The south Vietnamese army and civilians, after fighting long and valiantly, have thoroughly crushed the puppet regime in south Viet Nam and finally liberated Saigon. This is a great victory for the people of Viet Nam and all Indochina who have persisted in a protracted revolutionary armed struggle. The Chinese people are greatly overjoyed and inspired by these glad tidings. On behalf of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese Government and the Chinese people, we extend our warmest congratulations and highest salute to you, to the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet Nam, to the Viet Nam Workers' Party and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and to the entire Vietnamese people in the north and the south.
For the sake of the independence of their father-land and the liberation of their nation, the heroic Vietnamese people, holding high the brilliant banner of "firm resolve to fight and to win" of President Ho CM Minh and advancing wave upon wave, waged a tenacious and extremely arduous struggle for decades, successively defeated the "special warfare", the "local war" and the "Vietnamized" war unleashed by U.S. imperialism and its lackeys, and won great victories one after another. In the new situation after the signing of the Paris agreement, the Vietnamese people resolutely fought back in self-defence against the crimes of violating the Paris agreement, refusing to realize national concord and rabidly massacring the people, which were committed by the Saigon puppet clique with the backing of the U.S. Government, and now finally have defeated the counter-revolutionary war with revolutionary war and won the splendid victory of the complete liberation of south Viet Nam. Your victory ushers in a new era, the era of the liberation of Viet Nam, and has a great historical importance and international significance. Your victory greatly inspires all the oppressed nations and peoples engaged in struggle and sets a brilliant example in the anti-imperialist revolutionary cause of the people of the whole world. The victory of the Vietnamese people is another eloquent proof that any people, even the people of a small country. can surely defeat any outwardly strong enemy and win final victory for their just cause of defending their country's independence and freedom and winning national liberation so long as they dare to rise in struggle and take up arms in a just war to oppose an unjust war and fight persistently, fearing no difficulties, sacrifices or setbacks.
China and Viet Nam are closely-related neighbours like the lips and the teeth, and our two people are comrades-in-arms and brothers sharing hardships and difficulties. We Chinese people have always regarded the Vietnamese people's struggle as our own struggle and their victory as our own victory. In the protracted revolutionary struggle of the past, our two peoples have supported and encouraged each other. In the days to come, the Chinese people will continue unswervingly to unite and fight together with the Vietnamese people. We sincerely wish that the south Vietnamese people will ceaselessly win new and greater victories in their continued struggle to carry through their national and democratic revolution. A new Viet Nam that is independent, free, unified and prosperous will certainly come into being.
Mao Zedong
Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Zhu De
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China
Zhou Enlai
Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China
Beijing. April 30, 1975
(First published in the Peking Review, May 2 1975)