Self-Fulfilled Prophecy? China deploys fighter jets to disputed South China Sea Island

[Dungeness]

I believe the Sino-Vietnam War forced China to avoid another major war since it failed in Vietnam.

We can surrender some role to other countries like Saudi Arabia led coalition on ME since they are busy with Iran. And the Europeans are doing fine since Russia has changed their minds about invading Eastern Europe since being bogged down in Ukraine and Syria.

It is interesting that you would buy into Vietnam's point of view. Deng needed to teach Vietnam a lesson for what they did to Chinese-Vietnamese after the war; Deng needed to prove to Vietnam that Soviet would not come to rescue; Deng needed to stop Vietnam from taking all of sub Mekong. Sino-Vietnam war achieved all of these strategics aims. It was announced before it started that it would be a short border war, and the war was fought accordingly.

By the way, are you a Vietnamese?

I would say it is a win-win-win scenario for all affected in SCS:

US flashed the military muscle through its FONOPS, and show to the world who the boss is;
Vietnam and Philippines felt the love from Uncle Sam, and found the much needed comfort;
China gets to use the excuse to build even more islands in SCS.

Everyone gets what he needs, so everyone should be happy.