BANGKOK, Thailand -- China invaded Vietnam along the 500-mile length of the two nations' border today but promised its troops would withdraw "after counterattacking the Vietnamese aggressors as "they deserve."
The official New China News Agency reported late tonight the past week of sporadic border clashes had escalated to a "grave armed conflict" but it said Hanoi was to was to blame. China reportedly attacked with tanks, infantry, artillery and fighter-bombers.
Reports from Hanoi and Peking indicated battles raged between the two Communist states once staunchly allied together against the United States at more than a dozen points. The Soviet news agency Tass reported details of the battles from Hanoi without comment.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said U.S. forces "are being maintained in the normal alert posture." At the State Department, members of the China "working group," which was active during Chinese Vice Premier Hsiao Teng-Ping's visit, hurriedly reassembled Saturday.
Vietnam claimed a series of victories and said its troops destroyed 13 Chinese tanks and killed 230 Chinese troops in one clash. But dispatches by Communist reporters based in Hanoi admitted the advancing Chinese armies had captured a number of border villages and said they had penetrated up to 6 miles inside Vietnamese territory.
Western intelligence analysts said the invasion was a Chinese retaliation for Vietnam's leadership of the forces that ousted the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia last month, as well as for long-standing mistreatment of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam.
Vietnam said its government was appealing to the U.N. Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to halt the invasion.
The Vietnamese military radio reported the population of four Vietnamese provinces under attack was fiercely resisting the Chinese advance. The broadcast charged Peking's troops were "using long-range artillery to wantonly shell several towns and cities and populated areas."
The Tass news agency In Moscow today said Chinese troops attacked Vietnam from 14 directions today and drove four miles across the border. It reported "fierce fighting" on all fronts, with hundreds of Chinese troops killed.
The Tass story from Hanoi said "many Chinese soldiers have been killed and 13 Chinese tanks have been set on fire and destroyed. It reported 250 Chinese dead in one battle alone, at Batsat in Hoang Lienson province.
The Soviet report conceded "Chinese armed forces captured a number of border communities." It gave no report on Vietnamese casualties
The Chinese Communist Party confirmed the report and said the People's Liberation Army decided "to go into battle in order to punish Vietnamese for their repeated provocative actions and violence."
The party's bulletin described the action as "a systematized defensive warfare" and said Peking had no intention of occupying Vietnamese territory according to Japan's Kyodo news service.
Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said Japan's embassy in Peking was unable to determine the full extent of the Chinese action and it was not possible to contact the embassy in Hanoi.
In Washington the State Department said it had no independent knowledge of the fighting. "We are following this," a spokesman said.
Vietnam's Premier Pham Van Dong was out of the country when the Chinese attacked.
