Cambodian–Vietnamese War

Not to be confused with the 12th-century Đại Việt–Khmer War, the 19th-century Vietnamese invasions of Cambodia, or the 1970 invasion of Cambodia by South Vietnam and the U.S..

Cambodian–Vietnamese War
Part of the Third Indochina War, the Cambodian conflict (1979–1998), the Cold War, and the Sino-Soviet split


Top: Vietnamese forces entering Phnom Penh in January 1979.
Bottom: Map of the Vietnamese advances in 1979
Date25 December 1978 – 26 September 1989[2]
(10 years, 9 months and 1 day)
Location
Cambodia, eastern border of Thailand[3][4][5]
Result
  • 1991 Paris Peace Accords[6][7]
  • Vietnam's overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea in early 1979
  • End of the Cambodian genocide
  • Establishment, then disestablishment, of the People's Republic of Kampuchea
  • Vietnamese occupation in Cambodia
  • Chinese invasion of Vietnam and continued border skirmishes
  • Start of the Cambodian conflict (1979–1998)[8]
  • Establishment of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea in 1982
  • Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia in September 1989[9][10]
  • UN-led transition in Cambodia
  • End of communist regime in Cambodia in 1993
  • Restoration of multi-party rule and a constitutional monarchy in Cambodia in 1993[11]
Belligerents

Democratic Kampuchea (1978–1982)

Thailand (border clashes)		 Vietnam
FUNSK

Post-invasion:
Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (1982–1989)

Thailand (border clashes)[1]		 Post-invasion:
Until April 1989:
Vietnam
People's Republic of Kampuchea
Cuba (reconstruction experts)
From April 1989:
State of Cambodia
Commanders and leaders
  • Lê Duẩn
  • Trường Chinh
  • Nguyễn Văn Linh
  • Võ Nguyên Giáp
  • Văn Tiến Dũng
  • Lê Đức Anh
  • Lê Trọng Tấn
  • Đoàn Khuê
  • Võ Chí Công
  • Heng Samrin
  • Hun Sen
  • Pen Sovan
  • Chea Sim
Strength
  • 150,000–200,000 Vietnamese soldiers[b]
  • 1,000 Lao soldiers (1988)[14]
Casualties and losses
  • 1975–1979:
    c. 15,000 killed[15]
  • 1979–1989: more than 100,000 killed
  • 1975–1979:
  • 1979–1989:
    • Vietnam:
    • People's Republic of Kampuchea:
      • Unknown
  • Total: 25,000–52,000 killed[18]
  • 200,000+ Cambodian civilians killed[19]
    (excluding deaths from famine)
  • 30,000+ Vietnamese civilians killed (1975–1978)[18]

The Cambodian–Vietnamese War[c] was an armed conflict from 1978 to 1989 between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam, and their respective allies.[20][21] It began in December 1978, with a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia which toppled the Khmer Rouge and ended in 1989 with the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia. This Cold War conflict was part of the Third Indochina War and Sino-Soviet split with the Soviet Union supporting Vietnam and China supporting the Khmer Rouge.[22][23]

Despite both being communist, the alliance between the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge broke down after both defeated Vietnamese and Cambodian anti-communist regimes respectively in the Vietnam War. As a result, the war was preceded by years of conflict between Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, when the Khmer Rouge-ruled Democratic Kampuchea repeatedly invaded Vietnam, including massacres by the Khmer Rouge, notably the Ba Chúc massacre of over 3,000 Vietnamese civilians in April 1978.[24][25] On 21 December 1978, the Vietnamese launched a limited offensive towards the town of Kratie.[26] On 23 December 1978, 10 out of 19 divisions of the Khmer Rouge's Kampuchea Revolutionary Army opened fire along the border with Vietnam[27] with the goal of invading the southwestern border provinces of Đồng Tháp, An Giang and Kiên Giang.[28] On 25 December 1978, Vietnam supported Cambodian dissidents in exile and launched a full-scale invasion of Kampuchea, occupying the country in two weeks, capturing the capital Phnom Penh, and removing the Khmer Rouge government of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from power.[29] In doing so, Vietnam put an ultimate stop to the Cambodian genocide which had killed between 1.2 and 2.8 million people or between 13 and 30 percent of the country's population since 1975.[30][31] However, the Khmer Rouge regime maintained its membership in the United Nations and the war isolated Vietnam from the international community except the Eastern Bloc.[32] The Vietnamese occupation caused discontent among Cambodians.[33][34][35]

