China's Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964-69* Chen Jian

382 The China Quarterlysuddenly at the very last moment, claiming that neither Liu Shaoqi norDeng Xiaoping had been authorized to speak for the Chinese Party. Heinsisted that the Soviet Union had become the most dangerous enemy ofthe peoples of the world and called for the establishment of an "anti-imperialistand anti-revisionist international united front."86 Mao would laterrelate this event to his earlier criticism of Wang Jiaxiang, charging thatboth Liu and Deng had become China's "revisionists." Mao's criticism ofLiu's and Deng's handling of the Miyamoto mission became the first signto the outside world that profound division had emerged among top CCPleaders. As it soon turned out, both Liu and Deng would become the maintargets of the Cultural Revolution.So far as its impact on Chinese-Vietnamese relations is considered, thefailure of the Miyamoto mission further distanced Hanoi from Beijing.Beijing's leaders, while feeling increasingly uneasy about Hanoi's lack ofinterest in keeping a distance from Moscow, noted with surprise that theVietnamese media began to use China's invasion of Vietnam in the pastto spur patriotism among ordinary Vietnamese people. Convinced that theVietnamese were in fact inclined toward Moscow, Beijing's leaders weregenuinely offended.87Among Chinese sources now available, two cases indicate that sharpdifferences had emerged in 1966 between Beijing and Hanoi as the resultof Hanoi's improving relations with Moscow. The first details China'sreaction to Hanoi's gestures of friendship toward Moscow. In March1966, Le Duan led a Vietnamese Party delegation to attend the SovietParty's 23rd Congress. He reportedly once described the Soviet Union ashis "second motherland." When Beijing's leaders learned of this, theywere "angrily shocked." A few months later, the Vietnamese requestedthat the second division of the CPVEF stay longer in Vietnam after it hadcompleted its original assignments, but the Chinese turned down therequest and the second division returned to China in July 1966. OneChinese source points out that this move was designed to demonstrateBeijing's anger toward Le Duan's praise of the Soviets in Moscow.88The second case more directly reveals Chinese resentment of Hanoigiving any priority to the Soviets. In early 1966, a Chinese cargo ship,Hongqi (Red Flag), was assigned to carry materials in aid to Vietnam. Asthe ship approached the Hai Phong port it was stopped so that a Sovietcargo ship, which arrived later than the Chinese, could enter the port first.As the result of this delay, Hongqi was exposed to an American air raidand was severely damaged. During a visit to China in April, Le Duan86. For a detailed record of Miyamoto's visit to China and Vietnam in spring 1966, seeMasaru Kojima (ed.), The Record of the Talks between the Japanese Communist Party andthe Communist Party of China: How Mao Zedong Scrapped the Joint Communique (Tokyo:The Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party, 1980).87. In a meeting with Lu Duan in April 1966, Zhou Enlai mentioned that the Chinese hadnoted that the Vietnamese media had recently strengthened the propaganda about China'sinvasion of Vietnam in the past. Zhou warned that such propaganda had violated thefundamental interests of the Vietnamese and Chinese people in their common struggle againstthe U.S. imperialists. Guo Ming et al., Zhong-Yue guanxi yanbian sishinian, p. 102.88. See Wang Xiangen, Kang Mei yuanyue shilu, p. 225.