Last week China withdrew its remaining troops from Vietnam, thus ending their counter-attack. Why was this attack launched in the first place?

Late on Friday, 16th February, the Chinese Ambassador to the UN, Chen Chu, handed an official note to UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim protesting Vietnam's military actions along the Chinese border, demanding Hanoi withdraw its forces from Vietnam and warning that otherwise "Vietnam should bear full responsibility for the consequences arising therefrom."

This was in fact notice of China's limited engagement inside Vietnam which it carried out for the next 4 weeks.

This week I will examine relations between the two countries and the reasons behind the conflict. This article dovetails into the Last and has to be seen in its context. The conflict is not limited to the Sino-Vietnamese border but is a reflection of many events and trends in the world today. The most important of these is the Soviet Union's aggressive bid to replace the United States as the worlds dominant superpower. With the quickening pace of the battle between western interests and the ascendant power of Soviet imperialism, countries are being forced to choose whether they will side with the Soviet Union in opposition to western capital, or retain tome measure of independence from the contingent war preparations.

It is in this context that the problems of South East Asia should be viewed - relating the general world situation to particular hot-mots.

As I tried to show last week, Vietnam has chosen to be drawn closer into the Russian camp. Not only is this action a diplomatic one, but involves large scale economic and military agreements.