Discussion between Zhou Enlai and Nguyen Tien

ZHOU ENLAI AND NGUYEN TIEN^[1]

Beijing, 9:50 p.m, 12 April 1972

Zhou Enlai: (After accepting a statement issued by the DRV government dated April 11) We have noted in early April that the United States is to expand bombardment and use warships to shell the territory of the DRV.^[2]  It tries to use expanding bombing and expanding fronts to prevent its defeat.  This certainly will not work.  The people in Indochina are standing together and fighting together.  No matter where the United States will bring the war to, it will suffer from heavy strikes.  China firmly supports the serious stand of the DRV government, and will try its best to support the Vietnamese people to carry the anti-American patriotic war to its end.

^{[1] Vietnamese chargé d’affaires in China.}

^{[2]On 16 April 1972, two months after Nixon’s visit to Beijing, US bombers attacked Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time since 1968.}