History ‘Condensed’: Why Việt Nam Avoid Teaching the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese Border War

On March 6, 1979, China began withdrawing its troops from Việt Nam. This brought an end to the Sino-Vietnamese border war, which had lasted for more than half a month following the opening artillery barrage on Feb. 17.

​Forty-seven years later, the press and public discourse still perform the educational role that textbooks and schools should play by reminding younger generations of the war. For years, the apparent indifference of history textbooks toward the 1979 conflict has drawn media attention, prompting criticism and public concern.

​In a recent and somewhat encouraging development, the attack by tens of thousands of Chinese troops on six northern border provinces of Việt Nam has been added as a separate lesson. This change appears in the Grade 12 history curriculum under the new textbook program introduced for the 2024–2025 school year. It represents an important enhancement over the 2018 edition of the textbooks, which reduced the events of the spring 1979 war to just 11 lines.

​However, it is noteworthy that while the revision expanded the space devoted to the war, the actual content remains largely unchanged and only minimally developed, failing to provide a comprehensive analysis of the events and their implications.

​Lingering questions remain. What about the 1979 border war makes the authorities reluctant to address it openly? What lies behind the conflict that officials do not want students and the public to know? Furthermore, how does China teach this event to its students, and is it the same as in Việt Nam?

New Textbooks Only Add a Marginal Lesson on the War

Following the recent textbook reform, three different history textbook series are now available on the market: Cánh Diều (Kite), Kết nối tri thức với cuộc sống (Connecting Knowledge with Life), and Chân trời sáng tạo (Creative Horizons). [1]

​Within the Kết nối tri thức với cuộc sống series, the Grade 12 history textbook addresses the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese border conflict in Lesson 9: “Defending the Fatherland from April 1975 to the Present: Historical Lessons from the Wars of National Defense Since 1945.” This lesson also covers the 1979 war along the southwestern border and the 1988 Gạc Ma incident, the latter of which was only recently added to the curriculum.

​However, this change represents only a marginal improvement over previous editions. The lesson largely condenses the conflicts of 1979 and 1988 into approximately a single page. 

By contrast, lessons detailing the “resistance wars”—the war “against French colonialism (1945–1954)” and the war “against the United States for national salvation (1954–1975)”—span between 10 and 20 pages, featuring detailed campaign maps, extensive statistics, and comprehensive narratives.

​The war with China is also presented as a “secondary” chapter in Việt Nam’s modern national defense history. The image of the Chinese state remains ambiguous, leaving it unclear whether China should be viewed as a “comrade” or an “invading enemy.” This perspective stands in sharp contrast to the explicit identification of France and the United States as “colonial” or “imperialist” regimes and “invading enemies.”

​The textbook utilizes restrained, diplomatic language regarding the 1979 northern border war, stating only that China “violated Việt Nam’s border areas” and “damaged the relationship between Việt Nam and China.” 

Furthermore, it attributes China’s troop deployment to “hostile actions against Việt Nam by the Pol Pot group, which were supported by some Chinese leaders at the time.” It omits the fact that China and the Pol Pot regime—the Khmer Rouge—were regarded as “comrades” who shared the same communist ideology as Việt Nam.

​Although modest, this inclusion remains a significant effort within Việt Nam’s education system. [2] The 2018 general education curriculum provided an opportunity to revise historical topics that previous textbooks addressed sparingly. 

This educational shift is the result of long-term advocacy by citizens, experts, historians, and war veterans who consistently pushed to acknowledge the Sino-Vietnamese border war and honor those who sacrificed their lives. 

Many Generations of Students Were Barely Taught About the War

According to The Diplomat, it took nearly 20 years after the conflict ended for the Vietnamese government to “reluctantly” include a few brief lines describing the war in textbooks. [3] This reluctance was evident in the 2001 edition of the Grade 12 history textbook, which devoted only 24 lines to the conflict. 

Surprisingly, the content was significantly reduced to just 11 lines in the 2018 edition, following the anti-China protests in 2011 and demonstrations against China’s HD-981 oil rig in 2014.

​Prof. Vũ Dương Ninh, a co-editor of the Grade 12 history textbook at the time, acknowledged that the authors were “very dissatisfied with how the northern border war was presented in the textbook but ultimately had to accept it.” [4] 

In a December 2016 interview with VnExpress, Ninh explained that the editorial team initially wrote a much longer, detailed account. However, due to the “sensitive relationship” with China, the content was repeatedly revised, resulting in it being “cut from four pages down to just 11 lines.”

​Beneath that VnExpress article, many readers claiming to be war veterans left comments. One commenter, Trần Văn Châu, urged textbook authors to “immediately add” more content about the border war. Châu stated he served in the military from March 1983 to September 1986, fighting in 50 battles on the Hà Tuyên front.

​Yet, Châu wrote that when he later recounted his experiences, few believed him because the media, books, and other sources scarcely mentioned the war.

​In practice, Việt Nam’s education system teaches Chinese invasions in detail only when covering the country’s feudal dynasties and the period of Chinese domination, distributing these topics across grades 6 through 11. 

By contrast, the 1979 war—China’s most recent large-scale invasion with direct consequences for the grandparents of current students—continues to be taught only in a superficial manner, despite multiple rounds of textbook revisions and reforms, which may lead to a lack of understanding among students about its significance and impact on contemporary relations between the two countries.

