espousing anticommunism was their most reliable means to win entry to the United States (p. 55). But many also did so because of their close ties to the South Vietnamese state, the foremost U.S. mil- itary colony in the world during its twenty-year existence. After per- suasively critiquing the contradictions of ‘‘militarized refuge(es)’’ throughout her book, it is unfortunate that Espiritu does not consider more fully how those contradictions manifested themselves within South Vietnam and the (South) Vietnamese refugee community. MICHAEL J. ALLEN Northwestern University Deng Xiaoping’s Long War: The Military Conflict between China and Viet- nam, 1979–1991. By Xiaoming Zhang. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2015. xx þ 277 pp. $35 cloth) Given the wave of anti-Chinese demonstrations in Vietnam in 2014, China’s expanding militarization of the South China Sea, and the United States’ strategic ‘‘pivot’’ to the region, Xiaoming Zhang’s study of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese conflict and its aftermath is timely indeed. With access to both sides’ state records still restricted, Zhang consults newly circulated Chinese military documents, pro- vincial archives, and Chinese-language media and memoirs. He out- lines the historical context and strategic deliberations behind China’s incursion into northern Vietnam, pausing frequently to revise past assumptions in light of the new evidence his research uncovers. As the title suggests, Deng Xiaoping is at the heart of the narrative, a departure from previous scholarship which Zheng feels has neglected Deng’s foreign policy contributions by concentrating on his economic reforms. ‘‘Given Deng’s overwhelming command- ing power within PRC leadership circles,’’ Zhang posits, ‘‘war with Vietnam became unavoidable once [he] had ascended to the PRC’s supreme leadership position’’ (p. 9). Buoyed by relentless willpower, Deng prevailed in pursuing war despite the objections of select officials and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rank and file who, informed by decades of imagery depicting Vietnam as a fraternal comrade, were reluctant to attack their southern neighbor. Echoing scholars like Chen Jian and He Di, among others, who have argued that China’s communist leaders blurred the distinction between foreign and internal affairs, Zhang proposes a diverse range of closely related diplomatic and domestic political objectives for the war. Neutralizing Party rivals, consolidating control over the armed forces, and demonstrating the need for military reform, 628 Pacific Historical Review