The Vietnam War’s real stake was integrating China into world order

Evidence

Something else, then, took place. This war, at bottom, was nothing but a crucial episode of peaceful coexistence. It marked the arrival of China to peaceful coexistence. The nonintervention of China obtained and secured after many years, Chinas apprenticeship to a global modus vivendi, the shift from a global strategy of revolution to one of shared forces and empires, the transition from a radical alternative to political alternation in a system now essentially regulated (the normalization of Peking - Washington relations): this was what was at stake in the war in Vietnam, and in this sense, the USA pulled out of Vietnam but won the war. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 131

Categorization

• XREF: Deliberately contrarian rereading of a well-known historical event; connects to revisionist war histories and to the theme of simulated/spectacular conflict. — connects to: The post-Vietnam military-intervention rationale was transferred wholesale into the Muslim world — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the…, 166; China’s global policy expansion preceded its Middle East engagement — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1182; China’s military leadership pushed for confrontation with the United States — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 600

Broader Connections

• The post-Vietnam military-intervention rationale was transferred wholesale into the Muslim world #expands (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 166
• China’s global policy expansion preceded its Middle East engagement #complicates (0.75) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1182
• China’s military leadership pushed for confrontation with the United States #complicates (0.70) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 600