Mao’s Final Legacies and the Sino-Vietnamese War, 1971–79

While official Chinese history hails Mao’s diplomatic and strategic policy-making in his last five years as successful, Mao’s Final Legacies and the Sino-Vietnamese War offers a convincing reassessment: Mao hijacked national security and manipulated ideology to serve his political needs. Following a failed military coup (the Lin Biao Incident) in 1971, Mao crippled the People’s Liberation Army and established anti-Soviet, pro–Khmer Rouge policies. The last years of Mao Zedong’s life and leadership were filled with high-stakes action and diplomatic manoeuvring. Drawing on previously untapped Chinese archival documents, internal documents, and insiders’ memoirs, Chenyi Wang investigates how Mao’s policies sowed the seeds for the catastrophic war against Vietnam in 1979. This compelling narrative shows how Mao’s preoccupation with power ultimately bequeathed an approach to diplomatic and strategic decision-making that led his successors to failure.