Foreign Ministry Statement

China Condemns Towering U.S. Crimes in South Vietnam

[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, #4, Jan. 21, 1966, pp. 7-8.]

      ON January 11, 1966, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam issued a statement, exposing with a mass of facts the crimes committed by U.S. imperialism in pressing forward with its inhuman policies of “scorched earth” and of “kill all, burn all and destroy all” in southern Vietnam. Previously, on January 9, the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam issued a statement exposing the use by U.S. imperialism of poison gas and toxic chemicals on a large scale for massacre and destruction in southern Vietnam. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam called on all peace-loving countries and peoples, including the American people, to take action to sternly condemn and stop the U.S. aggressors’ brutal atrocities. Moreover, it reiterated that “the United States must withdraw all U.S. and satellite troops from south Vietnam, definitively and unconditionally end all encroachments on the territory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, respect the 1954 Geneva agreements on Vietnam, and let the people of south Vietnam settle themselves their own internal affairs.” The Chinese Government and people strongly condemn U.S. imperialism for its atrocious acts of aggression and resolutely support the just stand of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people.

      The 650 million Chinese people are extremely indignant at the heinous crimes committed by U.S. imperialism in southern Vietnam. These heinous crimes are being committed while the U.S. Government is resorting to the trick of “suspension of bombing” of northern Vietnam and is launching a “peace offensive” all over the world. This serves all the more to expose the gangster nature of U.S. imperialism.

      For quite some time, the United States has been advertising everywhere that it is willing to take the Geneva agreements as the basis for a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam question, that the four points of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam could be discussed, and even that it does not want to retain bases in south Vietnam and Southeast Asia, etc. In short, it has been pretending that it genuinely loves peace. As everyone can see now, the peace avowed by the United States means the dropping of thousands of tons of incendiary and other bombs to raze one village after another in southern Vietnam. It means the mass slaughter of Vietnamese people, chopping off their heads, cutting out their hearts, disembowelling or dismembering them, not even sparing women and children. It means the use of huge quantities of poison gas and toxic chemicals to poison thousands upon thousands of people and destroy millions of acres of crops and vegetation. The United States in no way aims at peace. It is employing this unprecedentedly barbarous fascist means in an attempt to compel the south Vietnamese people to lay down their arms and stop resistance. It is resorting to the blackmail of a “bombing pause” in an attempt to compel the north Vietnamese people to stop aiding their fellow-countrymen in the south. In the face of such shocking facts, no genuine peace-loving and just-minded country and people can help feeling indignant at the towering crimes of the United States and detesting its “peace offensive.”

      China and Vietnam are closely related brotherly neighbours, like lips and teeth. We Chinese people are deeply affected by the sufferings of the Vietnamese people. We had similar experience when the Japanese imperialists invaded China; and the policies of “kill all, burn all and loot all” and of “scorched earth” are still fresh in our memories. We have also learnt from our own experience that the U.S. imperialists are even more barbarous than the Japanese imperialists. We wholeheartedly support the Vietnamese people in their just struggle and consider it our bounden international duty to sternly condemn the atrocious crimes of the United States and thoroughly expose the U.S. plot of peace talks.

      If a socialist country dare not sternly denounce the heinous crimes of the United States or thoroughly expose the U.S. peace talks fraud, it has not only lost its class feelings but forgeited all sense of justice.

      Cowards are the worst brutes. The U.S. imperialists have already embarked on the road of Hitler, Mussolini and Hideki Tojo. Lyndon B. Johnson is at once more brutal and more cowardly than they. Countless facts have demonstrated that, in the face of the heroic Vietnamese people who persevere in struggle, the U.S. aggressors are a mere bunch of cowards mortally afraid of death. The more brutal its aggression, the nearer is U.S. imperialism to its doom. Chairman Mao Tse-tung has said that the imperialists and all reactionaries are paper tigers, while it is the people who are really strong. No matter how truculent and savage U.S. imperialism may be, it can never save itself from its inevitable failure in Vietnam.

      People of the whole world, unite, support the Vietnamese people and overthrow U.S. imperialism! The Vietnamese people are bound to win, U.S. imperialism is bound to be defeated!

(January 14, 1966.)      

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