After the Cambodian capital was captured by the Vietnamese, another communist state was established to replace the old regime[36] while the Khmer Rouge was forced to retreat into the jungle near the border with Thailand where the Khmer Rouge alongside the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, led by Son Sann, and FUNCINPEC, led by former king Norodom Sihanouk, continued to fight the Vietnamese army and the pro-Vietnamese Cambodian government. In 1982, they formed the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. Vietnam's goal of defeating the Khmer Rouge remnants could not be achieved while domestic difficulties forced Vietnam to gradually withdraw its troops. The Vietnamese army completely withdrew in September 1989, and in 1991 the Paris Peace Agreements were signed to open the process of reconciliation between Cambodia's factions, leading to a UN-led transition and the restoration of multi-party rule and a constitutional monarchy in the Kingdom of Cambodia in September 1993.[37][38][9][10]

  1. ^ "Opinion | Thailand Bears Guilt for Khmer Rouge". The New York Times. 24 March 1993. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022.
  2. ^ "Bài 3: Tổng phản công, cùng quân dân Campuchia đánh đổ chế độ diệt chủng". Báo Quân đội Nhân dân (in Vietnamese). Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  3. ^ "Vietnam's forgotten Cambodian war". 14 September 2014.
  4. ^ Cambodge, extension du conflit | INA (in French), retrieved 30 October 2023
  5. ^ Thailande / Cambodge | INA (in French), retrieved 30 October 2023
  6. ^ Lucy Keller. "UNTAC in Cambodia – from Occupation, Civil War and Genocide to Peace – The Paris Peace Conference in 1989" (PDF). Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  7. ^ "Cambodia – 20 years on from the Paris Peace Agreements". OHCHR. 21 October 2011. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  8. ^ "Cambodia" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 7 August 2025.
  9. ^ a b McCargo, p. 199
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Thayer, p. 18 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ "{title}". Archived from the original on 19 February 2009. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  12. ^ Morris, p. 103.
  13. ^ Thayer, p. 10.
  14. ^ Vientiane accuses Thailand of trying to annex part of Laos (Archive), UPI, 23 January 1988. Accessed 22 November 2019. (Archive)
  15. ^ a b Khoo, p. 127
  16. ^ a b Vietnamese sources generally offer contradictory figures, but Vietnamese General Tran Cong Man stated that at least 15,000 soldiers died and another 30,000 were wounded in the ten-year long Cambodian campaign—so the figures do not include the casualties from the period between 1975 and 1979. Thayer, 10
  17. ^ SIPRI Yearbook: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
  18. ^ a b Clodfelter, p. 627.
  19. ^ Clodfelter, p. 627: 100,000 killed in 1978–1979, and another 100,000 killed in the insurgency phase.
  20. ^ Hunt, Luke. "The Truth About War and Peace in Cambodia". thediplomat.com. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  21. ^ "Cambodia" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  22. ^ Wang, Frances Yaping (2024). The Art of State Persuasion: China's Strategic Use of Media in Interstate Disputes. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197757512.
  23. ^ Ang, Cheng Guan (2024). The Third Indochina War: An International History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-56007-8.
  24. ^ "A Terrible Conflict – The Cambodian-Vietnamese War". War History Online. 4 November 2016. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  25. ^ "Cambodian Genocide Group (CGG)". 23 July 2006. Archived from the original on 23 July 2006. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  26. ^ Morris, p. 111
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference qdnd was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  28. ^ "Cuộc chiến đấu bảo vệ Tổ quốc trên biên giới Tây Nam của nhân dân Việt Nam (từ ngày 30 -4 -1977 đến 7-1-1979)" [The struggle to protect the Fatherland on the Southwest border of the Vietnamese people (from April 30, 1977 to January 7, 1979)]. Union of Vietnam Friendship Organizations (in Vietnamese). 2 January 2019. Archived from the original on 14 August 2023.
  29. ^ "Bài 3: Tổng phản công, cùng quân dân Campuchia đánh đổ chế độ diệt chủng". Báo Quân đội Nhân dân (in Vietnamese). Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  30. ^ "UCLA demographer produces best estimate yet of Cambodia's death toll under Pol Pot". UCLA. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  31. ^ Locard, Henri (March 2005). "State Violence in Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) and Retribution (1979–2004)". European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire. 12 (1): 121–143. doi:10.1080/13507480500047811. ISSN 1350-7486.
  32. ^ Larson, Joyce E. (31 December 1980). New Foundations for Asian and Pacific Security. Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute Singapore. doi:10.1355/9789814377065. ISBN 978-981-4377-06-5.
  33. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/05/15/cambodians-resent-presence-of-vietnams-occupation-force/80aac8e7-75ca-469e-b72e-f0528cb6d7a0/
  34. ^ Swann, p. 107
  35. ^ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29106034
  36. ^ "United Nations Security Council Official Records: Thirty-Fourth Year, 2108th Meething". 11 January 1979. Archived from the original on 27 October 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  37. ^ "OHCHR | Cambodia – 20 years on from the Paris Peace Agreements". www.ohchr.org. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
  38. ^ "1991 Paris Peace Agreements – Government, Constitution, National Anthem and Facts of Cambodia Cambodian Information Center". www.cambodia.org. Archived from the original on 23 September 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2019.


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