Discussion between Zhou Enlai and Nguyen Thi Binh

ZHOU ENLAI AND NGUYEN THI BINH

Beijing, 12:45 p.m., 17 June 1970

Zhou Enlai: We fought the Korean War during Truman’s time.  The United States tried to take advantage [of the fact] that China had just been liberated to start a war of aggression.  Chairman Mao said that as you have already reached the Yalu River we cannot but intervene.  If we failed to support North Korea, North Korea would be lost, falling into the hands of the United States.  At that time, we indeed were not certain about the result [of our intervention].  However, Chairman Mao said, the Chinese people had the right to support Korea.  If we were repulsed, we could fight back.  We first fought the puppet troops.  But when battles began we encountered the American troops.  After two and three campaigns, [we found the Americans] not so powerful.  Isn’t it true that you also experienced the growth from weak to strong, and you have been fighting a war which is even larger than the war [in Korea].  This is the truth Chairman Mao has revealed in his May 25^th Statement: Not necessarily does a small country fear a big power, a big power sometimes fears a small country.  China is not a small country, but, at that time [of the Korean War] was a weak country.  So long as we dare to pick up weapons to fight, finally we are able to use a revolutionary war to defeat the war of aggression.  The Korean War has proved this point.  The Vietnam War will further prove it.  Now the war has expanded to Cambodia and the entire Indochina.  It is not you, nor Prince Sihanouk, nor China, who planned the expansion.  It is the United States which did it.  Fine, let the war expand.  In the past, only areas on the east bank of the Mekong River were the shelter.  Now the whole Cambodia becomes the shelter, and the whole Indochina becomes the shelter, not to mention that there exists the big shelter—China.