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<p>There is much debate about how Southeast Asia views China's ascendance on the  world stage. Beijing's expanding economic, diplomatic, and military influence has  countries in the region concerned about how China will use its new power and influence.  Vietnam is particularly concerned, since it shares a border with China and for many  centuries was under China's control. Vietnam's experience with China may shed some  light on how Southeast Asia is adapting to China's rise.  Today, Vietnam finds itself in a precarious situation. It shares the same political  ideology as Beijing and maintains a communist government. Since 1986, Hanoi has  adopted aspects of China's economic development road map and has embarked on a  program to transform and open its economy to Western markets. However, its proximity  and past experience with China makes Vietnam suspicious of China's rise. In particular,  Vietnam fears that China will use its growing power to force Vietnam to accept China's  claims to territories along their mutual land border and in the Tonkin Gulf.  This thesis explores Vietnam's foreign policy strategy toward China since the  1970s. It contends that Vietnam's foreign policy has shifted from the traditional  balancing act in the 1970s to one of engagement and soft balancing in the early 1990s.  Since then, Hanoi has pursued a dual strategy of economic and diplomatic engagement  with Beijing while simultaneously linking itself economically and diplomatically to other  states and regional forums to ensure it has options to counter China's aggressive posture.  This thesis finds that since the 1990s Vietnam has used a soft balancing strategy of  diplomatic entanglement and limited security cooperation with various countries to cope  with China's growing influence in the region.
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<br>Subjects: International relations; Communism</div>
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Lemon, Daniel W.</div>
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