietnam,p. 101.

75. The Pentagon Papers : The Defense Department History of United States
Decision making on Vietnam, Vol. I (Boston : Beacon Press, 1971), p. 98.

76. U.S. Government, Public Papers of the President ofthe United States:
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954 (Washington, D.C., 1958), pp. 381-390.

77. John Newhouse, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age (New York : Alfred A.
Knopf, 1988), pp. 99-101.

78. For a plausible brief analysis of America's stand toward the Dien Ben
Phu crisis, see Hess, Vietnam and the United States, pp. 46-48; for a more
detailed analysis of the Eisenhower administration's attitude toward
involving American forces in the Indochina war in 1954, see Billings-Yun,
Decision Against War.

79. Cited from Contemporary Chinese Army, pp. 533-34.

80. Mao Zedong to Peng Dehuai and Huang Kecheng, 28 April 1954, Mao Zedong's
manuscripts, Vol. 5, p. 91. (The editors mistakenly date this telegram 28
April 1955. This is probably because Mao only put day and month on the
letter and, for reasons unknown, the document was misplaced in Mao's 1955
files. As there was no real fighting in the Dien Bien Phu area in 1955 and
as the content of this letter is compatible with the CMCC's 30 April 1954
telegram and Sin Yu's 3 May 1954 telegram, which I also cite here, I believe
that 1954 is the correct date).

81. The CMAG in Vietnam, pp. 103-104.

82. Chen Geng, Chen Gengs Diaries, Vol. 2, pp. 22, 31.

(continued)

hyt...@my-dejanews.com

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