| Sino-Soviet border conflict | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Cold War | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| China | Soviet Union
Warsaw Pact Countries | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Jaing Qing Zhang Chunqiao Yao Wenyuan Wang Hongwen |
Alexei Kosygin | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 1,500,000 | 1,100,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and
losses | |||||||
| 640,000 killed | 510,000 killed | ||||||
The Second Sino-Soviet War was the second conflict fought between the two leading communist powers: The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. By the late 70's, the ideological rift between Soviet-style Communism and Chinese-style Communism was very wide, and was a secondary but very significant contributing factor to the first Sino-Soviet conflict fought between 1969 and 1971.
This conflict was by far one of the most bloody since the Second World War, with the death toll being estimated at around 1.6 million casualties. Though it is known as the Sino-Soviet war, the conflict involved military personnel from the entire Warsaw Pact, as well as assistance from the United States and other western countries.
Chinese aims[]
China had many aims that led to war with the Soviet Union, but the primary reason was that the Chinese wanted to retribution for the embarrassing defeat in the first Sino-Soviet war.
Yao Wenyuan's book "Had we won the war". written and published in 1983 while in exile in Korea, detailing the world that would be shaped by a victorious China.
China sought to annex East Turkestan, Mongolia and Tibet. China wanted to make the Soviet Union and Korea Chinese satellite states, and the Soviets would've "had Maoist ideology imposed on them, by force if necessary". All Soviet nuclear missiles would've been transferred to China, giving them a MASSIVE nuclear stockpile.
Aftermath[]
China was crushed for the second time in 10 years. Alexei Kosygin met Taiwanese President Chiang Ching-kuo personally to discuss mainland China. Manchuria would be made a Soviet satellite state, and the Kuomintang would be able to return to mainland China under the condition that they remain neutral in the Cold War.