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Comment by temp8964 | Hacker News Reader

China fought in the Vietnam war too, just not as directly as the U.S. Without the U.S. supporting the south, the north will easily win with the full resource support from China.

People who don't understand the historical context like to say the U.S. did not need to involve in the Vietnam civil war. This is simply wrong. If the U.S. did no get involved, the Chinese Communist government will support communists throw over government one after another, millions and millions more people will die in civil wars and communist cleansing. The world will look totally different today.

Got downvoted on this. LOL.

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China was not on friendly terms with the north. They invaded Vietnam shortly after the Americans left, in response to Vietnam's actions in Cambodia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_W...

Lol. That's later story. China supported north in the Vietnam war, is this even a question?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War

No? My point is that Vietnam and China have a centuries-long history of antagonism; to take China's support of the North during the Vietnam War as anything other than realpolitik is to miss the greater context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Vietnam_relation...

FWIW, I agree with you regarding the dangers of communist purges- I lived in Laos in the late 70's/early 80's. I saw plenty of first-hand examples of what happens.

This is some propaganda for sure. ho chi mihn was a political prisoner and figurehead of the CCP state, similar to kim il-sung.

The vietmanese state has been an extension of the CCP since the 70s. This isn't up for debate, it's objective fact.

Except for the Vietnamese invasion of the Chinese satellite regime in Cambodia, and the literal shooting war between China and Vietnam immediately afterwards.

The Sino-Soviet split was a Very Big Deal, and Vietnam was firmly on the Soviet side of that split.

"If the U.S. did no get involved, the Chinese Communist government will support communists throw over government one after another, millions and millions more people will die in civil wars and communist cleansing."

This sounds like the Domino Theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory

Chinese Communist government got involved in the communist evolutions in all the neighbor countries. And international communists did help each other in different countries to over throw legitimate government. Takeover the whole world was the goal of the international communists. Those are all facts, not a theory.

IIRC. It was primarily the USSR which backed the North Vietnamese.

By the early 70’s the communist block had split between the USSR and China. Vietnam was USSR not Chinese ally.

Not long after the end of the Vietnam war, China attacked Vietnam (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War) ostensibly as the Vietnamese had attacked Cambodia, by this stage supported by China (and the US) to dispose the Khmer Rouge.

Suffice to say it went badly for the PLA and thanks to the Vietnamese the Khmer Rouge was ultimately disposed.

Not really, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War

To add to the above, as much as some people want to mock America's involvement in Vietnam, one must note that The Domino Theory (used to justify that involvement) came true.

Granted, the worst case scenario did not happen (Australia was spared communist takeover), but what actually happened was horrific, nonetheless. Laos and Cambodia fell to communism, in part thanks to communist forces from Vietnam.

And anyone who pulls the line of "independence from foreign domination" should have a talk with the grey hairs in your local Vietnamese neighborhood, here, in the States. They'll let you know how much people in South Vietnam wanted nothing to do with the tyrannical regime in the North.

Furthermore, one cannot disparage South Vietnam as a puppet regime without also disparaging South Korea, Taiwan, or West Germany for that matter.

Tell your neighbors come and talk with people from Mỹ Lai

There was a class divide with the educated in the south going through a french system asking for western support. I could see how different neighbourhoods would have different opinions. The richer more middle class or higher the more you wanted things to stay the same.

Those responsible for what happened there received due process of law and were punished.

Communists, on the other hand, either suppress or celebrate their own atrocities.

> Those responsible for what happened there received due process of law and were punished.

LOL The ONLY person that received ANY punishment was Calley, and he was sentenced to life only to serve three years of house arrest.

"were punished" is a joke.

Erm, that’s a lie. US is pretty good at protecting its war criminals, and it was quite visible in this case, where only a single one of the perpetrators has been punished, and the punishment was hilariously low (iirc just a few years of prison).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre

That's just one of them that we have evidence of. We know this was not a one off event.

Anyone who pulls the line of "Domino Theory" and "America was just fighting communism" must note all the war crimes that the US committed and was never held responsible for.

That part is true, but communists killed millions more. There is no perfect history to love, sad ?

The justification of America's involvement and the lionization of it does not rest upon "but communists killed millions more."

OK. So just let the communists kill millions more, or just call God to send the perfect army.

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