越南战争的一些事实

Chinese threats to intervene in Laos figured prominently in the US
decision in May 1962 to "neutralize" Laos. One of the key reasons why US
leaders ruled out the use of US troops to occupy the Laotian panhandle (this
was the military alternative to the political solution of neutralization) was a
belief that North Vietnam and China would strongly resist such a move

"US aggressive moves in Southeast Asia are a serious threat to the security of China.
The Chinese people cannot remain indifferent to this. . . . The Chinese people
firmly oppose US imperialist armed intervention in Laos, and absolutely cannot
tolerate the establishment by US imperialism in areas close to China of any new
military bridgeheads directed against this country. ... We must serve a fresh
warning to the Kennedy Administration that it shall be held fully responsible for
all grave consequences arising from its policy of playing with fire."

These were strong words. Not as hard or as blunt as those used by
Beijing in the final weeks before its entry into the Korean conflict, but strong
enough to convey Beijing's belief that China's own security was involved and
that China might consider war to deal with these threats. Just as important,
Beijing's verbal warnings were backed up by a concentration of Chinese
military forces in southern China adjacent to Laos."

Confronted by the possibility of waging a land war with China in the
interior of the Indochina peninsula, Washington retreated to the neutralization
alternative.

As US bombing of North Vietnam escalated in 1965-66, the Chinese
and US Ambassadors to Poland discussed the Vietnam situation. (Ambas-
sadorial talks in Warsaw begun in 1955 and continuing through 1971 were the
main conduit for Sino-American communication during that period.) At those
talks US representatives assured China that American aims were limited to
compelling Hanoi to forgo the conquest of South Vietnam and did not seek
the destruction of the North Vietnamese regime. It is widely believed that by
November 1965 the two sides(Chinese and Americans) had reached a tacit understanding
that, as long as US forces did not invade North Vietnam or attack China, China would not
directly enter the war." Even if such an understanding was reached, however,
it could have been undone by events. As long as China and the United States remained at
swords' points, leaders of both countries moved cautiously to avoid a second Sino-US war.
Both sides sought to avoid a war by misperception and miscalculation as had happened in Korea.

Navy and Marine aircraft joined fully in the bombing of North Vietnam, all the more so because American fears of Chinese intervention restricted the Air Force's heavy B?bombers to a very limited role in North Vietnam for much of the Vietnam War.