How the Dragon Delivered the Message: Chinese Intervention in Vietnam and the Sino-American Rapprochement, 1969–70

Abstract: This paper explores the Chinese sources and examines the Chinese efforts to send out their signals to the Americans in the Vietnam War from 1969 to 1970. It emphasizes the China’s communication goals, methods, and limits as the sources of the rapprochement. It begins with a construction of Chinese motivations, considerations, and policy implementation at the end of the 1960s. Their intentions were traced down in a Cold War circumstance. The search deals with Chinese political conception, military as instrument, and historic lessons learned from the past. The findings show that the Chinese military intervention in Vietnam served Beijing well for both purposes: international revolution in 1965-68, and Sino-American relaxation in 1969-71. It is this fact that led, under the special circumstance in Vietnam, to a new effort of Beijing to communicate Washington about its intentions and security concerns in Southeast Asia.