| dc.description.abstract | Focus of study
The research question guiding the study is: Improvements in Sino-Vietnamese relations were made possible by external factors while domestic needs in both countries made it desirable.
Theoretical approach:
The theoretical framework of the thesis is based upon two distinct, but at the same time intersected and complementary theoretical contributions. The English School represented by Hedley Bull and his seminal distinction between international society and international system constitutes the main theoretical contribution to the study. The seminal distinction describes a situation where inter-state relations are either characterised by strong normative elements, like common interests, customs, norms, values etc, or with a lack of such normative regulations, like in a zero-sum game. The other theoretical contribution to the study is the debated security concept, and the distinction between the New Wide and the Old Narrow concept of security. The Wider tradition in the concept of security concretises Hedley Bull s idea of an international society where each state s behaviour drifts in the direction of regulated behaviour.
The analytical part of the thesis is divided into two distinct periods where the emphasis will be on the latter one. The first period (chapter 4) stretches from 1985 to the normalisation of diplomatic relations on November 9 1991, and addresses the question: How did the end of the Cold War affect the bilateral relationship between China and Vietnam 1985-91? Chapters 5-7 analyse the period after the normalisation of diplomatic relations up to the 9th Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Congress April 19-22, 2001. Regarding the continued improvement of Sino-Vietnamese relations in the November 1991 2001 period, I intend to analyse three explanatory frameworks Shared Community, Regionalism and Globalism and establish within which of them the factors with the largest explanatory power are to be found. Within each of the three exploratory frameworks a cluster of distinct factors are to be found, and the purpose with the study is to find out which of these factors, and not which of the three exploratory frameworks, which have the largest explanatory power. These factors should then answer the second research question. Why have bilateral relations between China and Vietnam continued to improve since the normalisation of diplomatic relations in November 1991?
Findings
Based on my findings in the first period I conclude that the domestic factors like the personnel changes in the Vietnamese leadership and the inauguration of market reforms in Vietnam in December 1986 were less important to the external factors like the end of the Cold War, the new Soviet foreign policy towards Asia, the July 1990 transformed US Cambodia policy and the end of the Cambodian conflict in causing normalisation of Sino-Vietnamese relations. When the Cold War ended, Vietnam lost the support of her main ally and sponsor: the Soviet Union. That made Vietnam isolated and vulnerable. I will conclude that the end of the Cold War with its geopolitical changes has the largest explanatory weight. All other important external (as well as internal) factors, which made Sino-Vietnamese diplomatic normalisation possible, could in fact be traces back to the end of the Cold War.
Based on my main findings in the second period, I conclude that the external factors like the important position the US has towards Vietnam and China due to the US position as the only remaining superpower, the challenge from the Western liberalism led by the strong US pressure on human rights were less important to the domestic factors like the shared ideology, similar economic strategies, the tremendous improvement that happened in the quality of China s regional diplomacy in causing the continued improvement of Sino-Vietnamese relations throughout the period under study. Regarding the theoretical approach, I conclude that the international society tradition could explain no more than the form of the continued improvement of Sino-Vietnamese relations. Therefore, as an alternative explanation approach (to the international society tradition) I raised in chapter 7 the trade-off idea.
Trade-off means that Vietnam increased her bargaining position vis-a-vis China due to Vietnam s rejection of close military co-operation with the US. Thus, while both China and Vietnam got what they wanted China got no US-Vietnamese military co-operation, and Hanoi avoided possible US interference in her national security policy planning that a close military co-operation with the US could have led to Vietnam gained something extra: an improved bargaining position vis-á-vis China. In turn the improved Vietnamese bargaining position may have paved the way for the continued improvement of Sino-Vietnamese relations. One problem with the trade-off idea is that it is very difficult to verify whether or not there has been such a trade-off between Vietnam and China, since where the trade-off activity takes place and who is doing it is far from public view. However, the fact that Vietnam twice postponed a planned visit by the US Secretary of Defence William Cohen, as well as the Vietnamese openness towards China on, among others, Vietnam s slow and modest improved military relations with the US (Sidel 1999:97) and the strong Chinese fear of a close Vietnamese-American military co-operation gave the impression that the trade-off idea may not only be speculating. Thus, a trade-off may well explain the continued improvement of Sino-Vietnamese relations throughout the 1991-2001 period. From this I conclude that even though the international society approach is highly relevant to the analysis, the more realist trade-off idea may be even more important in explaining the continued improvement of Sino-Vietnamese relations throughout the 1991-2001 period. | nor |