Word: soviet
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Chinese action, Viet Nam's Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh had denounced what he described as "feverish war preparations" by Peking, including the massing of 20 divisions along the frontier. Trinh also called on the United Nations to "examine the grave situation" and move to defuse it. The Soviet Union entered the rhetorical fray by warning Peking not to "overstep the forbidden line" in its quarrel with Hanoi...
...Yunnan, Kwangsi and Kwangtung, the Chinese have gathered an estimated 150,000 troops, some of them rushed from positions facing Taiwan. In the past week or so, the frontier forces were bolstered by the arrival of several hundred Chinese fighter planes. At the same time, Chinese forces along the Soviet border in Sinkiang province went to full alert, and civilians were reportedly being evacuated from those areas. Said a China-watcher in Hong Kong: "No amount of paranoia could account for the size of this buildup. The Chinese are preparing for something...
...Soviets evidently agree. They have kept two small task forces, including warships, steaming off the Viet Nam coast, with the apparent aim of monitoring Chinese military communications as well as showing Soviet support for Hanoi. The U.S., for its part, has kept two Seventh Fleet aircraft carriers, the Constellation and the Midway, poised near by to discourage any rash action...
Viet Nam's motives for twisting the dragon's tail are much less clear. Hanoi might have convinced itself that even a limited Chinese thrust into Viet Nam would bring swift retaliation by some of the Soviet forces arrayed along China's western and northern frontiers. But as for why such tail twisting should now be so popular in Hanoi, some Western observers can only speculate that it is a sign that a group of hard-lining expansionists, led by General Vo Nguyen Giap and Army Chief of Staff Van Tien Dung, are gaining supremacy...
...owes $6 billion. "Through ambition, ineptitude and, one suspects, plain stupidity," says Patrick J. Honey, a longtime Viet Nam analyst at the University of London, "the Vietnamese Communist leaders have brought their own country to the brink of famine and economic ruin. They have provided a foothold for the Soviet Union in Southeast Asia, jeopardized Viet Nam's own national independence and brought the possibility of large-scale conflict to the region once more." As this week began, that possibility loomed larger than ever...