Vietnam claims big raids by China

Press, 23 October 1978, Page 7

Vietnam claims big raids by China

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok Vietnam has said that “thousands” of Chinese soldiers and policemen have crossed into Vietnamese territory in border incidents over the last two weeks, killing two border guards and wounding 14 militiamen.

Hanoi's Communist Patty newspaper, “Nhan Dan,” has accused the Chinese of committing "criminal acts” and staging “brazen provocations and territorial violations” along Vietnam’s northern border “in growing frequency and in greater strength.” Tension has grown along the border in recent months as a bitter feud between the two communist neighbours has heated up. The Hanoi paper said Chinese border violations in July had involved a few dozen men, in August and September several hundred, and “now a single incident sometimes involves thousands of men.” Vietnam claimed on Friday that more than 1000 Chinese soldiers, policemen, and militia, supported by artillery, had intruded into Vietnamese territory on Thursday, committing arson and other “acts of destruction” in areas of Lang Son province.

Radio Hanoi, monitored in Bankok, said Vietnam's Director of Chinese Affairs (Mr Nguyen Tien) had lodged a protest with the Chinese Charge d’Atfaires, in Hanoi (Mr Lo Ming) demanding compensation for casualties in the last two weeks.

The radio said that during that period two Vietnamese border guards had been killed, 14 militiamen wounded, one policeman kidnapped, and several houses burned down in border 'areas.

China claims that 160,000 Chinese residents of Vietnam who are reported to have fled to China this year left becuase of persecution by the Vietnamese authorities. The Vietnamese deny this. The two border countries also are at odds over China’s support of Cambodia in its border war with Vietnam, and over Vietnam’s growing alliance with the

Soviet Union, which Peking considers to be China’s main enemy.

Cambodia said yesterday that its forces had defeated a Vietnamese regiment that had intruded into the northeastern province of Ratanakiri on Thursday. The report, carried by Radio Phnom Penh and monitored in Bangkok, was the first of fighting in the north-east for some time in the border war between the two countries, which in the last few months has been concentrated farther south. The radio said Cambodian forces had inflicted heavy casualties on the Vietnamese troops, who had been forced to retreat across the border. Cambodian forces had also captured 20 Vietnamese soldiers and 130 weapons, including rifles and grenadelaunchers, the radio said. Both sides claimed recently to have inflicted heavy casualties on the other in the Parrot’s Beak salient north-west of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).