What China Teaches About the War

Unlike Việt Nam, China’s education system does not teach students anything about this historical event. [5] Instead, the website of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs merely notes that Việt Nam–China relations “declined in the 1980s and 1990s,” without providing further explanation.

​Despite this formal silence, the war still appears in cultural spaces such as films, journalism, commemorative activities, anniversaries, and other informal narratives. In these contexts, China refers to the conflict as the “self-defense counterattack against Việt Nam.” [6]

​These developments may reflect a particular approach by the Chinese authorities. While the formal national education system remains conspicuously silent, unofficial channels of public education within broader civic and cultural spaces effectively convey the exact message the government intends to promote, which may include narratives that downplay historical conflicts such as the 1979 border war.

A Secret Compromise Between Two Communist “Comrades”

This raises an important question: Why have both the Vietnamese and Chinese governments been so cautious about addressing the 1979 border war?

​The root of this caution can be traced back to the early 1990s, when Nguyễn Văn Linh, then general secretary of the Communist Party of Việt Nam, reportedly made a “secret” trip to meet Chinese leaders in Chengdu. There, the two sides agreed to “set aside the past and look toward the future.” [7] At this historic meeting, the nations agreed to end the border conflict that began in 1979 and signed several undisclosed agreements, which neither side has ever publicly released, including terms for future cooperation and conflict resolution mechanisms.

​Following this summit, the Vietnamese government chose not to organize official commemorations for those who died in the 1979 war. The following year, authorities announced the official normalization of relations with China at both the party and state levels.

​The year 1999 further solidified this diplomatic shift. During a visit to Beijing, General Secretary Lê Khả Phiêu reached an important agreement defining the framework of Việt Nam–China diplomatic relations. 

This transition was encapsulated in the “16-word guideline” (“friendly neighbors, comprehensive cooperation, long-term stability, looking toward the future”) and the “four goods” (“good neighbors, good friends, good comrades, good partners”).

​It was during this exact period that historical narratives in both Việt Nam and China began to treat the 1979 war with increasing caution.

What Do the Textbooks Not Say about the Border War?

According to reporting at the time by the Associated Press, China launched a massive offensive on the early morning of Feb. 17, 1979. As residents in Việt Nam’s northern border regions welcomed the arrival of spring, China simultaneously deployed infantry, artillery, tanks, and air forces along the 700-kilometer border. [8]

​The AP reported that China conducted heavy artillery bombardments on densely populated towns and villages inside Vietnamese territory before its troops crossed the border, with some units pushing more than 50 kilometers deep in the early days of fighting. 

The balance of forces was highly unequal. Japan’s Kyodo News, in a dispatch from Bangkok, cited a Thai military source stating that Việt Nam had about 100,000 troops along the border, whereas Beijing had concentrated roughly 200,000 soldiers and 700 combat aircraft.

​Responding to the invasion, Radio Hanoi reported that the People’s Army of Việt Nam had launched counterattacks, inflicting losses and destroying several Chinese tanks, though the broadcast did not specify the size of China’s deployment.

Publicly, China’s Xinhua News Agency described the campaign as a “counterattack in self-defense to protect China’s border” from alleged Vietnamese “armed incursions,” accusing Vietnamese forces of killing one Chinese soldier and one farmer while injuring another farmer. [9] 

However, Chinese leaders struck a different tone before the invasion. On Jan. 29, 1979, Deng Xiaoping told reporters in Washington, “If you don’t teach them some necessary lessons, it just won’t do,” describing Việt Nam as a disobedient child needing discipline. [10]

​The geopolitical roots of the conflict were complex. Many political commentators argue the 1979 war stemmed largely from Việt Nam’s military campaign against the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, whose leader, Pol Pot, was a Chinese ally. [11] Simultaneously, Sino-Soviet relations were deteriorating, while Moscow provided significant support to Hà Nội as its “elder brother.”

​​Within hours of the outbreak, the United States called on China to withdraw and urged the Soviet Union to exercise restraint to prevent escalating tensions. [12] China ultimately did not begin its troop withdrawal until March 6, 1979.

​Following the withdrawal, a war of words ensued. China stated that it had “achieved its objectives,” delivering “heavy blows” in three directions: Đồng Đăng–Lạng Sơn, Cao Bằng–Thất Khê, and Lào Cai–Cam Đường. [13] 

Beijing also declared that it had not taken “a single inch of Vietnamese territory” and would not “tolerate” further Vietnamese “territorial incursions.” Conversely, the Vietnam News Agency proclaimed Việt Nam had “defeated Beijing’s expansionist plot,” claiming Vietnamese forces killed or wounded nearly 42,000 Chinese troops and destroyed half of their armored vehicles. Western observers noted the likely exaggeration of these figures, given that neither nation has ever released official casualty numbers.

​Finally, textbooks rarely mention that the conflict did not truly end in 1979. Although both sides declared the war over, intermittent clashes continued for another decade. It was only in the 1990s, following the historic Chengdu meeting and gradual normalization, that the confrontation between the two communist states officially concluded.

---

Minh Khê wrote this Religion Bulletin in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on Mar. 4, 2026. The Vietnamese owns the copyright for this English translation.