China has too much territory to retreat and too many man to hold a Gun. It is more like Russia. No army could hold ground in china.
China has so many enemies ( as they created ) around their territory.
So they feel still not arm enough to protect themselve, even domestic issue, as in Urumqi, Tibet
In Vietnam opinion, almost any external act of China has the origin from internal issue.
Frontier act, fight then retreat 1962, 1969, 1979 never go deep inside because they worried about other enemies could take advantage of their weakness when focus on a particular enemy.
The aggressive acts of China make the whole world bonded together, India and Russia, India and US, Vietnam and Japan, Korea, US; US and ASEAN, Vietnam and India.
As a matter of fact, India and Russia together making Brahmos, Vikramaditya, ... China illegal finishing themselve the Liaoning,
India, Vietnam get legal purchased aircrafts, submarines, get license of building warships... China must cloning their aircraft, SAM, ... Simply because Russia say No to transfer sensitive weapon to China,
Now India get aircrafts, weapon from US. For Vietnam after the meeting 24-26 Jul 2013 between Vietnam president and Mr. Obama for US choosing the main partner in ASEAN, Vietnam soon after is able to get barring lifted and official has weapons from US like advanced missile, coast guard, some P3 Orion with arms
Vietnam now already get some old navy ships from Korea and improve for coast guard force.
As in another topic here, Vietnam get loan of 100 mil from India to purchase 4 more patrol ships.
If Vietnam maritime police disintegrate from navy, Japan would give at least 10 coast guard ships to Vietnam like did it to Phillipine this month.
I think Chinese should start to worry about that