Vietnam is a country in southeast Asia which borders China, Laos and Cambodia on the north and west, and has coastline on the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea to the east and south. It declared independence from France in 1945, largely through the efforts of the Communist groups in Vietnam; however, the French spent eight years fighting the Communists. The decision at the end of this war in 1954 was to split the country in two, with North Vietnam being Communist and South Vietnam led by the Vietnamese who supported the French. Political struggle after South Vietnamese president Diem was assassinated (in a coup launched by his own generals) in 1963 caused the U.S. to send over American troops to try and support the non-Communist regime in the South. It was 1973 before the US started to withdraw its troops, and in 1976 the two sections of the country became one again under the government from the north. Border tension with the Communist government in Cambodia got worse after the fall of Saigon, and in early 1979 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and installed a pro-Vietnamese government. A few weeks later, Vietnam was itself attacked by its Communist neighbor and erstwhile benefactor, China. In the mid-1980s, troops were stationed in Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam substantially reduced its forces in Laos during 1988 and withdrew nearly all its troops from Cambodia by September 1989. Still claims the Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands and sections of the land borders with China and Cambodia are still disputed.