Small-scale fighting continued between the two countries throughout 1978 , as China tried to mediate peace talks between the two sides . However , neither country would agree to an acceptable compromise . By the end of 1978 , Vietnamese leaders decided to remove the Khmer Rouge-dominated regime of Democratic Kampuchea , perceiving it as being pro-Chinese and hostile towards Vietnam . On 25 December 1978 , 150,000 Vietnamese troops invaded Democratic Kampuchea and overran the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army in just two weeks , thereby ending the excesses of Pol Pot 's regime , which had been responsible for the deaths of almost a quarter of all Cambodians between 1975 and December 1978 . Vietnamese military intervention and the occupying forces ' subsequent allowing in of international food aid to mitigate the massive famine is viewed as ending the Cambodian genocide
Cambodian genocide
Cambodian genocide
Cambodian–Vietnamese War